a closer look
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Michael’s POV of his first kiss with Alex Manes in ten years. It does not exactly go as planned.
Series
- Part 1 of a closer look
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nothing's changed, everything's different by Rizandace
Fandoms: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
17 Mar 2022
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Michael’s got a hand behind Alex’s neck, pinning him in place so neither of them can look away. The trouble is, Alex could say so many things right now. He knows, everything about this night has shown him, that he still has the power to make Michael smile, make him so, so happy, give him exactly what he wants and needs most. What kind of monster would squander an opportunity like that when it’s right in front of him, all warm and smelling of sweat and rainstorms?
“Guerin,” Alex says. He doesn’t want to be sad, he doesn’t want to wonder if this was a mistake. Not yet. “You need to know, I really, really missed you.”
“Alex,” Michael says, a whisper-soft ache. “It’s like I said. For me, nothing’s changed.”
The season one, episode two hook-up, Alex's POV.
Series
- Part 2 of a closer look
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Alex had meant the drive-in and the beer as a peace offering, at first, after he’d bolted that morning from the Airstream. He’d shown up prepared, and he’d stopped Michael from leaving, and they’d gone on something nearly approaching a date, spontaneous and easy. They’d made casual conversation, they’d watched a dumb movie and it felt like the kind of thing people did together in a small town on a Saturday night. People who liked each other, people without the weight of trauma on their shoulders.
At the end of the night, the entire town loses power. Alex and Michael continue a conversation of sorts, in the dark.Series
- Part 3 of a closer look
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“Maybe it’s an alien thing,” Michael says.
He doesn’t mean to say it, the idle thought slipping out before he can give it real consideration. That tends to happen a lot around Isobel, and Max sometimes too when he’s not being a dick. They’re the only people with whom an unfiltered thought can be safely received, and Michael needs that more than he wants to admit.
“Maybe what’s an alien thing? The blackout?”
Set at the very end of episode four, before Max shows up to tell Isobel and Michael that Liz has told Kyle he's an alien.
Series
- Part 4 of a closer look
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“My dad didn’t leave you that key because he thought you were weak. He would have never thought that about you. You’re the bravest person I know.”
Kyle’s words play in Alex’s head for far longer than they should, all through that night as he studies the strange artifact he’d found in Valenti’s wall.
He has a complicated relationship to the word brave. He hears it all the time, of course. He’s in uniform a lot of the time, and there’s the crutch, it’s not exactly hard to piece together what’s happened to him, and people take one look at him and they say thank you. They say you’re so brave. He gets it from all sorts of people, those who knew him before he joined up, and strangers on the street.
Our brave men and women in uniform, yadda yadda.
Series
- Part 5 of a closer look
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They’d stayed together afterwards, lying down facing one another, but for only a couple of minutes. Michael couldn’t stop touching Alex’s hair, his face; he couldn’t stop smiling. He’d never been with someone like Alex before. Someone who made him feel everything, someone who made him understand the sappy way Max had stared at Liz Ortecho across the classroom every day like a total loser. Alex seemed happy too, some indefinable tension he always carried with him soothed away in the afterglow, his breath warm and steady against Michael’s skin.
In the aftermath of 1x06.
Series
- Part 6 of a closer look
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What if it had been Alex Manes?
You’re right. If you were the reason that Alex went to war, I’d hate you.
The thing was, Max hadn’t expected Michael to look so shattered about it.
An imagined extended conversation between Max and Michael.
Series
- Part 7 of a closer look
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Alex’s father was the very definition of untrustworthy. He didn’t buy for one second that Michael had been manipulating him. To believe that would be to rewrite the entire history of his life, the most sacred pieces of himself that he held deep in his heart. It would kill him.
***
Maybe Michael was setting himself up for eternal loneliness. Or maybe he just had to wait a little longer and the thing he wanted would somehow come to pass. And hey, maybe he was just a pathetic asshole who didn’t know how to take rejection when it was staring him in the face. He hadn’t seen Alex in nearly three weeks, and his absence itched at him, irritating and desolate.
Series
- Part 8 of a closer look
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More than all the rest of it, it’s Alex looking at him with such frank sincerity and saying I want to know who you are, Guerin.
Michael just. He just.
Has to tell him.
Alex is asking to know him, and Michael has never been able to deny him anything.
Michael's POV as he prepares to tell Alex Manes the truth.
Series
- Part 9 of a closer look
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potential uses of telekinetic alien powers by Rizandace
Fandoms: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
25 Mar 2022
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“Okay, wait, go back to the whole telekinesis is hot thing.”
“Have you ever held someone up with it during sex?”
Michael laughs again, a bright, surprised sound. “And how exactly would that work, given that it’s my most hidden and dangerous secret?”
“Right,” Alex says, smiling and shaking his head. His heart is pounding very hard in the hollow of his throat. He’d known about aliens before he’d come over to talk to Michael, but knowing in the abstract is quite different from watching Michael lift pebbles off the ground and float them through the air using only his mind. “I may be using inappropriate humor as a shield to deflect my true emotions.”
“I’ve never heard of such a tactic,” Michael says with an easy grin. “Might have to try that one day.”
Series
- Part 10 of a closer look
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He couldn’t really imagine going out and finding someone to fuck, here in Roswell where people would talk. Where Michael would be sure to find out. And he couldn’t exactly call the only person he wanted to touch him right now, which left him with the familiarity and finesse of his own right hand. Maybe it was kind of tragic, but there was truth to the idea that nobody knew how you liked to be touched better than yourself. Feeling faintly ridiculous and really wishing it hadn’t been Kyle who’d given him this idea, he went to bed early that night, laying himself out on the mattress entirely naked. This was an indulgence he normally wouldn’t have bothered with, but the night was long and lonely and Alex was very bad at remembering to take care of himself. He figured he might as well chase the impulse when it had occasion to arise.
Alex uh... has a night in...
Series
- Part 11 of a closer look
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Kyle drives back to Roswell afterwards, the smell of smoke in his nostrils, ears ringing from the explosion. There’s nothing to do, they can’t run off and tell anybody, they definitely were never supposed to be there or know Caulfield existed, so they’re just—going home. Turning around and heading back and slipping into the routines of their lives like they haven’t just seen what they’ve seen. There’s no discussion between the three of them, they merely make their way back to Kyle’s car in silence. He opens the driver’s side door, and Alex tugs Michael into the back seat, and they drive away. There’s a backpack full of hard drives and files, pulled almost at random in the haste of their necessary exit, sitting on the passenger seat. Government secrets right there beside him, but all Kyle can think of is the way Michael Guerin had sounded when he’d said these people—they’re like me!
Series
- Part 12 of a closer look
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Michael Guerin has been building a wall.
Alex Manes has been breaking down a wall.
A look at Malex through season one, the choices they make, the ways they move closer and farther apart from one another. Unfortunately, their happiness is still quite a long way away...
Series
- Part 13 of a closer look
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The thing was, Alex wasn’t heartbroken.
Really, he wasn’t. He was disappointed, yes, angry with himself, hurt by the flash of anger in Michael’s eyes. Haunted, even, by the finality with which Michael had declared I’m saying no. And yeah, okay, so maybe he’d cried about it a little bit. It had been a long several months, he was at the end of his rope, he wanted someone to give him a hug, and it sucked. It really sucked, to feel like there was this parallel life track where if he’d said the right thing, made his choices a little faster, then maybe…
Well, then maybe he would have earned the right to be there for Michael while he fell apart. Over Max, over Caulfield and his mom. All Alex wanted to do was hold him through the worst of it, promise him that he’d be there. He’d never been good at offering comfort, and he suspected Michael would be lousy about accepting his help to begin with, but it didn’t matter, he still wanted to try. But he couldn’t be that person for Michael if Michael didn’t want him to be.
But Alex wasn’t heartbroken.
Series
- Part 14 of a closer look
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“I’m not choosing—it’s not a binary choice,” Michael says. “Don’t pretend it’s clear cut like that.” He really doesn’t think of it that way, like he’s got Alex on one side and Maria on the other, and he has to choose which direction to turn. They are two completely different things, in relation to himself and who he wants to be. Alex has never been a choice he’s made, something he decided on for himself. Maria’s different.
Alex and Michael have a bit of a longer conversation.
Series
- Part 15 of a closer look
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“You’re avoiding the Pony because of—Maria and Michael? I’m pretty sure they’re not even speaking right now.”
Alex shrugs. “Yeah, well. Maria’s angry with all of us, but she’ll get over it. They’ll figure it out. I can’t be there when they do.”
Something close to foreboding prickles its way down the back of Liz’s neck. Alex isn’t one to feel sorry for himself, but right now he looks mournful enough that she wouldn’t be surprised to see tears in his eyes.
“Are you okay?” she asks bluntly, already knowing the answer.
Alex tilts his head back and forth, like he’s seriously thinking on how to respond. “Yes,” he says finally. “I mean, no, but I will be. God, you and I haven’t talked about any of this, have we? That’s so weird.”
Series
- Part 16 of a closer look
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Turns out, it’s sort of easy to be Alex’s friend. When you get past everything they’ve ever been to each other, all the times Michael’s been on the verge of tears (or well past the verge, let’s be honest), because of Alex Manes, when you forget about the harsh words and the blinding hot sex that they’re never going to have again, you’re left with Alex Manes being a really kind, smart, funny, good person. It’s the easiest thing in the world to be around him, if Michael lets it be.
Series
- Part 17 of a closer look
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Michael’s eye was blackened, a bruise darkening along the line of his jaw. A certain puffiness to his lip told Alex that he’d probably cut the inside of his mouth on a tooth when someone’s fist connected with his face.
“Oh my god.”
“Looks worse than it feels,” Michael said at once with an overly casual shrug. He was sitting on the bed of his truck, one knee pulled up with his arm resting on it, leaning against the side wall. “Not a big deal.”
Series
- Part 18 of a closer look
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Maria sees Travis stumble as a bullet clips him in the shoulder, but he doesn’t go down. He turns, stumbling off back towards the corn field. His twin curses and runs to follow.
And simultaneously, Maria hears a muffled grunt of disbelief from right beside her, and a body knocks into hers as it falls, a spray of blood misting in the air in front of her face. She turns to see, and loses track of everything but the sight of Alex hitting the ground, limbs an awkward tangle, shirt stained with a rapidly expanding pool of red in the dim light.“Oh fuck,” Michael says, which Maria frankly thinks might be an underreaction, that’s a lot of blood, and then they’re both on the ground at the same time, kneeling over Alex, moving their hands around on his chest like they can erase the evidence of the wound with their very touch.
Series
- Part 19 of a closer look
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”Hey, uh,” he started, clearing his throat and tugging her back further behind the bar, away from the customers, leaving a clear path for other bartenders to use. “I have to say something to you and it’s probably going to suck to hear.”
Maria’s smile dropped off her face, her head tilting in consternation. “Are you okay? Is something wrong?”
“Not wrong in the way we all regularly have to deal with wrong,” Alex assured her, because it wouldn’t do to have her thinking he was bearing ill news of yet another government conspiracy or secret mind-controlling murderer. “Actually, it’s about Michael.”
Series
- Part 20 of a closer look