Follow Through (for thenewnormal)

[neverlooksaway]

[Continued from TFLN]

Michael wasn't sure what he was doing, driving out to the Valenti cabin because Alex asked him to. It didn't make sense, but, then, nothing had since he'd gotten the misfired text. He thumbed back through the texts to look at them again. hot guy...huge crush... He found himself going back to the "huge crush," piece in his head while he drove. Then? Now? Still? Why was Alex planning to seduce him? What had he learned? Was Michael just setting himself up for more heartbreak?

Probably. Alex did this, though, pulled him right back in, made him believe, and then walked away. So, why, again was he backtracking when he missed the turn, taking the right one, rather than heading back to Roswell?

Because he was stupid for Alex Manes, and probably a little bit masochistic.

It took longer than it should have, with the backtracking, but he finally saw the lights of the cabin and turned off into the drive, pulling up to the cabin and cutting the engine off. He could still turn around, go back, but he knew he wouldn't. He was too curious about what Alex wanted here of all places, too keen to know what it was he was talking about, and too desperate to see just how and why he was planning to seduce him.

Still, he kept thinking about turning around even as he found himself at the door, knocking lightly.

Comments

[neverlooksaway]

It was pure instinct, even though it was one he was used to stifling. He could've dodged the bag of ice water, but he knocked it aside mentally, instead, on a very different trajectory than Alex threw it, so it hit the adjacent wall. He'd wanted to do that a dozen times in group and foster homes, had before he learned that just got you crosses burned in your skin (but, at least, they didn't say "alien," didn't call in the government, though he wonders now if there were reports and Jesse Manes found them).

He didn't even glance at it, once it fell, but kept his gaze on Alex as he explained, and something loosened, a knot he'd had inside him so long it didn't even consciously know it was there anymore. Alex's admission of how tired he was echoed Isobel's from just a few weeks before, and Michael let out a slow sigh, then closed his eyes briefly, rubbing his hand over his face, before moving in closer to Alex in turn, then past him, just a little to drop down onto the bed.

"I'm tired, too. Of all of it. Secrets. Fear. Not knowing where I stand with...anyone, really." He ran a hand through his hair, realized it was still trembling, maybe from the adrenaline of the fight-or-flight response earlier, maybe from something else. "You wanna talk? We can talk."

Though he had no idea where to begin. Possibly with the fact that, oh, yes, the water dripping down the wrong wall. Or not. He wanted Alex to know everything, but everything was a lot, and he was still on guard--less about the secret, more about his heart.

[thenewnormal]

Alex heaved a sign and went over to sit next to Michael. He had no idea what to say either. How could he explain the turbulent emotions he felt any time he and Michael were in a room together? How could he explain this connection he felt that shouldn't have existed? Like he knew Michael down to his soul when all he really knew were the basic facts. Hell, Maria probably knew Michael better than he did.

He wanted to reach over and take Michael's hand, the one ruined by his father. That was something he'd never understood. Why hadn't Michael gone to the ER? Sure, he'd been a kid on his own living in his truck, but someone would have taken pity on him. Kyle's father would have taken him in, Alex was sure of that. Almost sure. Given that the shard of what was probably an alien ship was hidden in his cabin and not with Alex's father's collection of all information alien, even if he'd known he might have helped.

But could they have dared the blood tests that would have happened, not to mention any kind of allergic or toxic reaction where, to a human, it would have been fine?

He kept his eyes on Michael's hands and his own hands to himself. "Why don't you start at the beginning. Three children are found wandering down the middle of the road. Mute."

[neverlooksaway]

Michael would've welcomed the touch, but he didn't feel like he could reach out for it himself. Instead, he unconsciously wrapped his arms back around his body, mentally girding himself to talk about the beginning, which was pretty horrible, no matter how you cut it.

"I don't know the real beginning. The ship crashed, and we were in these pods, I guess. I don't know if we were already born, or cloned, or hatched, or whatever the process is and in stasis, or if we were grown in the pods. Stasis was involved, obviously, in some way, unless alien gestation is fifty years." It was a flat attempt at a joke. "But we didn't know any of that, then. We just...woke up, and we clawed our way out and then went looking. For our family. For help. I don't really remember. We were mute, because we didn't have language at the time. I remember it in pictures, but I can't remember what I was thinking. I was scared. We were scared. There were bright lights--probably the headlights, and sounds--horns, maybe--and people. So many very loud people, making noises at us that we didn't understand."

Maybe it was the earlier panic attack, but he felt the fear again now, like it was yesterday, and he tightened his arms.

"We ended up in a group home. I don't remember a whole lot from then, except when they took Max and Isobel away, left me there. I remember screaming, then, but it might've been just in my head. And, then...they were gone. And I didn't see them again for a long time. It's all fragments, y'know? Emotion. I was terrified, and alone, and someone...the people who took me..." He shook his head, exhaled a shaky breath. "I learned to talk, eventually. I don't remember how or when." Of course, a lot of what he'd learned had been the names they'd called him for being too stupid to talk, for being defective, and worse.

[thenewnormal]

Angry, that was what Alex was feeling. Angry on Michael's behalf. Whether it was the people who had adopted Isobel and Max or the adoption agency itself, but someone had made a conscious decision to split the three of them up. Language or not, they must have known each other. They must have known that it was the three of them and then suddenly a lot more people.

But that poked something he'd wondered when he'd first found out about Michael's story.

"Are you three related? I mean, what you went through would pretty much make you family, but do you know if you're actually related? For that matter, how would anyone have been sure that Max and Isobel were twins?"

Unless that was why his father had ended up suspecting that something was going on with them. Unless there was some report out there that said 'other'.

[neverlooksaway]

"No." Michael shook his head. "I mean - we don't know if we're actually related. We don't even know if our DNA would show a blood relationship in the same way--if the same tests would work to find out, and. I've never...wanted to know, for certain." Because he was pretty sure he wasn't really their brother. "I don't know why everyone assumed Max and Isobel were twins rather than us being triplets." Their eyes were all the same color. "Max and Isobel think they're twins, because they've got this psychic bond. They can feel each other there, all the time, like just this low-key presence. I can't feel them that way." But that wasn't something the group home would've known.

"We've always said we were family, though. They call me their brother, and we've always celebrated our birthday as being the same--the day we were found. But I've never been as sure as they are. Isobel got really pissed the one time I said that, though."

Their childhoods had been so different; he couldn't feel them in his head; he always felt a bit outside of them.

[thenewnormal]

"Something I learned after I got away from this town? Family is whoever you want it to be, not necessarily the one you're born with. Do you think they'd have your back if you really needed them? Not, like, a morning after in the drunk tank need. I'm talking life or death kind of thing."

His eyes stayed firmly on Michael's hands as he said, "Heartbreak kind of thing. Something that really matters."

He'd met guys like that in the service and not always the people he was teamed up with. Sometimes it was just someone who would let him talk about anything or nothing. Those were the guys who stayed in touch as best they could after he was injured.

[neverlooksaway]

"Yes." As much as they'd fought these last years, Michael had no doubt that if he needed them, they would both be there. Isobel had been, all this time, thinking he'd killed those girls. Max had gotten him out of most of the major trouble he might've gotten into.

"It's not them. It's me, not feeling like I belong. But I know they have my back, like I have theirs. It's not their fault, what happened to me, and Max has done his best to try and make up for it through the years."

[thenewnormal]

"Then Isobel is right. You're family." Alex didn't know what to say about Michael not feeling like he'd belonged. He'd always been on the fringes a bit in school. Popular enough with the girls and never an outright enemy to anyone in school, but not really a part of anything, either. He just always seemed to be wherever Isobel and Max ended up.

"All right, so then you and I met and I'm pretty sure I know how that story goes." Down to the busted hand and Michael's inability to play the guitar ever again.

Damn. He should have hit his father harder.

"Why did you stay in town? I thought for sure you would have gotten out of here, first chance you got."

[neverlooksaway]

"You skipped a few years," Michael said quietly, mainly because they were important years, if Alex really wanted to know him. They were the years he didn't talk about to Max and Isobel much, the pieces that formed the foundation for everything else.

"I was gonna leave, you know. Had a full ride to UNM. But why I didn't is...complicated."

[thenewnormal]

Alex swallowed. "I wasn't sure if you'd want to talk about that." Alien things were fair game, but Alex knew Michael had a past that was just about having a shitty childhood. In a lot of ways, Alex could relate. The one moment of violence that Michael had seen from Alex's father had been unique in that it had been the most brutal he'd ever been, but raised hands had not been a new thing in the Manes household.

Maybe that's why knocking him out with his crutch had been so satisfying.

"But I'll listen if you want to tell me."

[neverlooksaway]

"I don't, really. Not in detail." He never had. Maybe he should, maybe it would release some of the constant anger that always simmered underneath his skin. But he couldn't, today, not with fear still swimming so close under his skin. He knew Alex could understand, Alex just telling him things were bad at home, and then seeing what Jesse Manes was capable of, let him know they'd probably gone through a lot of the same things. But it was less the violence, more the...being lost that was important.

"No one in Roswell would take me, after Isobel and Max were gone. The people who finally did--they took me away. That's why I wasn't around when you all met in elementary school." So, he hadn't just been separated like in different households from Isobel and Max. He'd been gone. "It...wasn't good there. And I got sent back here, ended up in a group home again a couple of years later. Which was...better, I guess. 'Cause I found Isobel and Max again, and could at least see them at school. I kinda bounced from family to family to group home. No one wanted me for long, and I guess I can't blame them. I was angry, a lot. That chaos I told you about. And then--" He glanced around, held out his hand and called a book into his hand from the nightstand. "My powers started manifesting."

His gaze dropped to the book. "I didn't have control, though. So, mixing anger with out-of-control telekinesis? You've seen Carrie, right?" It's a rhetorical question. "I'd get mad, and furniture would go flying. I learned to control it before anyone ever got seriously hurt, but. The lady at the group home I was living in when I was 13 called in an actual exorcist. For the record--exorcism sucks."

[thenewnormal]

The funny thing was that the whole group of them had circled around each other for years. Alex had mainly been friends with Maria and Liz. And then there'd been Michael. Liz had dated Kyle until he finally showed off his asshole colors - and thank god he was over that phase. But you also couldn't help but see that Max was head over heels for Liz. And then, of course, there were Michael and Max and Liz.

But there'd been combinations that had never really happened. He'd never been anything more than passing acquaintances with Max and Isobel and so he didn't know their parents. But right at that moment, he was cursing them in his head. For giving up on a child who was clearly attached to the ones they'd adopted. And they had no way of knowing if they were related or not.

He'd been trying to keep himself detached, trying to keep a distance between them so that Michael could tell his story, but at this he found himself reaching out to grab Michael's hand and hold it in his.

"People suck," was his succinct response to the entire situation and he squeezed Michael's hand.

[neverlooksaway]

"Yeah. That's generally been my theory, with few exceptions." Michael wrapped his fingers around Alex's, holding on tight. "I said 'fuck it' when I was sixteen. Got a job at the junkyard, and figured my truck was better than where I'd been." And despite that, he'd managed the grades and test scores for a full scholarship.

"And, then...I met you. And you were nice to me. Pretty much the first human ever to be." Not that they'd all been cruel. He'd had teachers who'd encouraged him, obviously. And Sanders had given him a job, let him park and crash in his truck in the junkyard. But that simple kindness, looking and seeing something so simple as that Michael might be cold at night. That hadn't even occurred to Max, let alone any of his teachers or his boss or the adults surrounding them.

Was it any wonder he'd fallen in love so hard and so fast? That it had lasted so long? That he just wanted to shift and wrap his arms around Alex and hold on forever--fuck everything else going on around them? But he didn't do that; just held onto his hand fiercely, like the anchor it was.

[thenewnormal]

"You were..." Alex sighed. He didn't know how to explain Michael. What he'd thought of Michael. Cute, sure. You couldn't see Michael smile and not see that. But with a handful of words, he'd seen something of a kindred spirit, too, and he couldn't not make the offer. And every moment they spent together after that, however brief, just sharpened that conviction. "You just were, I guess."

Everything Alex hadn't known he'd been looking for. A part of him he hadn't realized he'd needed.

He almost wanted to say the hell with it. He didn't need to know more. He wasn't sure how much else he could handle. At least after this. Hell, exorcism. Because there was definitely more. There was whatever reason Michael had used not leave the town, the state. And there were other things he didn't want to think about, like why and how his father had connected bodies to Michael and his...well, family, he supposed.

He leaned back until his back hit the bed and he was staring at the ceiling.

"I wasn't going to seduce you," he said. It hadn't been his intention, at least, although with them who knew. Things always seemed to begin and end in fireworks and that was definitely how tonight had started. "I just thought it might be...easier to talk with something to drink."

[neverlooksaway]

Michael was glad Alex didn't just launch into more questions. He was still trembling a little from the adrenaline--or whatever they had in its place--rush of the panic attack, and curling up next to Alex sounded far better than talking more, going into more hard stuff.

He quirked a half-smile at Alex's explanation that wasn't really, but was, tied to who and what they'd been and maybe who and what they'd become--he wasn't sure.

But he stretched out on the bed, in turn, still with his fingers wrapped around Alex's before giving him a look. "That's a cruel bait-and-switch, Manes." Especially since he had to know Michael still wanted him. Alcohol wouldn't go amiss, but he also didn't want to drink too much if he was supposed to head back home after he spilled his guts about the alien stuff.

[thenewnormal]

Alex glanced over at Michael and chuckled. "That text wasn't supposed to go to you, remember? I was going to say that I needed to show you something and--" He stopped, thought about what he'd just said, and shook his head. "Never mind. You would have taken that the wrong way, too."

If it was really the wrong way. Here he was, lying next to Michael, and it was a sheer effort of will not to do anything but hold his hand. He wanted to wrap himself up in Michael and forget their shitty childhoods.

"I just wanted to get some real answers. To...know who you are."

[neverlooksaway]

"Yeah, but then you said it was about me, implying that was still your plan," Michael pointed out. "I don't think you can say I took anything the wrong way."

But he couldn't really argue with the wanting to get to know who he was.

"You could've just asked," he said after a moment, looking over at Alex in turn. "I've wanted to tell you for ten years."

[thenewnormal]

"I didn't know to ask. Not until I found something in the basement of this place when I didn't even know it had one. Then I only knew...something. Enough to do research. Enough to track down every lead I found back to my father. It wasn't until I broke into his computer system that I realized you were involved. And that was just this morning."

It had answered a few questions and raised over a dozen more. And he had even more questions now, but it felt nice to just lie here with Michael and ignore the stampede of elephants in the room.

"And besides, if you wanted to tell me...why didn't you?"

[neverlooksaway]

"I meant tonight." He frowned a little. "I'm sorry I freaked out like I did. I...don't know what that was. I just...the room was too small and I couldn't breathe. I haven't felt like that in a long time."

Not since he was a kid, really, and maybe that was partly why he didn't want to go any farther with the explanations tonight.

But, at least the question Alex asked now was one he could answer without issues. "It's been the one rule we've lived by all our lives: don't tell anyone. Ever. If no one knows about us, then we...and they...are safer. I didn't care; there wasn't anyone I ever wanted to tell until you."

[thenewnormal]

Alex wasn't sure what it was about that last statement that broke some barrier inside him. Maybe it was that one of the hardest parts of loving Michael was that he didn't really know Michael. Not the way he wanted. And there was so much baggage that Alex wanted to share that he didn't know how to. About his own childhood. About why he'd left. About how time in the service. And now about how his father had disappointed him once again.

He turned in the bed and leaned in and kissed Michael softly.

No matter how angry he was, how sad, how unsure. This always felt the rightest thing he'd ever done.

[neverlooksaway]

Michael wasn't expecting the kiss, even though he'd been making an idiot of himself being very clear about how much he wanted it sine he'd gotten pissed at the first text message, thinking Alex was getting ready to hit on someone else. But he turned into it immediately, reaching to cradle Alex's jaw with his hand.

He knew it wasn't necessarily a good idea, getting tangled in Alex, but he'd never managed to untangle himself from him, so what did it matter if he fell right back in. It was where he wanted to be, anyway; the only place he'd ever felt like things were right in the world.

[thenewnormal]

He could have made more of the kiss. It wouldn't take any effort to settle against Michael's body and go at it like they were teenagers again. But they'd done that again and again and it didn't seem to change anything. One of them would say or do something that would piss of the other one and they in turn would make the first angry and in the end...Alex would leave.

Except this time, his enlistment was almost up and he had nowhere to go.

So he kept the kiss gentle. This wasn't about sex. It was about showing Michael what he meant to him.

[neverlooksaway]

Michael was shaken up enough still that he didn't automatically try and ratchet it up, either. He did press closer, wanting to feel Alex as close as possible without it being about sex. There was still a trembling deep inside, and it grew a little again. Too much emotion, too fast, when he was used to holding it in.

He focused on the details, the small things--the feel of Alex's hair under his fingertips, the taste of him on his lips, the sound of his breath. Michael's heartbeat pounded in his ears as he broke the kiss and dropped his forehead to Alex's shoulder, wrapping his arm around Alex to just curl into him and work on trying to not break down crying or something ridiculous that there wasn't any real reason for.

[thenewnormal]

"Do you want to come to bed, Michael?" He had his arms wrapped around Michael and his nose buried in his hair. As much as he wanted to stay in this position all night, his leg would not appreciate it in the morning, but he was afraid that sense would slip into Michael once they moved.

He ran his fingers along Michael's spine.

"Just sleep." And cuddling. Because he didn't think he could stop touching Michael now that he'd started.

[neverlooksaway]

The only thing that made sense in his life in a lot of ways was here with Alex. He calmed the chaos, made things settle. He arched a little into the fingers down his spine, then huffed a bit of a laugh, pulling back to give Alex a small smile.

"Yeah." He wasn't quite as sure about the 'just sleep' part, but, at the same time...just curling up in Alex's arms for the night sounded like heaven. He didn't really care if it was sensible or not. "Yeah, I would."

He sat up and pulled off his boots, at least, finally shrugged out of his jacket, though he hesitated at anything else, even if, really, stripping down more would be better for sleeping. Or cuddling.