Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A little boy stood with his back against the wall, one hand hidden in a pocket, heaving panicked breaths. His jeans were worn through at the knees, with frayed bottoms where they dangled a bit too long. His shirt was a solid blue with small holes near the neck and slightly faded, like a hand-me-down of a hand-me-down. He had an oversized grey hoodie with grime encrusted elbows and a mysterious stain on the front. Ketchup? Blood? His entire ensemble gave the impression of being discarded, an after-thought. Nothing chosen by him, everything chosen for him and without much care.

Liz took one step closer and he plastered himself flat to the wall, nowhere else to go. His eyes were wide and flickered back and forth, trying to track every possible threat at once and finding the number of threats to be overwhelming. He looked like a trapped animal ready to gnaw off his own leg for a chance at freedom.

She raised her hands and spoke gently, “hey… hey it’s okay. You’re okay. No one’s gonna hurt you. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

Liz took a cautious step forward and the little boy's hand clenched into a fist inside his jeans pocket.

Michael watched this exchange and warned, “Don’t touch him Liz.”

Liz didn’t let her eyes leave the boy, “He’s your inner child, Michael. He’s adorable.”

“My inner child will stab you.”

She spun around at that, “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Michael just shrugged, “His hand is in his right pocket. There’s a switchblade there. I stole it from a truck stop when I was ten. Blue handle. Keep stepping closer and I’m sure he’ll show it to you.”

The little boy looked at Michael with betrayal and the older man just raised an eyebrow, “Don’t stab my friends.”

Liz took a step back and the kid took a shuddering breath but unpeeled himself from the wall. He was still ready to run, but looked less likely to make anyone bleed to do it.

This was the stupidest lab accident Michael Guerin had ever been in, and he was the idiot who let Liz inject him with various science projects like a lab rat. He’d found something alien buried out near the pods and brought it back to the bunker under the airstream to investigate. He’d been so careful not to touch it with his bare hands. They’d had the artifact for days. Long enough for Alex to run some programs to try and translate the sigils covering the flat shimmering disk. Long enough for Liz to swab, looking to break down the chemical components of the artifact. All Alex was able to translate was “memory,” “child,” and “temporary.” They were all just educated guesses, but considering there was a tiny version of Michael Guerin standing in his bunker because he touched the disk and without thinking, pressed it to his forehead like it was muscle memory… Michael was pretty sure that translation was correct. He had a physical embodiment of his inner child standing in his lab, ready to stab Liz. Perfect, must be Tuesday.

Michael took a great heaving sigh and forced himself to walk towards the kid who was scowling, and who’s hand was definitely still in his pocket, fisted around the knife. “Do you know who I am?”

The boy pressed his lips together tightly and glared up at him.

“Okay, so we’re gonna rip this off like a bandaid. I’m you, but 28 years old. There was an accident and you… manifested. No we’re not messing with you. You’re an alien. You can drink acetone. Max and Isobel are also aliens.” Michael telekinetically ripped the switchblade out of the kid’s pocket and floated it into his hand. “Believe me?”

The boy’s eyes widened as he watched his weapon float away and Michael slapped a palm over his face, “shit I forgot we didn’t develop the TK until we were twelve. Um, yeah, spoiler alert, that’s a thing you can do.”

Michael slipped the knife into his pocket. Better not to have the kid armed right now.

Liz examined the alien disk while being careful not to touch it. “So he’s a construct of your memory? He’s not like literally you from the past? We’re not going to alter the future, right?”

“I promise to let you know if I turn into Marty McFly, but I don’t think I’ll be disappearing from any photographs soon. I mean this thing didn’t come with a users manual, at least not one we can read. But I think he’s me… but you know, shorter.”

Liz watched from a respectful distance, “mijo, how old are you?” She whispered to Michael, “he’s tiny.”

With a great bellowing voice the kid shouted, “I’m ELEVEN and you’re UGLY.”

He bolted, but Michael just grabbed him around the waist and hauled him up before he reached the ladder. “Fun. Great, we’re like one big happy family. Ugh, but seriously why am I so little? I thought eleven year olds were bigger. I FELT bigger.” He held the kid out in front of him, dodging kicking feet. “I mean Isobel was always taller than me, but I could have sworn me and Max were the same size. Is this what eleven year olds are supposed to look like?”

Liz smacked the back of Michael’s head, “put him down. He clearly doesn’t like being told he’s small.” She turned to the still squirming child and said in a slow syrupy voice, “I’m sorry, you’re not small. We’re just not used to kids. We don’t know how big eleven year olds are supposed to be. I’m sure you’re a very big eleven year old.”

The kid just glared and tried to kick her while still dangling in the air. Michael gave him a shake in retaliation.

“Michael Guerin,” Liz hissed, “you will not shake him. What’s the matter with you? He’s a kid.”

He shrugged, “he’s not a real kid. He’s me. And it’s not like it hurts. If I whack him, then you can yell at me.”

Liz was scandalized, “you’re not gonna WHACK him.”

Michael rolled his eyes, “of course I’m not gonna whack him. But I’m also not gonna let him kick you.”

“And he IS a real kid. I mean, this might be a temporary thing. Maybe a therapy tool? You have to learn to love your inner child or something? But he is real.”

The two Michaels gave each other distrustful looks. Liz didn’t get it. Michael had never been a real kid. He was the changeling stuck in other people’s nests. He may have looked like a kid but he was never real. His foster parents understood that. There were good kids with parents who loved them unconditionally. And then there was Michael Guerin, who got left behind and never got picked.

But Michael did remember what it felt like to be physically restrained by someone bigger, and so with a stern look he put down his younger self. “Do NOT kick Liz. Do not stab Liz. Maybe don’t even look at Liz. Stop being a little shit.”

“I’m calling Alex. You’re terrible with children.” Liz threw her hands up, “I don’t get it, I’ve seen you interact with kids before and you’ve always been so nice, Michael. You’ve been gentle and patient. I don’t understand why you’re not giving Mikey the same care.”

“Mikey?” They both asked her in unison.

Liz shrugged, “it’s easier than calling you Big Michael and Little…” She quickly corrected herself, “Younger Michael.”

She mused, “Maybe I should call Isobel and Max too. Kyle? Should we get Kyle to check him out?”

Mikey was eyeballing the ladder again and Michael just put one careful hand on his shoulder to discourage the impulse. “Do not call Kyle. Mini-me never actually stabbed a grown up. I just kept the knife to scare away fellow foster kids mostly. But if you call a doctor, the kid will freak out.”

“I won’t freak out. I don’t freak out.” The kid grumbled, deeply offended.

“Yeah? What happened when the Lees took you to that shitty pediatrician when you were eight?” Michael narrowed his eyes at the scowling eleven year old.

The kid announced proudly, “I bit him.”

“You bit him.” Michael added, “And we got our asses roasted when we got home.”

Mikey protested, “No doctors! You know no doctors!”

“Yeah. No doctors. Can’t let anyone know the secret. And yes, throwing an absolute fit every time we were supposed to get a booster shot meant foster parents generally didn’t try to take us. But Kyle already knows. I can give you a list of the grown ups who know. Obviously we’re not announcing it and having an Alien Pride Parade but we have some people who know now.”

Michael turned to Liz, “but we still shouldn’t have them all show up at once. Even I don’t like being in a room with that many people and I’m not an artificial construct of my inner traumatic childhood.”

The kid muttered, “you’re an artificial construct of my farts.”

“Call either Alex, or Isobel and Max. I don’t care which. But not your whole Scooby Gang.”

***

After several attempts to reconnect the Michaels by having them both hold the artifact, they ended up in Max’s living room. It was decided that the bunker was too small and the airstream was definitely too small and it’d just be easier to meet someplace a little further from town where no one would show up for an oil change and see a kid who shouldn’t exist.

The two Michaels sat on the couch as Liz, Max, and Isobel stood in front of them with arms crossed. Michael was starting to feel like a specimen, and Mikey sunk lower on the couch, once again feeling like an inconvenient piece of trouble.

Max broke the silence, “Well this is certainly Michael when we first met him.” He crouched down and said in an awkwardly soft voice, “heeeey buddy. I’m Max. Do you remember me?”

Michael rolled his eyes and whispered to his younger self, “don’t stab Max either.”

With that reminder of their first meeting, Max stood up and took a safer step back. Both Michaels chuckled conspiratorially.

Isobel was more pragmatic, “Okay so we’re going to need clothing, a toothbrush, pajamas… What size clothing are you? Mikey? Ugh Liz, that’s a terrible nickname. Mikey, stand up so I can check your sizes and make a list. This is also the time to make any requests, or I’ll finally get to give my little brother…”

“Not your little brother!” Michael interrupted.

Isobel continued, “Give my little brother the makeover I’ve always wanted to.”

The kid found himself bullied up to his feet and Isobel began reaching into his shirt to check for a label. Mikey tolerated it until she spun him around to check for the label in the back of his pants. When she started to raise his shirt and grab at his waistband, he jerked away.

Isobel stepped away with hands raised in surrender. “Sorry. I’m sorry Mikey. You can tell me your sizes later. I… Honey, who hurt you? Your back…”

Michael found himself standing in front of the kid to placate his siblings, “Iz, you know I was with the religious fundamentalists. Leave the kid alone.”

Isobel protested, “I didn’t know they hurt you like that. Michael, his back…”

Michael turned back to the kid, matter of factly, “Hey Mikey, do you wanna talk about this?”

“Fuck no.”

“There’s your answer, Iz.”

Isobel looked torn between reprimanding the boy on his language, and trying to pry further. Max eventually took his sister’s elbow and led her to the kitchen where they could whisper furiously about all of Michael’s childhood traumas and pretend no one could hear them.

Liz twisted her hands, “soooo… are you hungry? I could make pancakes.”

Michael rolled his eyes, “it’s 4pm, Liz.”

Liz replied, “Everytime is a good time for pancakes, Michael.”  

Mikey interjected, “Look, if the lady wants to make pancakes, let her make pancakes.”

Grateful to have a task, Liz disappeared into the kitchen where she could join Michael’s meddling siblings in whispering about them.

Michael flung himself back on the couch with a dramatic sigh, and Mikey joined him. They stared at Max’s empty fireplace, carefully not making eye contact.

“So where do you want to stay tonight? We can crash with Max, or I can maybe call my... friend, Alex. Alex has a cabin and he won’t be weird about this. Maybe. Hopefully he won’t be weird about this.”

The kid shrugged.

Michael swallowed, “what’s wrong with your back?”

The kid stared intently at the fireplace and shrugged again, “Switch.”

Michael closed his eyes and nodded. “Yeah.”

It felt like no time passed at all before Max, Isobel, and Liz came out of the kitchen, which was an open concept kitchen and a terrible place to try and whisper about Michael’s childhood trauma. Michael gave them an unimpressed look to try and convey that thought through some artful eyebrow lifting. Isobel just shrugged, completely unrepentant.

Liz had made pancakes as promised and they gathered around the dining room table. Mikey already had a hand out, pancake almost in reach.

“Wash hands first!” Liz pulled the plate back.

Michael smirked and reached for the pancakes, “Yeah, kid, go wash your hands.”

The plate shifted again and Liz poked him in the chest, “¿Qué estás haciendo? Animals, all of you. Go wash your hands. Didn’t anyone teach you manners?” Michael couldn’t catch the rapid fire Spanish that followed, but he was pretty sure she called him a filthy vulture.

With mutual grumbling, they went to the kitchen to scrub up. When they returned to the table, the other adults were already eating having previously washed their hands. They left two chairs open for them between Liz and Isobel sitting at either end of the table. Max sat across from them, and continued to stare at the little boy with doe eyes. Michael was finding the whole thing extremely irritating, and based on Mikey’s rhythmic kicking at his chair, the kid was equally uncomfortable.

Michael made the boy a plate with three pancakes and plenty of syrup before grabbing his own stack. Liz watched in horror as they both rolled a pancake up like a burrito and shoved it in their faces. There were going to be sticky handprints everywhere, little child sized ones, and big adult sized ones. Ridiculous.

Isobel cleared her throat, “so… Mikey, do you want to tell us more about your foster placement?”

Michael looked up from his second pancake burrito and warned, “Iz. Leave it.”

Isobel protested, “Michael, I don’t see why it’s a big secret. We should be able to talk about these things.”

With a huff, Michael shoved the entire pancake into his mouth and wiped at his sticky hands before gesturing for his sister to follow him to Max’s bedroom. The kid just watched this exchange in silence as he kicked at the rungs of his chair, and took another giant bite. Maybe he could fit one of the dry pancakes in his pocket. If it didn’t have syrup on it, it’d probably stay good for at least a day.

Michael closed the door behind them, because unlike his siblings he knew how to meddle without being heard by the whole room.

“Iz, I know you’re concerned but not only does he not want to talk about this with you, but I don’t really want to talk about it either. I didn’t share and care as a kid ON PURPOSE.”

She threw her hands up in frustration, “Why wouldn’t you have told us it was this bad though? We could have done something!”

“What were you going to do? Tell your parents? They weren’t going to come in and rescue me. They didn’t want me at seven, they weren’t going to want me at eleven. Were you going to tell the cops? Because they also didn’t really care. Only thing that maybe would have happened is I’d’ve gotten a new placement, and that could have been anywhere. It took four years for me to get to Roswell. I wasn’t going to whine about some bruises and get shipped back to Albuquerque. I know I wasn’t warm and fuzzy to you and Max at first, but I still didn’t want to leave.”

“You could have still talked about it. Even if we couldn’t do anything, you shouldn’t have had to keep it a secret.”

“I talked sometimes, and it always freaked you both out. I didn’t… I don’t want to be someone you pity.” Michael snapped, “Lots of people have shitty childhoods. They get over it. It’s not a big deal.”

Isobel gave him a displeased look. “Okay but Mikey could talk about it. You think the disk may have been a therapy tool. Maybe he NEEDS to talk about it. Just because you chose to keep it a secret as a kid, doesn’t mean you should have kept it a secret. And you don’t need to keep it a secret now. I’m not going to pity you Michael. You’re far too annoying for me to pity. I can be mad people hurt you without it being pity.”

“Mikey…” Michael shuddered, “I hate that nickname and I’m annoyed it’s actually useful here. Mikey, can talk to me. It’s MY therapy. Even if it is therapy. I wish I never touched the damn thing. I thought I was so good putting up a mask as a kid, and obviously I sucked at it and it’s just adults didn’t care. He’s a walking, talking open wound and I’d rather everyone not get to examine all my childhood traumas. You wouldn’t enjoy a little Isobel walking around so we can all remember how scared you were of not being perfect.”

She socked his shoulder, “I wasn’t scared of not being perfect.”

“If we had a little Isobel here, I’m pretty sure you’d see and EVERYONE would see you were very, very scared of not being perfect.” He gave her a pointed look, “It’s not fun being under a microscope. Can we just… not? Kid literally manifested like an hour ago. Lets not force him into group therapy right now.”

Isobel inhaled deeply and raised an eyebrow, “fine. I’ll stop asking for now. But we’re having a conversation about this later, the two of us. I thought we all agreed, no more secrets.”

Michael laughed, “My childhood isn’t a secret. I’m surprised I didn’t win “Most Tragic Orphan” in the school year book. You and Max knew, I just didn’t give you the unabridged epic version. You got the cliff notes and that’s all you’re getting. Leave my little clone alone.”

Isobel in true, queen bee splendor, fixed her brother with a considering gaze before sauntering out of the room like this whole thing was her idea to begin with. Michael trailed behind her as they rejoined the table.

Max announced in an awed whisper, “He’s eaten six pancakes.”

Michael beamed proudly as the kid licked syrup off his palm.

Before long, Max was on dish duty as Liz tried to wipe the kid down with a wet cloth while he squirmed,  “I’m eleven, lady. I know how to wash my own face!”

She attacked a particularly sticky spot on his cheek, “Unfortunately for you I know Michael Guerin as an adult and if I don’t trust an adult Michael Guerin to properly remove syrup, I definitely don’t trust you.”

Both Guerins gave her an outraged look, but Liz was an expert at ignoring people and she just kept scrubbing the kid’s face. Without moving her gaze from the boy’s cheek, she dictated to Guerin senior, “You better wash your hands before you touch anything. I can’t believe you two didn’t use a knife and fork. Pancakes are not finger food.”

Michael rolled his eyes, but obediently went to wash his face and hands. He even submitted to Liz’s inspection afterwards to make sure he did an adequate job. His younger half seemed delighted that someone else was receiving Liz’s attention. In a fit of true maturity, Michael flipped off his younger half and while Liz was distracted being scandalized, Mikey made sure to flip him off right back.  

Now that basic necessities were taken care of, Michael needed to figure out a place to stash the kid. The airstream was too small. Michael knew he could make it work anyway. He never expected anything fancy as a kid, and he hardly ever had his own room. Crashing in a sleeping bag on the floor wouldn’t be the end of the world by a long shot, but despite that, Michael wanted to give the kid a better experience than that.

Max would die from doe eyes if they attempted to crash here. Michael could already feel Max’s overwhelming sense of guilt, and it was exhausting. The idea of being here without Liz and Isobel as a buffer was excruciating. Staying with Isobel? No. Too nosy. And asking to crash with Liz at the Crashdown wasn’t even an option. Arturo could sniff out an orphan a mile away and Michael needed to keep his little mini-me far away from mainstreet. Maria was also out of the question. They were still friends despite the breakup, but The Wild Pony was too close to town and a bar was no place for the kid. Alex was the only real option left. His house had more space, but was in the center of town. But the cabin was far enough away from main roads that hopefully Mikey wouldn’t get the urge to hitchhike to Foster’s Ranch at 2am. It was small, but the couch was comfortable enough, and Michael could trust Alex not to see this as an opportunity to dig into Michael’s past. He understood the importance of secrets.

With that decided, Michael sent him a text trying to explain the situation. He knew Alex wouldn’t turn him away. They may not be together anymore, but they were still friends. At least trying to be friends. With that in mind, he collected Mikey from the clutches of Isobel.

“I promise you can torment us both later. But I need to grab clothes from the airstream, and we’re crashing with Alex. You can drop off essentials tonight, or tomorrow. Whatever’s easier. It’s Saturday so Walmart will be open late.”

Michael steered the kid towards his truck while waving vaguely in the direction of his siblings and Liz.

As he drove off, the kid asked, “it’s Saturday?”

“Yeah, and I made Iz promise not to go crazy with the clothing. She owes me so many favors. Don’t worry about it. I fixed her instapot last week. Do you know what an instapot is?” The kid shook his head and Michael shrugged, “yeah me neither. But I fixed it. So she owes me. And we’re literally the same person, so she owes you too.”

At the airstream, Michael stuffed some essentials inside a ratty blue backpack. When he got back to the truck, he handed the kid two packets of peanut butter crackers.

“You can eat whenever you’re hungry. No one’s locking down the kitchen. But I know I like having some emergency food anyway.” As the kid started to protest, he pulled a plastic bag out of his pocket and pressed that into the boy’s hands. “For the pancakes. So they don’t get lint on them.”

Mikey glowered at him, “I don’t have pancakes in my pocket.”

Michael shrugged with feigned nonchalance, “We’re the same person, and if I were eleven and a lady made a stack of pancakes, I’d have at LEAST one in my pocket. I mean maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I didn’t get good at swiping food until I got older. Eleven is pretty young.”

The kid glared and pulled two pancakes out of his hoodie’s pocket, and shoved them into the plastic bag. “You’re old and I don’t need your help. You think you’re hilarious, but the only thing funny here is what a joke your life is.”

Michael started the engine, and refused to make eye contact. He wasn’t going to let an infant hurt his feelings. He didn’t need to prove anything. He was doing fine.

Chapter Text

Alex’s cabin was a solid half hour out of city limits. Close enough to not be too much of a hassle, but far enough away to not have neighbors. It’d been a while since Michael had been alone with Alex and he tried not to let that nervousness show as he parked.

Things were good. He and Maria broke up amicably. Michael was good at pushing people away. It was a carefully cultivated skill set and eventually even though he tried to be good, it wasn’t fair to Maria. He was a mess and she deserved someone better than him. And throughout all of it, Michael and Alex tried to maintain an alliance if not a friendship. Michael didn’t have friends. He didn’t know how to be one. Closest he had was Liz, and he figured she tolerated him because he was adjacent to Max.

The kid was giving him suspicious looks the longer they lingered in the dark outside the cabin. The lights were on. Alex was clearly home. They just had to knock.

Finally the kid rolled his eyes and kicked the door.

“Hey! You could have knocked!”

Mikey raised an eyebrow, “YOU could have knocked.”

Michael’s retort was cut short by the door opening. Alex. No matter what, seeing Alex made the knot between his shoulders ease. Even when they crashed into each other and pushed on each other’s bruises, Alex still felt like home.

Alex may have been texted the sit-rep for this little alien misadventure, but it was one thing to read his ex-boyfriend had manifested an eleven year old version of himself, and another to see it. To his credit, he only gawked for a second before gesturing them inside.

“So….”

“Uh, yeah. Alex this is me as an eleven year old. Inner Child, this is Alex.”

The kid gave him a look of disgust, “Don’t call me that.”

“Liz was calling him Mikey.” Michael said.

Alex held out a hand to shake, “Michael Guerin, I’m Alex Manes. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

It took an elbow from Michael, but Mikey accepted the hand and gave his best adult impression as he shook it. “So, what happened to your leg?”

Michael’s jaw dropped, “you can’t just ask someone what happened to their leg! What’s wrong with you?!”

“What? He stands weird.”

Alex coughed, “it’s fine. Kids are curious.” He pulled up the hem of his pants to expose the metal prosthetic, “I’m in the Air Force and I lost my leg in combat.”

The kid crouched down to take a closer look and ordered, “I want to see where it connects. Show me how it stays on.”

Michael mumbled an apology, grabbed the back of the kid’s hoodie and marched him into the kitchen.

“You’re not being curious, you’re being an asshole. Stop it.”

The kid exploded in sudden anger and hissed, “YOU brought me to the house of someone in the military! Do you WANT us to be cut open?”

“He knows about aliens. He’s a good guy. No one’s getting vivisected. He’s on our side.”

The little boy threw his hands up in revulsion, “Does EVERYONE in this shitty little town know about aliens?”

“Max resurrected Liz. Apparently once you bring someone back from the dead, the secret gets out. But the people who know are Team Extraterrestrial. No one’s gonna blab to the government. We… trust them.”

Mikey sneered, “Do you?”

“Okay, Max and Isobel trust them. I trust Alex. We can trust Alex.”

“I can’t believe I grew up to be a dipshit.”

“I can’t believe I was such a little prick!”

Alex knocked at the door frame to get their attention, “you guys aren’t exactly being subtle… or quiet. Instead of yelling at each other, do you want dinner? It’s almost 7pm. I can order pizza, or I’ve got some frozen dinners we can microwave.”

The Guerins stood in the kitchen still glaring at each other.

Michael’s jaw clenched, but he broke the silent warfare, “we ate at 4 but we could probably eat again. I can also cook if you want.”

Alex opened an empty cabinet, “If by cook you mean heat up a can of soup, sure. But there’s not really anything else to cook here. I haven’t stocked up on groceries in awhile. I’ve got some microwave oatmeal packets for breakfast so no one’s going to starve to death, but we’re not gonna get a Leave It To Beaver dinner out of this kitchen.”

The kid gave a calculated look between the two men before asking, “are you fucking each other? Are we gay?”

Michael sucked in air through his teeth before stalking angrily away from the kid who was swaying on his feet in anticipation. “Alex, I’m sorry. I don’t know why he’s being like this. I shouldn’t have brought him and bothered you. We can go back to the airstream.”

Alex explained gently, “He’s poking the bear. He wants to see what’ll happen. You STILL do this so it’s not surprising you do it as a kid too.”

Michael turned back to the kid with a considering gaze, “do you want to see if I’ll hit you or if Alex will?”

Kid shrugged, “It’s Saturday. Doesn’t really matter which of you does it.”

Michael exhaled suddenly like he’d been punched in the stomach, “It’s Saturday. I can’t believe I forgot about this.”

Alex looked between the two Guerins. Michael scrubbed his face angrily. The little boy held himself completely still. Alex waited for an explanation. Michael leaned against a countertop and carefully looked at a spot on the wall. Looking anywhere but at Alex or Mikey.

It took him a minute to speak. This was hard.

“On Saturdays the religious freaks would line us all up and paddle the crap out of us. Didn’t matter how good we were. On Saturday you were getting your licks. They said it was to cover all the sins we did during the week that they didn’t catch. Because they’d whack you if they thought you were doing something wrong. But on Saturdays no matter what, no matter how good you tried to be, you were getting it. They said it was…”

The boy calmly stated, “Taking your medicine.”

“Yeah that’s right. Taking your medicine.” His jaw twitched, “Like they had to beat all the bad stuff out so on church Sunday we could be good again. We could absorb the lessons. And the man in charge of the home said children listen better on sore bottoms.” Michaels’ face twisted up, “That fucker.”

Mikey looked uneasy. Michael took a steadying breath and forced himself to remain calm, “We don’t do that here. No one’s gonna hit you here. I might yell. But no one will hit you no matter what a little shit you are. I’ll explode anyone who tries with my brain.”

The kid stared at them both, silently making calculations before nodding once. “I want pizza.”

Alex made mental plans to find out the names of these fundamentalists and completely ruin them online.

***

The call for pizza had been made, and Alex awkwardly watched the two Michaels sit on the floor methodically taking his toaster apart. He tried to insist it wasn’t broken, but Michael just made meaningful eye contact and repeated, “let us fix it.”

So now the toaster was in pieces, scattered across the hardwood floor. Alex had to admit this was the calmest he’d seen the boy. Having a task seemed good for him. And two Michaels were actually getting along, passing a phillips head screwdriver back and forth. If he had to buy a new toaster, it’d be worth it for this momentary peace.

The pizza wouldn’t arrive for a while yet, the downside of living in the boonies. His cabin did have a washing machine though, and unless Isobel made good time, she probably wouldn’t have new clothes for the kid until tomorrow.

Alex cleared his throat to get their attention, “I have a load of laundry I was going to start, and I can stick you stuff in there too Mikey. That way you have clean clothing for tomorrow. If you want you can take a shower and I can try to find you pajamas. Dinner should be here by the time you get out.”

The boy protested, “but the toaster…”

Michael began to pick up the mess, “the toaster will still be here. This isn’t a time sensitive project. No one will be in trouble if it doesn’t get fixed tonight. Clean clothes probably isn’t a bad idea. I’ve got a couple shirts that could use a wash too.”

He pulled the kid to his feet, and steered him towards the bathroom. “Alex has good water pressure and the tank is huge. Hot water for days!”

With the two house guests preoccupied, Alex started to gather clothing to wash. It was just an excuse and Michael knew it, but maybe it’d make the boy feel less awkward if he thought everyone had laundry to do. He heard the shower start and Michael exited the bathroom with an armful of clothing. The challenge was going to be finding the boy something to wear while his clothing was being cleaned. A tshirt would hang like a dress on him and preserve his modesty, but Alex doubted he had any sleep shorts with a drawstring tight enough to stay up on a child.

The two men began to load the washing machine. Michael added a couple shirts from his backpack. Alex didn’t know if they actually needed to be washed or if Michael was just trying to keep the kid from feeling weird.

“You okay?” Alex asked.

Michael dug through the kids pockets quickly and removed four quarters, a shiny rock, and a plastic bag with two pancakes inside. Deeming the clothing now safe, he crammed it in the washing machine. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“Because you’re suddenly the guardian of a very angry eleven year old version of yourself who manifested from alien technology we don’t understand yet?”

Michael laughed, “yeah when you put it that way… today is a lot. Thanks for letting us crash here. We would have killed each other in my airstream. At least you’ve got a couch the kid can sleep on. I’ll take the floor.”

“What? No, you’re not sleeping on the floor.” Alex’s forehead furrowed, “You can… look my bed is big enough. We’re adults.”

“I don’t want this to be weird for you.”

“Then don’t make it weird.”

And with that statement Alex walked back to his bedroom to find the boy something to wear. When Michael followed him, he handed him an oversized air force shirt, and a towel.

Michael sheepishly handed the shirt back, “Maybe something that doesn’t have a military logo on it? Kid isn’t a huge fan of Uncle Sam.”

Another rummage through his drawers, and Alex a plain black shirt. It wasn’t quite as big as the Air Force shirt, but it was still an oversized shirt Alex used to sleep in. It should be long enough for the boy.

Michael gratefully took the items and knocked on the bathroom door in warning before leaving the towel and shirt inside.

Sure enough by the time the pizza arrived, Mikey was done with his shower and standing in the living room shifting from foot to foot. Alex knew he was eleven, but he looked smaller engulfed in his shirt. It made his heart feel tight to see Michael Guerin’s face on a child wearing his clothing. Like he’d crush anyone who ever hurt this kid.

The boy attacked the pizza, and Alex spotted a thin red mark on his thigh, peeking out from the edge of the shirt. Alex was familiar with marks like that, but his marks were always wider. Belts tended to linger. Michael Guerin was carefully avoiding his eyes, as he reached around the kid to grab his own slice. When he finally managed to catch his gaze, Michael just shrugged as if to say “shit happens.”

Alex knew that. And he knew better than to mention it to the kid. It was no secret that he and Guerin connected over shared trauma. It just felt like a punch in the gut to see evidence of a beating on a kid. It was surprising Michael wasn’t triggered to hell being confronted with his worse childhood memories in technicolor.

Alex carefully peeled his own piece of pizza off the cardboard so they could all pretend this was perfectly normal.

***

Michael could hear the thump of clothing in the dryer as he made Alex’s couch up for bedtime. He carefully tucked a sheet around the old seat cushions and layered some homemade quilts on top. The overall effect was very homey, if a little ill-matched.

The kid was still wearing Alex’s shirt like a dress and that red mark was impossible to ignore. When Michael buried his head in the closet to look for an extra pillow, Michael casually asked “do you need some neosporin?”

Mikey was still poking at the disassembled toaster, “for what?”

Michael carefully kept his voice calm and disinterested, “The switch marks. Anything bleeding?”

“Nah. Her aim just sucks. Or maybe she did it on purpose. It’s a new placement. She got my back and my legs, not just my butt.” Mikey hesitated, “Did she do it on purpose?”

Michael couldn’t pretend to fluff pillows in a closet forever. He turned around and swallowed hard, “Yeah. She really liked smacking my legs. Aimed for the lower thighs a lot, where it really hurts and where it’s hard to cover. I got in trouble in PE a lot for not wearing my gym shorts.”

Michael ran a lot of miles around the track in jeans, but it was worth it to not have those marks visible to Max and Isobel. They didn’t need to know. And he wasn’t willing to risk being moved out of Roswell if a grown up figured things out.

The kid didn’t seem surprised, “How long do we stay with them?”

“Three years. We get moved after our fourteenth birthday. Single family placement instead of a group home. It was better.”

His foster dad kicked the shit out of him, but anything was better than being exorcised. Kid didn’t need to know that. “And when we’re fourteen, we meet Sanders. He’s an old dude who owns a junkyard. He teaches us to fix cars, and lets us crash on his couch sometimes. That’s where I work now. I can fix anything. We can fix anything.”

That felt important, but Michael didn’t want to make it awkward so he peeled back the covers so the kid could tuck himself inside.

“How did you know Alex was missing a leg? He doesn’t stand funny.”

The kid shrugged, “he had a fancy crutch leaning against the fireplace. Those mean there’s something really wrong. I just guessed his leg was messed up. I didn’t know it got blown up.”

Michael sighed, “Can you lay off of bugging him about it? He’s doing us a favor.”

“Yeah.” Mikey thought for a second, and then continued, “I really AM curious about the leg though. I wasn’t JUST being an asshole. I really do want to see how it all connects.”

Michael rubbed his forehead, “maybe he’ll show you later, just… can you relax with messing with him? He’s not gonna get mad and hit you. I’ve pissed him off as a grown up, and he never hit me, he’s definitely not gonna touch you.

The kid shrugged noncommittally.

“By the way, we’re bisexual.”

“What?”

Michael repeated, “You asked earlier if we were gay. We’re bisexual.”

“Huh.”

“Don’t act surprised. We had a crush on Taymon Johnson in fifth grade.”

The kid protested, “No we didn’t! He was just cool!”

Michael raised an eyebrow.

“Oh.” The boy looked like he was reassessing every hero he ever had.

“Yeah. Oh. And yes, Alex and I had a thing, but we’re just friends now and it’d be awesome if you’d cut out the ‘are you fucking’ line of questioning.”

The kid smirked, “Aren’t you about to go have a bisexual slumber party with him?”

Michael narrowed his eyes, “Yeah, a totally platonic slumber party. We’re friends now.”

The kid raised an eyebrow.

“Shut up.” Michael rolled his eyes and pulled the quilt up around the boy’s chin. People never tucked in kids like Michael Guerin. Not foster parents anyway. Sometimes if he got to go to a slumber party at a classmate’s house, a well meaning mom would also tuck him in. Once a mom kissed his forehead before she shut off the lights. He didn’t know that was a real thing that happened sometimes. Michael always assumed it was just in movies. He felt stupid when he realized it was real, it just wasn’t for kids like him.

With his stomach twisting up at that memory, Michael dug in his pocket and pulled out the switchblade he took from the kid that afternoon. “I’m giving you this back because I’m trusting you not to stab anyone, and I know you’ll sleep better if you have it. And I know you’re gonna want to go to Foster’s Ranch.” The kid opened his

mouth and Michael cut him off, “I KNOW. But the military bought it, and the last thing we need is an alien hanging out on top secret government property. Plus the hitchhiking didn’t always work out well for us. So let’s just not, okay?”

The kid clutched the knife and begrudgingly nodded.

“Go to sleep. We’ll figure out the rest of this tomorrow.”

***

Michael closed the door to the bedroom behind him. “Kid is in bed. Doubt he’ll sleep much tonight, but at least I’ve got him all tucked in.”

Alex was making puzzled faces at his laptop. “I keep looking at the glyphs on your disk. I don’t recognize most of them and we translated ‘child, memory, temporary’ but there are more glyphs on the back.” He squinted, “This may say ‘permanent.’ Guerin, I don’t know how this disk works. I don’t know what you did.”

Alex scrubbed at his hair, frustrated. With a sharp exhale, he closed the laptop and tucked it away. Michael watched Alex slip into bed and swallowed hard, “I can still sleep on the floor if you want. I’m used to it.”

“We can share. It’s fine.”

Michael tried one more time, “I could go sleep in your creepy murder bunker. That’s an extra bedroom.”

Alex raised an eyebrow, “Do you WANT to sleep in the creepy murder bunker?”

“No. It’s a creepy murder bunker.”

“Okay, so stop being weird about this and come to bed. I promise I won’t cuddle you in your sleep.”

Michael muttered under his breath, “I wish.”

He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled off his boots. He unbuckled his belt and reached for the button of his jeans when he suddenly stopped. The words burst out of him, “I should have figured out the stupid Saturday thing earlier. I was in that group home for three years.” Michael turned to face Alex, “I didn’t stop getting weird about Saturdays until senior year when I lived in the truck.”

Alex watched him from his side of the bed, face still pressed against his pillow. “My dad played mind games like that too. He liked creating obstacle courses for me and my brothers. Last one to finish got his ass kicked by my dad. I’m two years younger than Flint. Unless one of my brothers was incapacitated, I was always the one who lost. Every time they had us run a course in basic training, it was like I could see my dad waiting at the finish line with his thumbs stuck in his belt.”

Alex paused, “maybe it’s good. Having Mikey here. Maybe it’s time to work through some of this stuff.”

“You sound like Isobel.” Michael shucked his pants off, and pulled his shirt over his head in one practiced move. His clothing sat in a rejected pile on the floor and he slid under the covers, Alex’s knees almost touching his thigh.

“Is she wrong? Neither one of us talk about it. We just pretend everything is fine.”

Michael turned on his side to face Alex with a huff, “Everything IS fine!”

“If everything was fine, we would have kept dating after high school and we’d probably have a dog by now. Instead I became a runner, and you like to self-destruct.”

They were silent a minute. Michael admitted, “I didn’t self-destruct after high school because of you. There were other things. You were one of the only good things in my life.”

“I know.” Alex touched Michael’s hand, rubbing a thumb across his knuckles. “You were a good thing in my life too.”

Michael closed his eyes so he wouldn’t see how his next statement landed, “you still are. You still are a good thing.”

Alex pushed his head forward so their foreheads touched on the pillows. “You are my good thing too.”

Michael exhaled, “What are we doing?”

“What do you want to do?”

“I want you to stop answering a question with another question.”

Alex tilted his face and lightly pressed his lips to Michael’s. “Is this okay?”

Michael answered by cupping Alex’s cheek and pulling him in for a deeper kiss. It had been too long since someone touched him this way. Too long since Alex touched him this way. They were hungry for each other. Knees knocked together awkwardly under the covers as they tried to press their chests flush to each other, wanting as much skin touching as possible. Finally feeling like they could both breathe.

Michael wormed his arm underneath Alex so he could pull him closer. He keened as Alex threaded a hand through his curls and tugged just slightly. Michael’s hand drifted down Alex’s cheek, stroking his shoulder, then disappearing beneath the covers. His fingers stroked down Alex’s stomach, and dipped just under the waistband of his boxer briefs.

Alex pulled back with a gasp, “wait.”

The hand retreated immediately.

“No I want to. I want to. It’s just…” Alex panted against Michael’s lips, “I don’t want to screw this up. We’re really really good at the sex parts, and not so great at the communication parts. So maybe we should…”

“Focus on communication?” Michael asked.

Alex kissed him lightly, “Yeah. Yeah, I don’t want to pause but… I don’t want to fall into old patterns. I want to build something new with you. Something stronger. Plus there’s an eleven year old sleeping on the couch twenty feet away.”

Michael returned his hand to Alex’s cheek. “Is this okay? Hands above the waist at all times?”

Alex smiled with his lips still pressed to Michaels, “Yeah. That’s good. Let’s do that for awhile.”

Michael could feel Alex’s heartbeat thump against his chest. He could feel the swell of Alex’s belly with each inhale, his skin sliding against his own as they breathed in unison. He sent a trinkle of power to turn off the lights, and tugged Alex tight against him. Michael’s nose nuzzled down into the dip of his shoulder, rubbing his face into the curve and breathing deeply. His whole world smelled like Alex, and it felt right. He could feel Alex sigh against his hair, and his hand massaging the back of his neck, occasionally venturing up to play in his curls. And Michael let himself close his eyes and drift off to sleep.

***

Michael woke up suddenly. There was a new connection in his head that he hadn’t noticed. The places where he could sometimes sense Max and Isobel were muted after decades of practice. That connection had atrophied and he never tried to repair it. But now there was a sudden feeling of distress that could only be coming from Mikey.

He slipped from the bed, pulled on a shirt to go with his boxer briefs, and with bare feet, padded his way to the living room. The kid was sitting up, hugging himself with fists twisted around the loose material of his nightshirt, and breathing shakily.

Michael crouched next to the couch, “Bad dream?”

The kid didn’t even look at him. He just shrugged and tried to calm his breathing.

“Can I touch you? Or no?”

Mikey took a second, then nodded. Michael sat behind him and rubbed his hands down the kid’s trembling arms, like he was trying to warm him up. Michael remembered nightmares like this. Where he woke up not sure what feelings were real and what feelings were memories. Phantom pains lingering from his nightmares, that could only be soothed away by proving it was just a dream. His body was safe. He was okay.

The kid took a deep breath, then another. His hands unlocked from his sides and he leaned his back against Michael’s side. Michael let his arm rest heavily against the boy’s chest, like a seat belt grounding him to this world.

“Better?”

Mikey nodded and let his head thunk back against Michael’s shoulder. During the day he’d never allow this comfort, but in the dark, after a nightmare, he needed it even though he’d never admit it. Facing away from his older self, he had the courage to admit, “Nightmare. They were hurting me. … And they had Max and Isobel.”

“Those are the worst. I hate the dreams where I’m being hurt, but if Max and Isobel are there too…” Michael exhaled sharply, “Do you want to call them? So you know they’re safe? They won’t care if we wake them up.”

Michael would never call his siblings over a bad dream, but he knew in his bones they’d never mind a phone call from the kid. It felt okay to offer this to the kid.

“I don’t even LIKE Max or Isobel.”

“Yeah, I don’t always like them either. But they’re still mine. They’re still family. And the idea of someone hurting them makes me want to set the world on fire.”

They sat on the couch in silence. Mikey would never ask for a hug, and Michael wouldn’t volunteer one. But with the boy leaning against him, and his arm slung around him, it felt like a hug. They both felt settled. Like their bodies weren’t being flung into a nebulous nightmare void where everything bad could and would happen. They both felt real. They were on Alex’s couch, in Alex’s living room, in Alex’s cabin. They were safe.

Chapter Text

Morning came earlier than Michael wanted. Apparently the downside to sharing a bed with Alex was Alex still operated on military time, and although he certainly tried to let Michael sleep in, by 7am he couldn’t resist tracing a finger across an eyebrow and down his cheek. Michael didn’t mind. There were worse ways to be woken up, then the gentle caress of Alex Manes touching his face.

At some point in the night, Alex ended up curled loosely against the curve of Michael’s back. He fit perfectly and it felt right. Michael could feel the swell of his cock slotted against the back of his boxer briefs, and he couldn’t help but arch back slightly, chasing the feeling. Alex chuckled, and tugged Michael flat on his back so he could peer down at him, propped up on an elbow.

“Hands above the waist?”

Michael leered with an exaggerated eyebrow waggle, “pretty sure your hands were above my waist.”

Alex laughed, “always gotta find the loophole, Guerin.”

They kissed softly, noses bumping together in their eagerness.

After a few minutes of lazy making out, Alex reluctantly separated. “Do we think Mikey is still asleep?”

Michael thunked his head back against the pillow with a sigh, “Mikey is definitely not still asleep. I never slept through the night in a new placement. Even though he should KNOW he’s safe here with me, I guarantee he’s been awake for hours.”

“Should I be worried about my cabin?”

“He’s not gonna burn down your cabin, Alex.”

Alex tried to sooth him, “I know that. I’m not worried about that.”

Michael grudgingly sat up and retrieved his pants from the floor. “Only one way to see…”

It took them a few minutes for Alex to attach his prosthetic and for them to get dressed. Alex tried to exit the bedroom quietly in case Michael was wrong about the boy sleeping, but sure enough, the kid was fully dressed and reassembling the toaster on his coffee table. The couch had been stripped of all bedding, and every quilt was folded neatly and tucked unobtrusively to the side. Alex’s laundry basket was full of neatly folded clothing. The boy obviously emptied the dryer when he woke up, and tried to tidy up on his own. He did a good job. A better job than Alex expected any eleven year old to do. He had practice at this.

Michael tousled the kid’s hair on the way to the kitchen, “do you want oatmeal for breakfast or pizza?”

The kid was focused on his task, and carefully screwed in part of the toaster, “pizza!”

Alex was distracted, “uh, oatmeal.” He looked around again, “thank you Mikey for cleaning up. You didn’t have to do that. I didn’t expect you to do that.”

The screwdriver hit the table as the boy looked up in alarm, “I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have touched your stuff.”

“No, no it’s okay. I appreciate that you folded the laundry. You just didn’t NEED to do that. You’re a guest.” Alex tried to think of a way to salvage this exchange because the boy was definitely panicking, thinking he was in trouble. “If you want to help, we can give you chores. We can all share the chores. How does that sound?”

Mikey carefully picked the screwdriver back up again, “... I can do chores.”

Alex nodded solemnly at Mikey, a bargain struck, and he walked into the kitchen to kiss the back of Guerin’s neck, while hugging him from behind. “Why is he being a Stepford Wife?”

Michael continued to slowly move about the kitchen to heat up Alex’s oatmeal, while Alex held him like a limpet. “He promised to be nice to you.”

“Why is he tidier than you are? You leave your clothing everywhere and he’s cleaned everything up like I hired a maid service.”

Michael ran a soothing hand across Alex’s arms, locked tightly across his stomach. “Some houses liked that. Some houses required it. Religious freaks definitely required it. He’s just covering his bases. Don’t make it a big deal.”

Alex kissed his neck again and rubbed his cold nose into Michael’s curls, “I’m glad you leave messes. It drives me crazy sometimes, but I’m glad you’re comfortable enough to leave a mess.”

Michael pulled two cold slices of pizza out of the fridge and laughed, “thanks?”

Alex turned him in his arms so he was hugging him properly. Usually Michael was the clingy one, but the kid rattled him. Alex wanted affection dammit.

The two men stood in the middle of the kitchen, arms tight around each other when the kid waltzed in and grabbed his slice of cold pizza. The boy smirked at Michael, “good slumber party, huh?”

Michael raised a middle finger as the kid laughed.

Mikey smirked, “Just bros being bros! Totally platonic!”

And with his hands full of pizza, the boy disappeared back into the living room to finish working on the toaster.

With a sigh, Michael shrugged, “well he said he’d TRY to be nicer.”

***

Having an eleven year old alien around the house was both simpler and more complicated than Alex anticipated. The kid didn’t leave any big messes. He was actually obsessively clean. It was like there was no kid there at all. If Alex didn’t watch him sit at the coffee table, silently putting his toaster back together with the crust of cold pizza sticking out of the side of his mouth like a cigar, Alex could almost believe he was alone. Mikey was silent and contained. He hunched up small like he didn’t think he deserved to take up too much space. Apparently being ‘nice’ meant disappearing.

Guerin on the other hand left his boots kicked into a corner of his bedroom. His hat was on top of a lamp. His side of the bed was a rumpled mess. And he was currently humming a country song enthusiastically and off key. Alex had no question where Michael was at all times. He could close his eyes and still know, because Michael was an ever moving force of nature. Even when he tried to sit still, his knee bounced, his head swayed, his hands tapped out tunes on the arm rest. He was full of kinesthetic energy.

The complicated part of having an eleven year old alien in the house was Alex was pretty sure his couch cushions were hiding a myriad of snacks. The kid thought he was subtle, but he kept reaching between the seat cushions and nodding to himself with satisfaction. Michael insisted Alex leave it be. Apparently no conversations were needed about his couch becoming a vending machine.

The boy also didn’t have the habits most kids were taught at a very young age. Alex had to herd him into the bathroom to brush his teeth. And when Michael argued that tooth brushing was only required when his breath got nasty, Alex herded his boyfriend into the bathroom too. They could brush teeth together, like a family. A weird little Lilo and Stitch family.

Mikey had only been at the cabin for two days, but Alex couldn’t imagine a time when he didn’t exist. Isobel brought a bag of clothing and necessities from Walmart and he shrunk smaller and smaller every time she pulled out a new item, arms curled around his stomach. Like he was being buried under the invisible weight of the clothing. A new toothbrush made his shoulder hunch up to his ears, Star Wars themed pajamas had him hugging his knees to his chest, the new shoes made him tuck his chin into his arms and shrink. Michael had hugged his sister and ushered her out of the cabin before the kid could diminish any further.

Isobel meant well. “They’re Star Wars pajamas! The same design as Luke Skywalker’s flight suit! Because you always talked about wanting to see the stars.”

She meant so well.

Later Michael whispered that the kid was feeling the debt. He wasn’t used to people being nice to him without an ulterior motive. There was a currency to kindness and the boy wasn’t sure when the bill would come or what they’d ask of him. It reminded Alex of being seventeen in his father’s shed, handing Michael his brother’s guitar and watching his guard go up.

“Sometimes people can be nice for no reason.”

“Not in my experience.”

Things were clicking into place. An equation finally making sense. And all he could do was hug Michael a little tighter and hope he could give Mikey a better experience for as long as they had him.

The boy presented him with his toaster. Alex was positive the toaster was never really broken. The side was a bit dinged up from when it got knocked off the counter a few months ago. And the knob was stuck on 4, but Alex liked 4. It meant his toast was dark brown which was fine. It was perfectly adequate. He could live with 4. But now the knob turned freely, giving him every option of crispiness for his toast. And the ding had been buffed out. The kid made the toaster work like new. When Alex told him that, Mikey stood up straighter. The boy tried not to smile at the praise. In a fit of bravery, Alex reached out to toustle his hair like he watched Michael do, and the boy closed his eyes for a second and actually grinned. He could only bear Alex’s attention for a second before running off into the backyard. Like he wasn’t sure what to do with praise. It didn’t fit him comfortably, and he had to run away. Alex knew that feeling. Jesse Manes didn’t believe in praise either. Alex remembered the discomfort the first time a PE teacher congratulated him on his endurance. It felt like the comments had to be mocking. He was being made fun of. It took a long time to realize the coach was being genuine.

Michael sat next to him on the couch and kissed his cheek. “What are we doing, Alex?”

“I have no idea. I didn’t really write this into my planner. I guess we’re winging it.”

“Are we moving too fast? We went from not dating, to dating, to playing house with an eleven year old. I don’t want to ruin this.”

Alex covered Michael’s hand with his own, “We’ve been on and off for a decade. It’s not like we’re strangers. I think keeping things PG for a while between us is a good idea, but we can watch Mikey and it won’t ruin anything.”

The kid was running in circles in the backyard. If there was a game, Alex couldn’t figure it out. It just looked like circles for the sake of circles. Making himself dizzy enough to fall down.

Michael’s phone started to buzz. Who would call instead of text? The name “Liz Ortecho” flashed and he reluctantly swiped to answer.

Liz’s voice came out in a rush, “Don’t be mad.”

“Elizabeth Ortecho, no good news ever came after the statement -  don't be mad.”

Liz continued, “Okay I know we were going to wait to mess with the disk until we could be at the lab together, but I…”

Michael scrubbed a hand over his face, “Oh god Liz, what did you do?”

“It’s not bad! Hey, put me on speakerphone so I don’t have to repeat this to Alex later.”

Michael placed the phone between them and pushed a button.

“You’re on speaker,” Alex was puzzled but supportive, “Liz are you okay?”

“Yeah, everything is fine. I was pressing different glyphs on the disk and I think I may have accidentally accessed a user manual. Kind of. It sort of was like a psychic connection, either I accessed a user manual, or it caused me to have a psychotic break.”

“Liz.” Alex looked at Michael in alarm.

Her voice took on a higher pitch, “It’s fine! I took notes!”

Michael rolled his eyes, “THAT is not the part we’re worried about!”

Liz ignored them, “Okay so this is what I wrote down: the disk IS a therapy tool. Its intended purpose is to encourage the patient to reconnect with a difficult point in their life and by interacting with the construct the patient develops a healthier understanding of their past.”

Michael interrupted her, “Liz I hope this thing didn’t give you brain cancer.”

“Shut up.”

“Or worse, you could have accidentally triggered your own mini Ortecho.”

Irritation colored her voice, “Michael, let me finish. The connection wasn’t in English. It was all concepts, so I’m not sure I’m translating it right. Mikey is real. He’s a real kid and he’ll age like a real kid. You’ve gotta make peace with yourself, forgive yourself, and when you’re ready you both hold onto the disk and you meld back together. It doesn’t hurt him. He’s part of you. And if you never touch the disk again, Mikey stays. He’ll grow up like any normal child. We should probably run tests on both of you though, just to see. Kyle can give you both a physical.”

Michael shook his head, “The kid is NOT going to like Valenti.”

Liz insisted, “Kyle’s great with kids. It’ll be fine.”

“Your funeral.”

Alex elbowed Michael, “Okay so why didn’t the disk meld them back together when they both touched it a few days ago?”

Liz said, “It won’t work until Michael deals with his childhood trauma.”

Michael laughed, “Sure, I can just deal with my trauma. I’ll go see a therapist and talk about my abandonment issues that began when my family crash landed in Roswell in 1947. Easy.”

Alex put a comforting hand on his shoulder, “You could talk to a therapist and leave out the alien details. You were abandoned. Your siblings were adopted and you weren’t. You survived a string of abusive foster homes. These are all human problems.”

Michael shrugged, dislodging the hand, “Therapists are expensive. You can’t just go talk to one. It’s cheaper to drink beer.”

Liz’s voice piped up through the cell phone, “Super healthy coping mechanism, Michael.”

Michael deflected, “So ANYWAY, if we don’t touch the disk, Mikey stays? And if we do touch the disk after I sell an alien kidney to talk to a shrink, then Mikey gets sucked back into me?”

He could almost hear the grimace in her voice, “Gross way to put it, but yes.”

“Okay thanks Ortecho. Don’t push anymore buttons on the disk. Max would cry if your brain melted.” Michael hung up the phone, turned to Alex and interlaced their fingers, “I can always take him back to the airstream. We can get out of your hair. I don’t know how long he’ll be here. You don’t just get over a shitty childhood in a day and go eat ice cream.”

Alex squeezed his hand, “I want you to stay here. I want you both to stay here. We can always clean out the extra bedroom. Right now it’s full of boxes from when I packed up Jim’s stuff. I can ask Kyle to go through it and keep what he wants. It’d be easy to turn that back into a bedroom.”

“Not your creepy murder basement?”

“Definitely not the creepy murder basement.” Alex considered,  “Although actually I could probably store the boxes in there!”

Alex nodded and continued, “If the kid is here for longer than a week, we can make long term plans. I can forge paperwork. Say you’re the father and you didn’t know about him. His mother moved out of Roswell and dropped him off out of the blue.”

“I would have been sixteen or seventeen when I slept with the mother. A teenage father, how scandalous… but sort of on brand for me.”

“Maybe she was a tourist? Not anyone any of the locals would remember.”

Michael laughed, “Okay so Mikey is the result of a hook up between teenage me, and an adult out of town tourist. Yeah, this is definitely sounding like something I’d do.”

Alex was starting to become more comfortable with this plan. He loved having a plan. “So we’d need a name. Michael is a super common name and maybe she liked you enough to give him your first name, but he’d need a new last name.”

“Truman. My mom’s name was Nora Truman. I don’t care what name his fake mom has, and I don’t really want people thinking I slept with someone named Nora Truman, but he could be Michael Truman. I could have been Michael Truman if my mom got me out of the pods.”

Alex watched the boy fall down and get back up to run even tighter circles. “Maybe we can let Mikey pick out his fake mom’s name. Let him have some sort of agency, and feel involved in these choices. Are you okay with me helping you?”

“Like am I okay with you co-parenting my weird alien inner child?” Michael raised an eyebrow, “This week is so weird. Yes. Please, please help me. I barely kept myself alive for twenty one years on my own. I don’t trust myself to watch TWO of me.”

Alex tugged him closer, “you did a great job on your own. And you’d do a great job now. You just shouldn’t have HAD to have done it alone as a kid, and I don’t want you to be alone now. I want to help. I don’t think we should enroll him in school anytime soon. We should try and figure out more. But I like having some sort of idea of where we’re going here.”

“You and me, and my feral little monster who has a knife”

“Wait, he has a knife?” Alex sat up.

“Oh yeah. I didn’t mention that? It’s a pocketknife. I gave it back to him because I knew he wouldn’t stab you, and you could disarm him if he tried.” Michael appeased, “Which he won’t. I promise he won’t stab you.”  

“He’s not a little monster.” Michael seemed distracted so Alex tugged on a curl to get his attention and repeated, “He’s not a little monster. And YOU’RE not a little monster. He’s a kid and we’re gonna make sure he eats a vegetable every once in awhile, and goes to sleep at a decent hour. We can do this.”

“I mean we’re already doing a better job than any of my foster homes.”

“That bar is pretty low.”

“And yet it exists.”

They eased back on the couch and watched Mikey play.

***

Michael leaned against the backdoor watching his shrinky dink alien run. The kid was playing some sort of weird running game with rules only he knew, and that Michael definitely didn’t remember. One foot managed to get hooked behind the other and the kid landed hard on his ass. Michael winced in sympathy.“Is your butt okay?”

The kid retorted, “is your BRAIN okay?

Michael shrugged, “If your butt hurts we can get Max to heal it. We don’t let him use his powers much anymore since I turned him into a cyborg with an alien pacemaker, but he could heal your butt. You’d just end up with a shiny silver handprint… on your butt. And Max could spy on your feelings, and you’d get to wallow in his poetic angst and guilt.”

The kid narrowed his eyes, “I can’t even tell if you’re kidding. Is that real? Max can heal? But with a handprint and psychic link?”

“Yep.”

Mikey huffed in irritation, “Pretty sure you’re making stuff up, but whatever. What can Isobel do? Fly but she poops alien glitter as a side effect?”

“You should DEFINITELY tell Isobel your theories.” Michael laughed, “But no, she can get into people's brains and influence them.”

Mikey side eyed him, “does she do that to us?”

“No. She promised. Sometimes she can get inside my head but she promises she won’t try to influence us. I don’t even know if she can. She’s only tried the brain thing when she needed to tell me something she couldn’t say out loud.” Michael grimaced, “I didn’t like it. She doesn’t do it often. Apparently our brain is tough and she usually has to puke if she tries anything. SHE says it’s because we’re guarded and paranoid. I think it’s because we’re awesome.”

Michael offered up a hand to high five and the kid pushed past him to the kitchen instead. Ouch.

The kid was getting a glass of water and rummaging around the fridge which made Michael grin. It took awhile to get Mikey to stop asking permission for every single thing. But Michael remembered all the homes that had strict rules about the kitchen. The religious zealots had a lock on the fridge to discourage their charges from greed. Apparently a kid being hungry was the mortal sin of gluttony.

With his head still in the fridge the kid absentminded asked, “Max is a cyborg?”

“He ended up with a heart issue. Long story. I made him a pacemaker and he’s fine now.” Michael wrinkled his nose, “Mostly.”

Mikey kicked the door shut with his hands full of food. “That’s good. Isobel would miss him if something happened to him.”

Michael pulled down a plate to help the boy make a sandwich, “Yeah, Isobel would miss him.”  

The two of them stood side by side making sandwiches. It was good. Eating when hungry. Michael had gotten so used to caregivers forgetting to feed him, that he trained himself to ignore hunger. Unless it was really bad, it didn’t bother him so much anymore. Grabbing a granola bar for breakfast and then working straight through until seven or eight pm wasn’t unusual. It just seemed like a waste of energy to worry about what was for lunch when for so many years there was no lunch. Michael grew up loving school. Not only was it a place he excelled, but he also got breakfast and lunch every day there. He never understood the jokes about how gross cafeteria food was. For him, it was the closest thing to a home cooked meal he was ever gonna get. A sloppy joe served by Mrs. Riley every wednesday at New Roswell High, was his version of a dinner cooked by mom. Summers and Winter break were hard. No school meant no little plastic trays with cartons of chocolate milk and plastic silverware. School was a good place. Michael had liked school.

He cut the sandwiches in half like he’d watched Alex do. It seemed nicer that way. The kid carefully took his plate with two hands. No danger of dropping it. And Michael grabbed plates for himself and Alex, and took them to the table. Lunch. Yet another new thing Michael was trying.

They’d have to figure out what to do the longer Mikey stayed. Michael and Alex both took the day off of work, but the kid would need to go somewhere during the day starting soon. Maybe Max or Isobel. Max was still doing night shifts at the Pony and Isobel was taking a sabbatical from her event planning business. If they went public with the story that Mikey was Michael’s son, he could hang out in the junkyard with him. Michael could fix cars and there were a thousand things the kid could play with. Most foster homes didn’t let Michael fiddle with things. But he loved taking stuff apart and putting it back together. A junkyard was a perfect playground for an engineering genius.

Mikey and Alex were having an animated conversation about the merits of Ninja Turtles. Apparently Alex thought Leonardo was the best because he was the leader and was the most focused. Mikey insisted it was Michelangelo because of… pizza. And honestly, Michael had to agree. Pizza always wins. He grinned at his boys and took another huge bite of his sandwich. Maybe this would work after all.

***

Sleeping in Alex’s bed was never going to get old. There was a Michael shaped divot on the right side of the mattress. Even when he got up, he could see the impression of his body. Alex insisted this meant the mattress was shitty and he needed a new one, but Michael liked the evidence he was there.

He curled up closer to Alex and let his hand rest on his hip, technically breaking the hands above the waist rule but so long as his hand didn’t move, it seemed safe enough. His thumb fit perfectly in the hollow of Alex’s hip. He had rubbed a gentle circle when the part of his brain connected to Mikey pinged a distress call again. With a sigh he climbed out of bed, and hoped he didn’t wake Alex as he left.

The kid was sitting up on the couch wrapped in a quilt. Mikey picked at a loose thread on the knee of his Star Wars pajamas. Michael sat next to him and let him lean his weight against his side.

“Bad dream?”

The kid shrugged and pulled his knees up to his chest.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Mikey shook his head. A few minutes later he blurted, “I heard you and Alex.”

“Heard us what?”

Mikey rocked a little in place, “Talking about how the disk works. How you gotta talk about your emotions so we meld together like a transformer, Mega-Michael, or you’re stuck with me.”

Michael protested, “I don’t have to talk about my emotions.”

“Sometimes you gotta share your fart with the world. You keep it all squeezed up in your butt and it gives you a stomach ache. You just gotta let it out to feel better.”

“My emotions aren’t farts.” Michael crossed his arms defensively.

“But your face is a fart,”

“We have the same face!”

The kid smirked, “Nah, I look awesome. You look constipated.”

Mikey became quiet and serious. He pressed his body against Michael’s side, trying to become a Mega-Michael without alien technology. “You gotta be okay with the bad stuff that happened to us. You’ve gotta… not blame me.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“You blame yourself. I blame me. Bad things happened everywhere we went. We were the only constant factor in the experiment, therefore we’re the variable at fault. It’s just science.”

Michael wrapped both arms around the kid, “I don’t blame you.”

The boy huffed, “You’re stuck with me for awhile. If we don’t touch the disk, you could be stuck with me forever.”

Michael rested his chin on the kid’s head, “That wouldn’t totally suck.”

Mikey closed his eyes, “Alex might not be a fan of this plan.”

“Alex likes this plan.” The Michaels looked up as Alex spoke with a smile. At some point he wandered into the hallway unnoticed. His shoulder was against the wall and he leaned heavily on his crutch. He had been eavesdropping.

The kid tried to push himself out of Michael’s hug, but Michael just squeezed him tighter.

Mikey insisted, “You won’t like me. I’m a mess.”

Alex sat on the other side of him and wrapped an arm around his boys, “I like messes.”

“No you don’t. You’re clean. You make your bed perfectly every morning and you always do your dishes. You’d get tired of me. I’m loud.”

“The cabin was too quiet anyway.”

“I’m… I’m mean. I’ll say mean things.”

Alex ran a hand through the boy’s curls, “It’s okay. You can say mean things and we’ll still like you. You can still stay here. We’re choosing you. We want you to stay.”

Mikey tried to push at the arms embracing him. He kicked at Michael as his eyes welled up, “I’m gonna break all the stuff you like!”

Michael winced as a bony heel caught his thigh, “Yeah but we can fix it. Anything you break we can fix together.”

It was like someone cut the strings of a dancing marionette. The kid lost all fight and fat tear drops streamed down his face to his horror. “You’re gonna change your mind.”

Michael looked at Alex, a silent conversation happening above the boy’s head. Michael wiped a glob of snot off the kid’s face with the hem of his shirt. “We’re picking you. On purpose. We want you to stay. Do you want to stay?”

Mikey took a great shuddering breath and nodded.

Alex thumbed away a tear, “Then as long as you want us, we want to keep you.”

It wasn’t a conventional family. It wasn’t something Michael ever thought he’d have. But Michael, Alex, and Mikey could pick each other. That was a thing they could do. And they’d be okay.