Work Text:
I still like the way your name sounds
Michael took a lot longer to unpack than he meant to.
Alex liked to tease him by saying it was his way of moving in with an exit strategy, keeping everything packed away meant that if things went wrong or he got cold feet, he could just bundle them up and leave quickly.
Michael knew that Alex only meant to joke, but he knew that behind it was a bit of concern that maybe Michael had regrets about moving in together. Truthfully, the only doubts Michael had were about himself, how he was destined to screw up the best thing that had ever happened to him. There was no doubt in his mind that he wanted this, but whether he deserved it? To be happy?
He didn’t think he’d done anything in his life to deserve this kind of happiness, to deserve Alex’s love and affection. It was taking some time, but he was slowly trying to convince himself that he was allowed to have good things, allowed happiness, allowed a home on the planet he had long since despised.
Alex was working at Deep Sky for most of the day, so Michael took it upon himself to start his unpacking. Alex had made it easy, in fact half of his clothes and belongings were sitting on the coffee table or the floor, just waiting for Michael to put his things away where he felt most comfortable.
He started with the clothes, putting them to the left side of the closet and replacing Alex’s to the right. Then came the rest of the bits and pieces, some books, research, drawings for the alien console.
As he pulled out a bundle of papers, a photo fell out and floated to the floor, landing face up. Michael looked down to see the picture of himself and Alex as teenagers, holding their guitars and laughing about a long-forgotten joke.
The smile on his lips came before he could think about it as he leant down to pick it up.
He remembered when that photo had been taken, he had tried to block a lot of things out from back then. But Alex wasn’t one of those things, he was almost the only thing that he had tried to hold onto.
~ ~ ~
June 2008
Michael parked his truck up at Sanders’ Auto a lot, sometimes he would sleep there in it because Sanders let him park it under the cover of the old barn where he could shelter from the wind. It had been a few weeks since he had slept there, he’d been crashing in the old tool shed behind the Manes place since May.
After Alex had given him his brother’s old guitar, he hadn’t been back there. It felt awkward, there had been a moment between them… and he hesitated.
He thought about that moment over and over. He thought about that moment every time he saw Alex in the halls at school, when he sat in a class and the teacher was lecturing by the board, when Max was talking through a mouthful of fries at the Crashdown.
So, he started spending more time back at the Auto in his truck, he would just sit in the tray and strum the guitar absentmindedly. Hard to let all the thoughts invade through the quiet.
He was sitting in the back one day not long after that first night in the tool shed when he saw Alex’s car roll into the lot. His fingers faulted on the strings, and he felt his heartbeat quicken.
He couldn’t take his eyes off him.
Alex parked up, getting out of the car and shoving his hands into his pockets as he took slow steps towards Michael.
“Hey Guerin,” he said, looking up with his head tilted slightly to the side.
"Alex," Michael said, hopping up and taking a step towards him. "What are you doing here?"
"Could ask you the same," he said with a soft smile that made Michael's ears turn a shade of pink.
"Oh I, uh, I hang out here sometimes," he said, looking down at his feet.
"Somewhere people can't find you?" Alex said, that smile lingering, like he understood completely.
"Something like that," he said. "Doesn't answer my question though."
"My brother needs some parts for his car, I offered to come down and grab them," he shrugged.
"So you could get some quiet?" Michael said, his tone teasing.
Alex bit down on his lip, hiding his smile.
"Something like that."
They shared a gaze for a moment and Michael paused as it left a flutter in his belly.
He was pretty certain he knew why. He had been feeling it since that first day out back of the school when Alex had claimed his guitar back, and he knew what it meant, even if he wasn't completely ready to do anything about it yet.
"Well, um, old man Sanders left a little while ago on a call so... might be a while," Michael said, and Alex nodded, looking past him and into the back of his truck.
It made Michael smirk, still so nosey, looking into his truck and making assumptions again.
"You've been playing?" he asked, gesturing to the guitar.
"Yeah, trying to get the hang of this Bright Eyes song, and I'm getting there," he shrugged, turning to grab it. "Kind of anyway."
"I could help?" Alex offered. "I mean I have to wait around anyway, and I have my guitar."
"You just carry it with you?"
"When I plan on finding somewhere to hide and play, yeah," Alex said, walking back to the car.
"You know this is my hiding place, right?" Michael smirked.
Alex took his guitar out, leaving the case in the back seat as he walked back around and over to Michael's truck.
"I knew you had a problem with sharing Guerin," he grinned, hopping up in the tray and scooting to the side, nodding his head to the empty space beside him.
Michael smiled and went back to the truck to sit beside him, taking the second guitar in his hands as he started to play to song. Alex played along with him a little, taking a few moments to watch his fingers strum and pick up the tune.
Alex knew the song, that much was clear from the way he easily followed the chords and helped point Michael in the right direction.
Somewhere along the line they had shuffled closer, shoulders brushing as they played, and Michael could feel the warmth growing in him as the time simply slipped away.
They talked a little, neither of them daring to sing along to the tune, and they made jokes. Michael couldn't help staring at the little crinkles in Alex's eyes as he made him laugh, it wasn't something he had seen Alex Manes do a lot of, he happened to be known for his dark and gloomy clothing and facial expressions to match. But now that Michael had seen him smile, he wanted to keep being the cause of it, it was all he wanted to see.
"Great song."
The words pulled them both out of the little bubble they were in as their heads snapped up to see Rosa Ortecho standing a few feet from them.
Michael felt Alex's touch leave him as he quickly pulled himself away.
He had no right to feel an ache at that, it was only a week ago that he had done the same thing in the tool shed, turning away from Alex and biting down hard on his tongue. But feeling Alex do it back? He couldn't stand that feeling.
"Hey Rosa," Alex said, clearing his throat. "What are you doing out here?"
She shrugged, the sound of paint cans in the bag over her shoulder clinking together as her hands held tightly to a black camera.
"Was trying to get some good shots," she said, holding it up and shaking it around a little. "But... I got distracted by a blank canvas, and then I heard you guys playing. Sounded good."
"Is that for your portfolio?" Alex asked, and Rosa scoffed through a laugh.
"Liz mention that?" she said.
"Maybe," Alex smiled, getting up off the tray, walking past her and into the sun as he let his fingers graze the strings. "But it doesn't take a genius to know that you should be applying to art school."
He gave her a grin and she lifted the camera quickly to snap it. He huffed out a sigh.
"That one's not going to get you into school, I guarantee it," he said.
She turned to Michael, snapping a picture of him sat in the back of the truck.
"Really?" he said, making Alex work to hide his smile.
"What? This light is great," Rosa said with a shrug, looking down at the picture preview on the camera screen. "And you guys photograph well."
Alex and Michael shared a look, their eyes locking for a few seconds before Alex turned his attentions back to his guitar.
"I'm just going to wander around, take some pictures," she said. "Just ignore me."
She turned away and started walking further into the scrap yard.
Seems like the place was a magnet for people who didn't quite fit in with the crowds, people who liked to hide.
Michael watched her walk away, looking through the lens at the spaces in the yard. As he turned back to Alex, standing in the sun in that long sweater and black jeans. Michael thought to himself that surely it was too hot for all of that, which led his mind to admire the lines of Alex's sharp jaw and how his dark hair fell over his brow, how good those piercings looked against his unblemished skin. Suddenly it was him who was worried about the heat under his collar.
Alex started playing a new tune, something unfamiliar to Michael.
He hopped up and walked over to him, looking down at the way his fingers plucked the strings, but the song was still unknown. He rested his guitar on the dusty ground and leant against it lightly.
"What song is that?" he asked, and he was close enough to see the way Alex's cheeks flushed.
"Nothing, uh... I'm just goofing around," he said, mumbling the words.
"It's really good, Alex," Michael said softly.
Alex turned his eyes up to look at him, taking a breath like Michael's proximity had taken all the air out of his lungs. He swallowed, clearing his throat and looking back down with a furrowed brow.
"You got any words to go with that?" he asked, and Alex smiled.
"Not sure I've got anything to sing about," he said.
Michael watched him a little longer, their shoulders back to being just a hair's breadth apart. After a few moments they heard the clicks of a camera and looked up to see Rosa again, holding the camera just under her chin with an innocent 'what are you going to do' smile on her mouth. Alex chuckled and shook his head but again he took a slow step away from Michael, so subtle that Rosa probably didn't notice, but Michael did.
She grinned as she walked past them and towards the other side of the auto yard, just as Sanders’ truck was pulling back in.
“Guess I had better get those parts then,” Alex said, slipping the strap off his shoulder. “I’ll see you?”
“Yeah,” Michael said in a breath, not taking his eyes off Alex as he put the guitar away and headed over to where Sanders was parking up.
~ ~ ~
Michael smiled down at the photo.
A few days later Rosa had given him a copy of it. She didn’t say much, just handed it to him with a shrug. He’d spent a lot of time looking at it when he was alone before he finally built up the courage to kiss Alex.
And of course, it had been all downhill from there, for all of them.
For a while at least.
He walked into the bedroom and tucked the photo into the draw next to his side of the bed. He might have Alex all to himself again, but that photo had gotten him through a lot of hard nights without him, sometimes it was all he had to hold onto.
It held memories that were both the best and worst times of his adolescence, so he tucked it away for safekeeping again and continued unpacking into the home they now shared.
____
Some days, Alex could hardly believe the way his life had panned out.
One day he was moving in with his boyfriend, the man that he had once pictured a life with, and then spent ten years trying to heal the ache in his chest where Michael’s love used to live, the next he was trapped in an alien dimension, not sure if he would ever make it out and back to the man he loved.
And then it was like a movie, the perfect wedding, he had a husband, and they took some much-needed time together on the road, just trying to make that perfect moment last.
By the time they got home to Roswell it all felt like a blur.
They were gone for a few months, but it was good to be home. Alex had made a joke that he hadn’t even had time to see evidence that Michael had moved himself all the way in before they left on their honeymoon.
It was mostly true, they had left in quite a hurry, but now that they were back, it made Alex smile to see all of Michael’s things mixed in with his own.
He was putting his suitcase away in the top of the closet, shuffling it to get it back into place when a piece of paper came floating down and onto the floor.
Alex bent down to pick it up, turning it over to see a photo that he hadn’t thought about in a long while. He and Michael stood with their guitars as teenagers, taken in the middle of the junkyard what felt like forever ago.
Alex let his thumb brush over the two of them, sighing softly as all the memories flooded back through him.
It used to make Alex think of all the bad things, of that night when everything changed. And maybe he would take it out sometimes to purposefully bring back that memory, as if he needed constant convincing that it wouldn’t work, always needed reminding of the bad parts, because if he just moved his mind’s eye past those bad moments, it was so wonderfully good.
He had done that while he was in the air force. He could count so many nights when he brought it out and stared at it, trying to tell himself that they had been bad for one another and leaving Michael had been for the best.
All it did was add to the pile of guilt. Because he looked at that picture and for a moment, it hurt, it ached in the pit of his stomach. And he thought it was because it had been painful, but it was the place inside him where Michael had settled, a hunger in his belly that was never filled until he had Michael in his arms.
Something he would only find out ten years later.
All those memories started flooding back to him, brushing his thumb again over Michael’s hand in the picture. It was only a few days before things had gone horribly wrong.
~ ~ ~
June 2008
Alex had been wondering about the looks Michael had been giving him.
They started back in May, when he’d first mentioned the tool shed. Looks of curiosity, confusion, like he was trying to figure out what Alex wanted from him.
That was only solidified when they sat together on the makeshift bed after Michael asked him why he was treating him the way he was. And when Alex heard those words he had chuckled to himself, because he couldn’t imagine being suspicious of everyone and everything around him to the point that kindness was the exception, not the rule.
He knew people out there could be cruel, god knows he knew that much, but the idea that Michael never felt like anyone ever did anything that wouldn’t give something back brought a sadness to him. Because increasingly, he found himself wanting to do more and more to make Michael smile, to let him know he wasn’t as alone as he felt.
He hadn’t seen Michael much at the tool shed immediately after their meeting, and it made him feel a heaviness in his chest at the thought that he maybe crossed a line and pushed Michael away. He knew he spent a lot of time at the junkyard and so when his brother needed some parts, he was happy to volunteer, his guitar already stowed in the backseat.
Sure enough, Michael was there, and the look he was giving him this time was softer, less questioning and more hopeful than the last.
He knew better than to try anything this time though, he was happy to just sit by his side as they played guitar together, listening to the way Michael talked about the music and watching the way his curls fell across his face. He had gotten to like Michael a lot in the last few weeks, he hadn’t felt like that about someone in a long time.
Alex had seen Rosa around with her camera a lot recently, so it wasn’t out of the ordinary to see her there with it, snapping pictures of the two of them.
Something inside of him wished he could just sling an arm around Michael and pull him in close, press his lips to his cheek or feel Michael’s fingers turn his jaw towards his mouth and leave the heat from his own on his lips.
Instead, he shuffled himself away from Michael in all the places he could feel his touch, and he tried not to think too much of the confused look Michael was giving him again.
It was only a few days later when he was giving him an equally unsure look, in the back of the UFO Emporium. The kiss had been better than Alex could have imagined, the feeling of finally having Michael’s lips on his was like he was floating.
The way Michael’s unsure gaze after turned into one of complete surety, that was better.
Everything was perfect, every kiss, every touch, everything else.
Until it wasn’t.
Seeing his father walk into the tool shed had made Alex’s body turn cold. He knew the look on his face, he knew what it meant. And he was ready to take it. He’d done it before, and his body knew how to heal from it.
He hadn’t expected Michael to jump in to protect him. He wanted to scream at him to just run, to leave and get himself out.
“Don’t touch him!” he yelled, lunging forward at Jesse.
But Jesse was a decorated soldier and he knew how to counter an attack, especially from a scrawny seventeen year old.
Alex thought he had been scared when his father had his hand around his throat, but it was nothing compared to when Jesse had Michael in his grasp and that hammer was swinging down and into his hand.
Everything was fuzzy around that moment, maybe it was just the ringing in his ears, or just the trauma of the whole thing.
Michael whimpered and clutched at his hand, the tears streaming down his cheek as Jesse balled up his shirt in his hand and leant in, growling in his ear for him to get out before shoving him towards the door.
Michael had looked up at Alex, fear in his eyes as he resisted Jesse.
“Just go!” Alex had yelled, spitting the words at him with none of the venom in his eyes like that of his father.
And then Jesse had turned to him and the familiar pain came wailing down on him. Alex lay down in his bed for hours afterwards, tears streaming down his face and trying to call Michael, but he wasn’t answering.
Of course he wasn’t answering, who the hell would answer after what happened to him?
There was a knock on his door after dark and he didn’t look up or respond.
“Alex?” he heard the sound of Greg’s voice through the crack in the door.
“Go away,” he said through the snot and the tears.
“Are you okay?”
“Fucking peachy Greg,” he said, sucking in a breath. “Just leave me alone.”
There was no sound of him leaving, and Alex felt the end of the bed sink as Greg sat down.
“What do you want?” Alex said in a shaky sob.
“I’m sorry Alex,” he said softly.
“It’s fine,” he said.
“It’s not,” he shook his head. “It’s not and I’m… I’m sorry.”
Alex sat up to face him, seeing the guilt in his eyes not for the first time. He knew what Alex had been going through for years now, and Alex could see that he wanted to try, but Jesse ran a tight ship at home and at work and he wasn’t an easy man to defy.
Alex knew that, so he didn’t say anything, he just nodded, and the two sat in silence for a while longer.
~ ~ ~
That was the memory that Alex tried to focus on when he used to look at the picture.
He looked at it the day he left for the air force when Michael was locked up. He used it to remember that terrible moment and remind himself why he had to leave, why they didn’t work.
He thought about throwing the photo away, but he couldn’t do it, so he took it to an active warzone.
That photo had been halfway around the world and lived under flat military pillows and in rolled up sleeping bag cases. It came out when Alex found the ache in his chest too much to bear.
Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it made that ache grow.
Sometimes he missed Michael so much that he didn’t know whether looking at the photo would make things better or worse.
As the years went by he took it out less and less, by the time he returned from Iraq it had almost been a year. And then he saw Michael by the airstream and his body went numb, his heart started beating like it hadn’t done so since the last time they stood face to face.
That night he took apart everything he owned that he had still not unpacked and pulled that photo out. He might have sat there with it in his hands for hours, trying to remember that night in the tool shed, but suddenly all he could think about was the stolen glances and soft shoulder touches.
The smile Michael had given him after their first kiss.
“What’s that?” Michael asked, walking into the room and over to Alex who stood with a fond expression as he stared down at the old photo.
“Just uh… just reminiscing,” he said, looking up to smile at his husband a moment before he was staring at the photo again. “You know I… I didn’t take a lot with me when I left for Iraq, but I always had this. It was one of the only photos I had of you. I thought about you a lot, especially in the beginning.”
He looked back up to see Michael giving him a strange look.
“What?” he asked.
“That’s your picture?” he asked, and Alex chuckled, his brows knitting together.
“Of course, it just fell out of the closet,” he said, snorting a little. “Oddly appropriate.”
Michael didn’t say anything he just turned quickly and walked over to the bedside table, opening the draw and pulling out his copy, walking back to Alex and holding it out for him to see.
“Where did you get this?” Alex asked, the smile on his face growing as he leant in, pressing his shoulder against Michael’s.
“Well, Rosa gave it to me,” he said. “Back before we even had our first kiss.”
“You’re kidding?” Alex said, looking up at Michael who just shook his head. “You’ve had this all that time?”
“You have too,” he said, nudging Alex on the shoulder. “By the looks of it that thing is about to fall apart.”
“Well, it’s been a lot of places with me,” he said. “Back when you couldn’t be.”
“Mine too,” Michael said softly. “Kept popping up every time I thought maybe I’d forgotten about you. Kind of like it was telling me not to give up on us, on you.”
“Have you always been such a romantic?” Alex teased, and Michael chuckled as he turned his body towards him.
“You remember what you said?” Michael smiled, wrapping his arms around Alex’s waist and pulling him closer. “When I asked you what you were playing?”
Alex hummed in reply, lifting his arms up until they were rested on Michael’s shoulders, one hand holding his wrist behind Michael’s head, the other still holding the wrinkled old picture.
“Something about having nothing to sing about?” he grinned.
“Bet you didn’t think you’d be singing to me in a bar eleven years later,” Michael teased.
“Didn’t cross my mind at that point that I might marry you one day either,” he said, letting Michael lean in and press their lips together softly, his turn to hum contentedly.
“Jokes on you,” he mumbled against Alex’s lips. “There’s no returning me now. You signed right on that dotted line.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Alex grinned. “Though I might leave the occasional complaint on the manufacturers website.”
Michael laughed, pulling himself back and gazing down at Alex adoringly before he was looking at his copy of Rosa’s photograph.
“So, what do we do with these now that we’re not two pining teenagers keeping them tucked under our pillows?” he said. “Unless you want to go down that road again.”
Alex rolled his eyes with a smile.
“I have a better idea.”
_____
Game night was at Alex and Michael’s place that week, Liz and Max were already sat on the couch, Liz with her back to the arm of the sofa and her feet tucked under Max’s legs as he sat in the middle.
Isobel was on one of the newly acquired lounge chairs, leaning back comfortably as she held the large mostly full glass of wine in one hand and shook her head with a chuckle as she watched Alex trying to guess Michael’s terrible Pictionary drawing.
“Time’s up!” Liz said loudly and Max raised his eyebrows.
Competitive games that involved Michael and Liz almost always ended in an argument of some kind, followed by a truce.
“Come on, that’s clearly a birdcage!” Michael said, tossing the pen at Alex light-heartedly.
“A birdcage? Michael that looks like a lamp post,” he said, taking a long sip from his glass.
“You’re lucky you’re pretty Manes,” he said with a shake of his head and Alex pulled the glass away quickly.
“Not a Manes anymore Guerin,” he grinned.
“Okay, you two can stop being adorable and in love anytime now,” Isobel said, shaking her head as Michael leant in and placed a loud exaggerated kiss on Alex’s mouth, making him blush and shove him back.
“Yeah, can’t you go back to tortured and pining?” Max grinned, just as Kyle walked in from the front door.
“Please tell me this conversation wasn’t about me?” he said, walking straight to Isobel who dropped her head back to let him kiss her softly. “Sorry I’m late, it was a busy night in the ER.”
“You’ve only missed one round,” Liz shrugged as she got to her feet and flipped the pages for her turn to draw.
“Is that our handicap this time?” he grinned, taking a seat on the other end of the couch.
“I maintain my accusations,” Max said as he sat up, ready for his turn to guess. “Neither of you can draw, and you were too quick to answer.”
“I do not cheat at Pictionary,” Isobel said. “Scattergories, maybe. Yahtzee? Absolutely.”
“You and Michael have that in common,” Alex said with an accusatory look towards Michael.
“Hey, I was not cheating,” he scoffed.
“You got three four of a kinds and two Yahtzees,” Alex said. “In a row.”
Michael grinned into the neck of his beer before taking a sip.
“Drink, babe?” Isobel said, reaching out to squeeze Kyle’s hand.
He nodded with a heavy sigh, it had been a twelve hour shift for him so he was already tired.
“Just a water,” he said. “By the look of that glass I’m going to need to drive you home after one or two more.”
She fluttered her eyelashes and put her glass down on the coffee table, getting up to walk to the kitchen.
“Okay but hurry up, we’re ready to kick all your asses tonight,” Liz said, pointing to Max sternly and he put his hands up in surrender.
“Do better than last time Max,” Michael said. “No one wants a tiny pencil in their eye again.”
“For the last time,” Liz said, rolling her eyes as she turned to him. “I did not throw the pencil, it slipped out of my hand.”
“Felt pretty intentional to me,” Kyle said, narrowing his eyes as he tilted his head to the side, Liz mirroring the action right back at him.
Isobel chuckled as she walked out of the kitchen with a glass of water. As she did, a new black frame sat flat on the counter caught her eye.
She took a step over to it, her lips softening into a smile as she took the edge in her hand and admired it warmly.
“This is new,” she said, phrased as a question as she walked back over to the group holding the frame.
Liz held her hand out to take it and have a look, while Alex and Michael shared knowing smiles between them.
Liz looked down into the glass, a simple black frame around it, and under it sat two identical pictures of Alex and Michael as teenagers.
“Yeah, we uh… realised that we had both been holding onto copies of the same picture from high school,” Michael said, turning to look up at the way Liz was gazing down at the photos before handing it to Max to look at.
“You know Rosa actually took that picture,” Alex said. “I remember her coming up to me in the Crashdown and handing me a copy, said she thought I might want it. I think she gave me a couple with you and Maria too.”
“Oh, and those didn’t stand the test of time?” Liz teased.
“I’m sure they’re in a draw somewhere,” he said with a shake of his head. “We just thought, you know, we both kept these for so long and never knew, framing them together…”
“Just felt right,” Michael said, smiling over at Alex like there was no one else in the room.
“I think it’s beautiful,” Isobel said, taking it back from Liz and showing it to Kyle.
He nodded to her and exchanged a look with Max.
“I think I preferred tortured and pining too,” he said, the two grinning at one another.
Michael took the frame back from Isobel and turned to walk back to the kitchen with Alex on his heels.
“Oh, come on!” Liz said, putting her hands up as she stood by the easel.
“I’m getting a pencil in the eye for sure,” Max said with a sigh as he took a sip from his beer.
Michael propped the frame up on the counter as Alex walked up behind him and wrapped his arms around his waist. Michael leant his head against him and let out a heavy sigh.
“You ever wonder what it could have been like?” he said softly. “If things had been different back then?”
Alex smiled, looking down at those two happy and oblivious teenagers.
“I used to,” he said, pressing his lips just below Michael’s ear. “But honestly? I wouldn’t change a thing.”
“Not one thing?” Michael said, raising his eyebrow and turning his head to look at him.
Alex chuckled and let his eyes wander from Michael’s and then down to his lips.
“No,” he said. “Because I am so happy right now, and I wouldn’t risk changing that for anything.”
Michael smiled, blinking slowly as he leant in to place a soft kiss against Alex’s mouth.
“I love you,” he mumbled.
“I love you too.”