#evan never held it against michael. but he was afraid of his brother for a long time | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cloudwhisper23 · 7 months

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So, I created another AU, and I have this scrapped prologue that I'm probably going to replace with a new one. But I figured, "Hey, it's still fnaf content," and so I'm going to post it anyway!

(It's that Evan survives AU from a while ago. The whole prologue is getting scrapped simply because I've had a perspective change on part of it. Well, anyway!)

Mikey was upset. Again. Lizzie did laundry this week, and something had happened to Mikey’s favorite jacket. The one Evan knew specifically not to take to wash. The one Lizzie should’ve known better than to touch.

Evan knew where the jacket was. It was on top of the laundry basket in Evan’s room. She always did something wrong when she did chores. It was why Evan usually tried to do her chores for her. But she’d been too fast this week. She was never this fast, unless she had friends coming over. And Evan hadn’t known she was having friends over today.

Evan was not in his room right now. Lizzie hadn’t just decided to move Mikey’s favorite jacket. No, she’d also moved Fredbear, which meant Evan was out looking for him.

After his initial panicked search, he hovered by the entrance to the living room, where Lizzie had set up with her friends. One of them looked over and spotted him. “Is that your little brother, Liz?”

Lizzie didn’t even bother turning around. “Evan’s older than me.”

“I thought Mike was your older brother.”

“I have two brothers,” Lizzie finally turned around. “What do you want?” Her mouth twitched. “Oh. That’s right.”

“What?” her third friend asked.

“He’s looking for his little friend. Evan carries that stuffed bear everywhere. It must’ve gotten mixed up with Mike’s jacket in the wash.” Elizabeth’s eyes gleamed with mischief as Evan paled significantly.

“Lizzie-“

“Not my problem anymore! Go away, Evan!” She waved him away, a dangerous undertone in her voice.

Evan stumbled around the corner, trembling slightly with the significance of her statement. Either Evan would have to go back to his room and sleep without Fredbear tonight, or he’d have to face Mike when he was incredibly upset. Not to mention that Mike specifically never let anyone wash his jacket, and Fredbear wasn’t supposed to go in the washing machine either. Lizzie didn’t care about that though. She probably just assumed that pitting her brothers against each other would keep them out of her way.

She was nearly right, Evan thought glumly as he picked up the jacket to shake out the wrinkles. I probably ruined everything again. A folded-up piece of paper fell out of one of the interior pockets as Evan shook it. He retrieved it and read it before he considered what a bad idea that would be.

Messy handwriting Evan didn’t recognize spanned the surface of the paper. Hey, man. I know you’re probably still mad about what I said, but I just wanted to apologize again. It sucks that you don’t really get a say in your own life, and I really shouldn’t have tried to make a joke out of it. Please forgive me. – J.

Evan shuddered. He didn’t know who “J” was, but he knew far better than to ask Michael about it. There was also a phone number written under the signature, but again, Evan knew better than to call it. Shoving the note back into the pocket, Evan carefully folded the jacket and ascended the stairs to Michael’s room. He hesitated for a long time before knocking on the door, afraid that Michael would still be furious from his earlier outburst.

Michael didn’t answer the door right away, but he didn’t shout for Evan to go away either. When he opened the door, Evan’s attention quickly went to the fact that his eyes were red and puffy. “What the hell do you want?”

Evan held out the jacket in reply, fixing his gaze on the floor. “Lizzie said your jacket got mixed up with Fredbear in the wash-“

Michael tore the jacket from Evan’s hands, making him flinch. The jacket came unfolded, and Michael dug around in the pockets, pulling out the same piece of paper Evan had read earlier. He had the feeling that it was much more personal than he’d originally thought.

Michael stopped then, seeming to register what Evan had said. “The wash?”

Evan nodded vigorously. “I don’t think Lizzie knew she wasn’t supposed to wash it. Fredbear wasn’t supposed to go through the wash either.”

Michael blinked down at the note again, his hand shaking a little bit. Evan almost said that the note was fine, but he managed to swallow the words. Michael didn’t need to know that he already read the message. The jacket dropped from Michael’s hands as he slowly unfolded the note, letting out a soft sigh of relief as he saw the words written there.

“Lizzie… also said you had Fredbear?” Evan mumbled quietly, uncertain if Michael even remembered that he was there.

Shaking himself out of what seemed to be a different world, Michael nodded. “Yeah, he was buried in the laundry basket. He has a few new tears, but I can stitch those up.”

“You’d do that?” Evan whispered.

Michael ignored him, pushing the door open further. “You can sit on the bed while I work.” He folded the note again and stuck it in his shorts. “Just don’t talk too much.”

Evan nodded, stepping into the room. He hadn’t noticed before, but Michael’s room was decidedly messy. Despite the fact that Lizzie had just done laundry, clothes were strewn about everywhere on the floor. What caught Evan’s attention, however, was the open sketchbook on the bed.

Michael hastily flipped the book shut and tossed it on the floor to join the clothes. He pulled open a drawer, and the frayed threads of Fredbear’s body were next to catch Evan’s attention. Evan let out a faint whimper as he saw the proper damage done to his favorite friend.

Not only were threads loose and fraying, but an entire section of the stuffing from Fredbear’s belly was missing completely. An eye sagged in its socket, and Fredbear’s hat tumbled from between his ears when Michael picked him up.

Evan sat stiffly on the bed, focused on every moment Michael made with the thread, every chance he had to make things worse. There were moments when Michael had hurt Fredbear on purpose, and those were the rare moments when Father would appear to scold his oldest child and scoop up the damaged stuffed bear to repair him. Fredbear never seemed quite right after Father took him away, but at least Evan could be sure Fredbear would come back.

“Good as new,” Michael eventually said.

Evan wanted to question so many things, but when Michael thrust the stuffed bear at him, he instantly kept quiet and hurried out of the room, hearing the door shut behind him.

The yelling was getting too intense. Evan pulled his blanket tighter around his body, crushing Fredbear to his chest as he tried to block out the sound of his brother’s voice. Their mother had come home from her business trip, just in time to catch Michael sneaking back in after curfew.

“You’re fifteen years old! You should be more responsible than this!” He heard his mother shout.

“I am responsible! You can’t expect me to take care of two younger siblings all the time without help and think I don’t need time to myself every now and then!”

The rapid knocking at the door forced Evan out of his tight cocoon of partial quiet. He crawled out of his bed and opened the door, one arm still around Fredbear.

Elizabeth stood in the doorway, looking incredibly small as she twisted a strand of hair around her finger. “Can I stay with you tonight?” she whispered as the yelling continued.

Evan nodded, choosing not to comment on the tension in her shoulders or the shortened nubs of her fingertips. He almost managed to get the door to stay shut behind her, keeping the volume of the voices in the kitchen as quiet as possible.

Elizabeth got all tangled in Evan’s blankets, leaving him shivering on the edge of his own bed. Fredbear tumbled out of his arms as he pulled a pillow over his head in hopes of alleviating the noise, but he found that he had no luck.

The next day, Michael made breakfast in silence. It was Elizabeth’s favorite, and Evan tried not to take it personally. Everything seemed like it was out to get him lately. From the argument last night to Elizabeth basically claiming his entire bed, Evan felt severely neglected.

When their parents came in for breakfast, someone ruffled Evan’s hair, but he didn’t look up to see who. Scones always put his whole family in a good mood for some reason. Maybe that was the real reason Michael made them. He probably just wanted everyone to be in a good mood. Evan just wanted cereal.

School went fine, as far as days went. One of the other kids actually passed him a note checking in on him. It was unsigned, so Evan didn’t actually know who was concerned, but he appreciated that at least someone cared.

Michael offered to bring them both to get ice cream after school, and Evan silently argued in his head. No, he didn’t want ice cream, and no, he didn’t care to be stuck in their little Afton cluster for that much longer.

Evan really wanted space away from Elizabeth, truth be told, so when Michael turned to start walking down the sidewalk, Evan stepped off the path in the direction of home. A boy he didn’t recognize joined him on the sidewalk.

“Where are you headed?” he asked Evan.

“Home,” Evan answered truthfully. “I have to get my homework done for class tomorrow.”

“Any chance I could go with you?” the boy asked hopefully. “I really need to focus on my schoolwork too, but I don’t have anyone to help me hold myself accountable.”

“I can ask my mom when I get there, but I can’t promise anything,” Evan warned, already dreading his decision to say yes.

“Sweet! I’m Fritz by the way. Fritz Simonsen.”

“Nice to met you. I’m Evan Afton.” Evan kept his gaze forward, grateful he’d remembered to keep Fredbear stowed away in his bag.

“Afton? Doesn’t your dad own that diner in town or something?”

“He co-owns it,” Evan replied.

“Same thing. That’s pretty cool.”

“I guess so.” Elizabeth loved bringing her friends there after school because of their family’s discount. Evan didn’t like going when she was there. But at least Fredbear’s performances were fun to watch. Sometimes.

Fritz started babbling on about how neat the different animatronics were, claiming that Foxy was the best in terms of the newer generation. Evan just nodded along, only partially listening. Fritz had too much energy, and Evan was struggling to keep up in the conversation. But he must’ve been doing something right because Fritz was still talking by the time they got to Evan’s house.

He pushed the door open and called out to his mom. “I’m home! I hope it’s okay that I brought a friend with me.”

His mother’s voice came faintly from the kitchen, asking him to come to her. Evan obliged, leading Fritz further into the house as he continued explaining the reasons why pirates were the best.

Evan’s mother glanced over briefly, smiling at both boys. “It’s nice to see that you’ve been making friends, Evan.”

Evan just shrugged, but Fritz’s eyes gleamed. “He’s a really good listener, and he’s super nice Mrs. Afton.”

“That’s wonderful to hear, Mr…?”

“Fritz. Fritz Simonsen,” Fritz stuck out a hand to shake hands with Evan’s mother. Her smile widened as she shook his hand.

“Nice to meet you, Fritz. Now I suppose I don’t have to tell you boys to make sure you get your homework done before you start playing, do I?”

“Of course not, Mom,” Evan replied.

“Of course not,” she repeated fondly. “Now get to it! The sooner you get done, the sooner you can play.”

Evan’s homework took a lot longer than usual, mainly because he had to keep reminding Fritz to work on his instead of distracting Evan. Each time he brought it up, Fritz would smile sheepishly and get to work for maybe ten minutes before he’d start talking again. It wasn’t so bad, but Evan didn’t want to have to do it constantly throughout the night.

When Michael and Elizabeth got home, they were still before their father, and their mother was not happy. She nagged them about focusing on their work, and she said their father would have a talk with them when he got home.

“Is your dad usually home late from work?” Fritz asked. They were sitting in the living room still, but their homework was finished.

“Almost every night. Last night he fell asleep at work and didn’t get home until we were all asleep. Mom keeps leftovers warm for him.”

“Is your family nice?”

“Sometimes,” Evan replied. He reached for his bag and pulled Fredbear out of it. “But I can’t trust them all the time.”

“Huh. I don’t have siblings, so I can’t even imagine what that’s like.”

“Consider yourself lucky,” Elizabeth said, plopping down on the couch next to Evan. “It gets exhausting sometimes. Especially having Michael as a brother.”

Evan didn’t acknowledge the statement, sensing a trap. Instead he just tucked himself further against the couch and let his eyes close. He was so tired.

His eyes opened slowly to a darkened hallway. Evan blinked harder, but he realized he was being carried back to his room. His father gently laid him in the bed, tucking Fredbear in beside him.

“Good night, Evan,” his father said softly, pressing a kiss to his forehead.

Evan’s eyelids were still heavy, and he let them close again, relaxing in the comfort of his room. He was safe.

The end of the year was coming soon. Evan wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about it, truth be told. Mother and Father were arguing more often lately. Lizzie claimed it was because Michael was stressing them both out, but Evan knew better. They were blaming each other for not being around more, and that put more strain on Michael, who’d stopped going out on his own, instead sticking around to make food for Elizabeth and Evan. His friends stopped by sometimes, but Evan knew that Michael needed some way to be happier.

Several times, Evan debated calling Sammy, but he stopped every time. It wasn’t his business. Sammy and his mother moved away several years ago, and Evan didn’t even know if Sammy still remembered them. No, it was probably best to ask Sammy for suggestions on how to make Michael feel better. It was best not to interfere.

A girl from Evan’s class started offering to help him with math, so thankfully Evan didn’t have to worry about asking Michael for help with schoolwork. Fritz was still as energetic and clingy as ever, saying they needed to think about the sports they were going to join in the fall.

Evan thought that was a bit foolish, but he’d considered it for a bit, and before Christmas he’d asked Michael about the different sports he could do. Michael had just said Evan didn’t have enough of a competitive streak for football or wrestling.

Evan ended up looking the sports up on his own and asked one of his teachers about it. She’d suggested cross country since the rules were pretty straightforward. She also mentioned track, but Evan didn’t really care about that. The spring could wait until Evan decided if running suited him in the first place. He’d told Fritz about what he’d learned, and they both planned to ask their parents to register them for the sport in the fall.

Evan didn’t know how to go about it. His mother had left on yet another business trip, which meant he had to ask his father. And he never helped with school-related activities normally.

They hadn’t gone home right after school today. The only way Michael could take time to himself was when they went to Fredbear’s, and that meant Evan and Elizabeth were stuck in the diner as well.

Charlie, seemingly materializing out of thin air, grabbed Elizabeth’s arm, chattering about the shows and what they were going to do. Evan just took off his backpack and sat on the floor beside a table, trying to pretend the floor was less sticky than it felt. He still had homework to do, and he much preferred doing it in his lap than on the tables next to messy younger kids.

“All on your own today, kiddo?” the security guard asked.

Evan just shrugged, continuing on with his homework. “I’m usually on my own.”

“Don’t you want to watch the show?”

“I’ve already seen this one.” Evan didn’t even look up.

“Don’t you want to make new friends?”

“Not particularly. I just want to do my homework while I wait for my brother to finish hanging out with his friends.”

The security guard didn’t know what to say to that, so he finally walked away, giving Evan proper time to focus on his homework. That is, until a boy in a Bonnie mask dropped down beside him.

“Hey kid,” the boy said.

Evan ignored him.

“Hey, I’m talking to you.”

“I can tell,” Evan replied.

“Don’t you want to know what I want?”

“Not really.”

The boy got mad at that reaction. He shoved the textbook out of Evan’s lap and yanked him up by his shirt. “Who do you think you are?”

“Just another kid trying to do his homework,” Evan wheezed, kicking his feet to break free.

“Dude, let him go,” another kid interjected, pulling Evan free from the kid in the Bonnie mask.

“You can’t tell me what to do, Fitzgerald,” the first kid snapped, but he backed down.

Evan collected his textbook, wincing as the pages resisted before pulling away from the tiles of the floor. Fitzgerald simply laughed at what the other kid said. “I’m not telling you what to do. I’m just saying that’s a bad idea. Don’t you know who his father is?”

“No,” the kid in the Bonnie mask said resentfully.

“William Afton.” Fitzgerald’s smirk widened as the kid with the Bonnie mask paled. “You don’t want to get kicked out, do you?”

“You’re Mike’s brother?” the kid asked.

Evan shoved his textbook back into his bag. “Yeah.” He kept his gaze on the ground. “And you’re Mike’s friend.”

“So maybe the two of you should try to get along, yeah?”

Evan slung his bag over his shoulder as Mike’s friend argued with the other guy. He didn’t need to be caught up in this, and besides-

“Boo!” Mike jumped from around the corner of a table, making Evan recoil and drop to the floor in an effort to shield himself. “You’re such a scaredy-cat, Ev.”

Evan took a steading breath and sat back up. “You came out of nowhere,” he attempted to say with a snarky tone. Instead, his voice came out tiny and feeble.

Mike’s friend laughed, and when Evan looked around, the Fitzgerald kid was nowhere in sight. Maybe he’d lost the verbal debate, or maybe he’d figured his job was done. Either way, Evan truly was on his own in this. Fear twinged in his stomach. Once he’d become the target of Michael’s teasing, it wouldn’t end until long after they got home. And the worst part was that Evan was never prepared when he did it.

Much to Evan’s terrified disappointment, Michael did not stop after that night. He’d found that Evan was an excellent source of extra entertainment, and regardless of whether or not his friends were around, he was suddenly determined to scare him whenever he got the chance. Evan hated it, the anticipation of the fright, and the fact that he still never expected it when it actually happened.

The crying fits that Evan was sure he’d grown out of had started coming back as well, and he was constantly waking from nightmares he couldn’t even remember in the morning. Evan’s guard was up for every minute of every day, and it made him hysterical sometimes. It didn’t help when he’d run away that one time and ended up locked in a storage closet for several hours. The security guard had to be the one to let him out, asking too many questions Evan didn’t have answers for.

He just hoped things would be better on his birthday. At least Michael had an actual obligation to be nice to him then. Besides, Fritz would be there, and Michael never succeeded at scaring him when his friend was around.

He had no idea how wrong he was.

His birthday had come around, the one day of the year Evan felt comfortable carrying his Fredbear plush during. Fritz noticed the plushie immediately, and he proceeded to ask too many questions about him, as per usual. Evan didn’t mind it today though. Fritz could ask as many questions as he’d liked so long as he stayed beside Evan.

Fritz continued blabbing all the way through the happy birthday song and the presents. He’d stop only to take a sip of his drink and then resume talking. Evan wondered how someone could talk so much without getting sick of it. He knew that if he talked that much, he would always have a sore throat.

“I gotta go to the bathroom. I’ll be right back,” Fritz eventually said.

“Wait-“

Fritz patted Evan’s shoulder and beelined it for the bathroom before Evan could argue. Charlie took his spot immediately though, tapping Evan’s arm. “Who is he?”

“Fritz. He’s my best friend.” Evan knew it sounded like a betrayal to Fredbear, but honestly, since his experience in that storage closet with the spare heads and unstable shelves, Evan would appreciate a large distance from Fredbear.

“I thought Fredbear was your best friend,” Charlie replied, catching on right away. “Did something happen?”

“I need some space from Fredbear right now. That’s all.”

“I bet if you just explained what he did, he’d apologize! Oh, I’m absolutely sure of it, Evie!”

Evan didn’t have the heart to tell her that Fredbear couldn’t apologize because it wasn’t even his fault Evan didn’t like him as much anymore. With the plans to implement the newer generation, it was probably for the best. They’d probably phase Fredbear and Spring Bonnie out of the center stage position to make more room for Freddy and his friends. Or Mikey and his friends, more like.

They were actually excited about the change. While Charlie chattered on about how kind and considerate Fredbear would be about the whole misunderstanding, Evan was actually wondering where his brother had disappeared to. He could see two of Michael’s friends standing by the stage, but the kid in the Bonnie mask and Michael in his Foxy mask were nowhere to be found.

Eventually, Charlie tapped his arm again. “Are you even listening to me anymore?”

“Of course I was. I just don’t think it’s a problem Fredbear can solve this time, Charlie.”

“But Evan-“

“Go find Lizzie. I’m sure she’s wondering where you went.”

Charlie’s mouth turned down in a frown. “Uncle Will’s letting her calibrate the animatronics for testing today. She doesn’t want me around to mess it up. And Papa needs quiet in order to figure out all his numbers for the other animatronics.”

“What about-“

“I want to spend time with you, Evan!” Charlie’s cheeks seemed to be tinged a bit red as she said it, grabbing his arm. “Don’t push me away, please. Don’t shut me out like Fredbear.”

“What’s wrong with Fredbear?” Michael asked, an arm dropping to pat Charlie’s shoulder.

Evan picked at the plastic of the table cloth as Charlie explained that Evan didn’t want to be around Fredbear today. “But I said he should just talk to him and make up. It must all be some kind of misunderstanding.”

“It probably is,” the boy in the Bonnie mask said, leaning across the table.

Where did they even come from? Evan thought to himself. They hadn’t been anywhere in sight a few moments before. And even now, he could see that Michael’s other friends had spotted them, starting to walk over.

Evan’s heart sank. Clearly, his birthday wasn’t as safe of a day as he’d hoped. The boy in the Bonnie mask continued as Michael’s other friends arrived. “I bet if he just went up and gave Fredbear a kiss, he’d feel a lot better about it. What do you say, Mike?”

Evan saw the way Michael tensed up behind his Foxy mask. It was the way Mike always behaved when he was conflicted in a decision. It was the way he reacted when he wanted to impress someone, but he knew the decision was terrible.

Evan opened his mouth at the same time as Charlie to argue, but Michael nodded slowly. “Yeah. Maybe all he needs is time to talk to Fredbear.”

“No, you’re not understanding me, Mike. He’s gotta give the big guy a kiss.”

“I don’t know, Devan-“

“Here, you just lift him by that arm, and I’ll lift him by this one and then he’ll be tall enough.”

“Ok…” Michael reluctantly agreed.

Evan immediately started kicking out, trying to break their grip on him, but he knew that Michael was relatively strong from carrying his instrument case all the time, and Devan was strong from something. Evan had a better chance of fighting a brick wall than breaking Devan’s grip on his arm. “Mikey, they’re doing calibrations. Please, don’t-“

“Can you just shut up?” one of Michael’s other friends said. “Quit being such a crybaby all the time. The innocent kid routine is getting old.”

Evan flinched, biting his lip to stop himself from crying. He could see Charlie trying to push past Michael’s third friend in the Freddy mask, but he knew there was no hope. Charlie was so small for her age, and the other kid was so much bigger than her.

As they approached the stage, Evan spotted Fritz coming out of the bathroom, and he quickly mouthed instructions at him. Confused, Fritz wrinkled his brow before Evan shaped the words slower. Get my father.

Comprehension finally dawned in Fritz’s eyes, and he saluted before racing off toward the restricted hallway. He never had much regard for rules anyway. With an internal sigh of relief, Evan and the boys carrying him reached the stage.

Fredbear and Spring Bonnie stood on the stage motionless. From what Charlie had said earlier, Evan assumed they would have started the calibration by now, but perhaps this just meant Fritz already made it backstage to stop the progression of the system check before it even begun.

Unfortunately, Evan noticed Spring Bonnie’s ears twitching, the start of the calibrating tests. That meant they only had as much time as it would take for the bunny to finish testing to be safe around Fredbear.

The balance between Michael and Devan was off, so instead of keeping him level in front of Fredbear’s face, Evan’s face crashed between the rounded teeth of Fredbear’s jaw. He could feel scratches scraping the side of his face.

Michael muttered something to Devan that Evan couldn’t catch, and the side of Evan’s body closest to Michael shifted downward. Evan could see the outline of the Foxy mask out of the corner of his right eye in the moment before everything went wrong.

Spring Bonnie wasn’t even halfway through his calibration when Fredbear’s calibration begun with the tightening of the animatronic’s jaw.

With a forceful crack, Evan’s entire head exploded with pain. His arm flailed out, reaching for someone, anyone, who could pull him out before the calibration continued. Devan, being an idiot, kept holding on to Evan, trying to resist the change of direction, even after Michael shouted at him to quit, that he was making it worse. That was the last thing Evan heard before he lost consciousness and his memory vanished.

#cloud writes #cloud speaks #fnaf #evan afton #michael afton #afton family #elizabeth afton #mrs afton

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haloud · 3 years

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things we could burn in one go (eminence) - chapter 9

also on ao3

Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Isabel Evans & Max Evans & Michael Guerin, Michael Guerin/Alex Manes, Forrest Long/Alex Manes Additional Tags: post-s2, Canon Compliant, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Starts Forlex Ends Malex, Other Characters May Appear, Tags Subject to Update, Mutual Pining, Breaking Up, Getting Together

Chapter Summary: Michael and Isobel reckon with the fallout from Michael’s choices; Maria and Max catch up with him post-recovery.

Excerpt:

Maria sat on the steps, an old CD radio of Rosa’s beside her playing a classic Rosa mixtape, a Third Eye Blind track Michael only half-remembered flowing around her, her humming running under it, glittering minerals in a riverbed. She was surrounded by papers, pinned under painted rocks to keep them from being snatched away, her hair tied back by a rainbow scarf, and she bent over to write in a binder propped on her knees.

Michael rapped on the pillar behind him to get her attention, and when she looked up she smiled and set the binder aside.

“Guerin! You’re up! What brings you here with the sun in the sky?”

“Where else am I gonna go to get my sea legs back?”

“Well, come pull your ass into port and sit with me.”

She patted the low stair beside her and Michael did as he was told, swiping his hat off his head as he approached her. For her it was wordplay, but Michael cradled to his chest something more true than maybe she’d intended—Maria was a safe harbor, a port in a storm. No matter how bad things got, her warm heart and practical mind were a reminder to never give up. Just sitting beside her was enough to make him smile, even though he sat with a good six inches buffer between them, still unsure what boundaries were appropriate, still navigating the uncertain waters of being friends with an ex who meant something.

(Wednesday, 11:00 am)

Michael flipped Alex’s key over and over in his fingers, running it along his knuckles, pressing his thumb into the teeth until they left a locking-imprint on his skin, then doing it all over again. At some point, maybe it would start to feel real, if he reminded himself of the thing often enough.

The repetition and stimulation of the rough teeth, the cool, smooth metal, soothed him as he waited on Isobel’s porch. She’d called him here in the first place, so eventually she’d open the door. Until then, he waited. And as he waited, he thought of Alex, because what else was there to think about these days?

(A thousand things, like Jones and Project Shepherd, Max and Liz, and all the work piling up at Sanders’s, but Alex had a way of blotting everything else out, and, no matter how much his brain tried to get him to feel stupid or naïve or childish for hoping yet again, he was going to let himself bask in that shade for once in his life.)

He hadn’t left Alex’s house, still, except to go to work and get things from his own place. At Alex’s, he was still sleeping in the guest room, the both of them afraid that they’d fall back into their old patterns too fast if they fell right into bed. But during the day they shared that space, a kitchen, a den, existing alongside each other as they read or cooked or composed, and the routine wasn’t so different from the tense and quiet days right after Michael’s injury, but at the same time they were nothing alike, not when each tiny glance could mean so much, not when fingers on the soft rasp of turning pages were fingers he could touch, that could touch him.

Everything was different. It was terrifying, and exhilarating, brand new and nostalgic. It had only been a day; it had only been half their lifetimes.

“Ew, you’re glowing.”

Isobel’s voice started Michael out of his thoughts, and he jumped, shoving Alex’s key into his pocket. She was glaring at him, but still he relaxed, because Isobel’s snark was a form of love and her turning scorn in his direction was a sign things were getting back to normal between them.

“It’s all natural,” he drawled as she stepped aside to let him inside.

“Right. Did something happen, or is this just some lesser known side effect of being brought back from the brink of death.”

“Uh…”

In a way, sort of, if only because Michael’s own stupidity had driven him and Alex closer together, but that wasn’t exactly a direct correlation or anything admirable.

“Nope,” he said, popping the ‘p.’ “Just…”

He fell silent. How was he supposed to talk about being in love? He’d never done it before, and this was a first he hadn’t anticipated facing.

“Alex and I…” he tried again, but found himself only able to smile, still without words, and he raised his arms in a helpless shrug.

Isobel’s eyebrows raised. “Oh my god.”

“Yep.”

“I’m still pissed at you, but if Manes is making you his side chick after everything, I’m going to rip his spine out through his—”

“Isobel, no! It’s not like that,” Michael laughed, shaking his head.

“Well what’s it like, then? I cannot handle him breaking your heart again when we’re already dealing with Max.”

He replied, “My heart is fully intact,” as he headed in and dropped down on her couch, throwing a hand over his heart for dramatic effect. “No, uh, Alex and Forrest had a fight, which sucked, but it led to us getting a chance to talk more about, y’know, us, and what we wanted, and each other, so…”

“So this is rebound,” Isobel snipped.

“Can you stop?” Michael said, half-laughing. Even her pessimism on the subject of love couldn’t pop the bubble around his heart right now. He patted the couch beside him, and she hesitated for a few seconds with her arms crossed, before capitulating and joining him.

“Oh, fine,” she groused, leaning against the arm of the couch farthest away from where he was sitting. “Your funeral.”

The words landed like a lead balloon, and Michael winced as her face grew stormier.

“I’m—”

“Don’t,” Isobel held up a hand in his face. “Don’t you dare say you’re sorry. I don’t want to hear it.”

“Well, what do you want to hear?”

“An explanation, Michael! What the hell were you thinking? Why would you do that? What if he’d just straight up killed you, did you want us to find your body in a cave somewhere or, or never, blown to smithereens by a man who literally breathes fire! You’re so stupid, and selfish, and—” She cut herself off, furious tears welling in her eyes even as the rest of her face didn’t change.

“I know! I know, you’re right, it was stupid. I wasn’t thinking, or, well, I was thinking, but my head was all messed up.” He rested his forehead in his hands and running his fingers through his hair. “I don’t think any explanation is going to make any sense now, out of the moment, but I just…everything was going to shit, and I couldn’t do anything for Max, and I thought Jones might have answers, or could help me unlock new powers like you’ve done on your own. So I could protect everyone.”

Isobel threw her arms up and got to her feet, pacing around the couch; Michael tracked her, anxiety dipping and spiking every time she circled him. Her anger pulsing when she passed behind him made his skin crawl, and he shifted in his seat.

“I don’t even know what to say to that,” she finally spoke, stopping in front of him.

He kept his head bent forward, staring at his knees.

She continued, “I really don’t. I’ve been trying for twenty-one years, but I still don’t know how to get through to you. How to convince you that you’re not alone, that people want to protect you. To help you. But I’m not Max. I’ve never pushed or pried or fought to cling onto you when you shook us off. I just hung around because I knew you’d always come back.” She took a deep breath. Her voice stayed steady and deliberate. “But Michael, this has gone on for too long, and you went too far this time. You have to let us help you. Otherwise—I don’t know. I just don’t. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do anymore.”

Drops of water speckled the tops of Michael’s knees, and he sniffed, swallowed, mouth dry, throat tight and aching. His sister’s gentle hands threaded through his hair, cradling both temples, right hand over Max’s lingering handprint, but no matter how careful that touch was, he flinched.

Isobel tipped his head up so he had to look her in the eye and said, “You’re my brother, Michael. I love you so much. And I would do anything for you, just like you would—and have—do anything for me. But you need to let me! From here on out, I need you to fucking work with me. We’ll figure this out, okay?”

Tears trickling down his face and dripping from his chin, Michael nodded, not trusting his voice, and Isobel fell forward, his arms opening up to catch her, and they stayed like that for a long time, Michael rocking her back and forth, her clinging desperately to his shirt.

“I’m sorry,” he finally croaked, wiping his eyes with the heel of his hand. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Or Max. I just, I can’t stop myself, sometimes, I know it’s not an excuse, I know it was stupid, I know—”

“I know,” she interrupted his stream of self-loathing, sitting back to look him seriously in the face. “I was in your head, remember?”

She’d found him beneath a vaulted ceiling, stained glass in shifting, alive, alien colors, walled in with his demons. Defining himself inside the devouring maelstrom by the battles he understood. His whole life, he’d sewed himself back whole, and his work wasn’t pretty, but the patterns made sense, and they kept him sane even when the odds demanded otherwise. The image flashed behind his eyes, but that’s all it was, an image. He shook his head.

“Not really.”

“Well. I didn’t really go snooping, no matter how tempting it was,” she said with a self-deprecating roll of her eyes. “But let’s just say…you don’t owe me any explanations you aren’t willing or ready to give. Those belong to you. I know I haven’t always understood that in the past. We both have things to work on, okay?”

“Okay,” Michael rasped, squeezing her tight again. “I…want to work on them with you.”

“Then it sounds like we’re going to be okay,” she softly replied.

(3:00 pm)

Isobel didn’t let him leave the house until both their eyes stopped being red and puffy from crying; It took multiple episodes of some Food Network show he’d never heard of before she agreed to let him out of her sight, and, in deeply un-Isobel-like fashion, she followed him to the door and pulled him into another hug for the road before she let him leave.

The drive from Isobel’s to the Wild Pony wasn’t really long enough to fully ruminate on how bad he must have scared Isobel to warrant this level of reaction. Logically, he’d known, but emotionally it was just beginning to sink in.

Over the past year, he’d been faced with losing Isobel and with losing Max multiple times—had lost Max, in fact. He knew how it felt. Why should the loss of himself be any different to them? In low moments, sure, thoughts shifted beneath the murk of his mind, lurking demons from childhood, that they didn’t need him, they had each other, a more special bond, he was the odd one out, outside, out in the cold. But on the day to day, he didn’t devalue himself like that, not in so many words, did he? But—

To be surprised? That Isobel was afraid, that Max was afraid, that the both of them stood on the precipice of grieving him and had to process the horror of that fall after snatching themselves back at the last minute? It was a slap in the face, a rude awakening. A lesson that for all these years he’d resisted learning.

The first step to protecting those who loved him was to protect himself. He couldn’t keep shelving it as the lowest priority. They were one and the same.

It sounded fake to his own ears, but he’d just have to say it until the lesson sunk in.

With the windows rolled down, the idle breeze tugged Michael’s hair across his face and cooled the late-summer stickiness from his skin. It was just after lunchtime, a little early for Max to be at work, but since he wasn’t at Isobel’s house, it was faster to check for him here than to drive all the way out to his own place.

If there was one positive to his near-death, it was the way Max was invigorated by a purpose. The healing drained him, of course it did; it could have killed him, and that weighed on Michael’s conscience, but afterward, after it worked and he’d pulled Michael back from death, he smiled. He slept. He bustled around Alex’s house babysitting Michael while Alex was at work, and now, with a little distance from fragile death, that didn’t chafe as badly.

Max deserved a better thanks than Michael had thus far been able to render, and with Isobel’s words still ringing in his ears, there was no better time than now.

He pulled up to the Pony, the fairy lights strung across the patio dancing in the wind, the wood of the old building all pale and real in the sunlight. The old, familiar sign above the door was off as long as the bar was closed, but Michael still took a moment to glance at it nice and long, remembering the feel of fixing it under his hands so the whole place felt less liminal, less like a mirror vision of the beating heart that was the Wild Pony glowing under the night sky, lit from within rather than from the sun.

Faint music played as Michael parked and left his truck, so he rounded the corner of the building to suss it out and smiled at what he saw, leaning against one of the trellis supports.

Michael rapped on the pillar behind him to get her attention, and when she looked up she smiled and set the binder aside.

“Guerin! You’re up! What brings you here with the sun in the sky?”

“Where else am I gonna go to get my sea legs back?”

“Well, come pull your ass into port and sit with me.”

“What are you working on?” he asked.

“Oh, you know me.” She gestured vaguely to the arrangement of papers and tucked her feet up beside her, leaning toward Michael, cutting the space between them in half like it wasn’t worth noticing. Some of the tension in Michael’s chest unwound at her ease around him.

“Hustling?” he prompted.

“Yep. I’m just organizing the events I have planned for the upcoming season and making sure I have space set out for scheduling, details, budgeting, the works. High school me would die with envy; my system was never this good when I was trying to study.”

“I’m definitely impressed. Let me know if there’s anything I can help with, anything you need built, or an extra set of ‘hands’ for decorating.”

“How is that going?” she asked, brows furrowing.

“I’m still getting my strength back. Just gotta keep pushing through and hope whatever Jones did didn’t mess me up for good.”

“I’m sure he didn’t.”

Her hand extended but stopped before touching him, until he turned his hand palm-up, asking her to take it. She did, squeezing him.

“You’ll figure it out,” she said. “And the TK aside, have any of the other powers cropped up? The light, the teleporting? Those were the ones Alex told me about.”

“That’s all I remember, really. And no. I haven’t even tried, honestly.” He looked at their joined hands, her wrist bare of the pollen bracelet he’d promised her and wasted, thrown away like trash in a corner of Jones’s cave. This is blasphemy…

“Do you think you will? Try?” Maria asked, head tilted.

“I…hadn’t thought about it. Been focused on getting back to square one with the TK, but…”

Was doing more with his powers still an option? Was he willing to try, and fail, and fail again, without folding and submitting to all the voices in his head that told him every failure was proof positive of the erstwhile adage that he was worthless?

“Well, you have time,” Maria said, squeezing his hand again.

“What about you?” Michael asked. “Any visions?”

Her face shut down. She let go of his hand to smooth both hers down her knees then fold her arms around herself, turning her head away. “No. Still nothing. A few dreams, but it isn’t always easy to tell what’s a normal dream and what’s a vision, and with you out of the woods, the most dire ones are already Jossed.”

“What about Mimi?”

“Huh.” Maria pursed her lips for a second, then said, “I haven’t noticed any change in her? But I’ll have to ask and see what she says. I’m not even completely sure our powers work identically, with the things she’s said about being unstuck in time…I don’t always get that same feeling.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Michael promised her. “Even if it means having to go back to Jones and ask what he knows—”

“No!”

She wheeled on him and smacked his arm lightly.

“Absolutely not! Michael!”

“Not alone, obviously!” He defended.

“Not at all. Jesus Christ. I’ll tell Isobel you said that—I’ll tell Alex—”

“Maria, c’mon,” Michael whined, taking her hand again in an attempt to connect them and calm them both down. “I just don’t want to rule out that he’s meddling in more ways than we know. I still think he’s fucking with Max. You deserve answers, if that’s what’s going on.”

“Not at the cost of your life. Not ever. It could be a hundred other things, too. Stay away from him, Michael, I’m serious.”

“I will. I promise.”

“Good,” she said firmly, wrapping her arm around his again and leaning into him. He let out a long, slow breath as she relaxed.

“You know, in Jones’s cave…”

“Mm?”

Michael carefully encircled her wrist with his fingers. “I lost the bracelet I made for you. The backup one I promised.”

“Are you feeling guilty about that? Because please, don’t,” she replied, covering the hand on her wrist with her other. “That is the last thing on my mind.”

“But I—”

“Hush. I’m glad you had it with you, whatever happened to it. It’s good that you opted to protect yourself, even if it didn’t work.”

“I thought your powers were offline.”

“The visions, maybe. But I don’t need to see the future to read you, Guerin.”

“You are something else, DeLuca.”

“Oh, I’m aware.”

“Hey, Maria—oh! Michael!”

The two of them turned toward the backdoor at the sound of Max’s voice.

“Hey, Max,” Maria said. “Is the inventory finished?”

“Yeah, I was just coming to report back.”

“No need to be so formal,” she teased, standing up and brushing dust from the seat of her pants, looking at the papers around her with her hands on her hips. “I was hoping to get your opinion on some plans, Number One, but someone interrupted, so they’re not quite ready yet.”

“Guilty as charged,” Michael drawled.

Max reached out a hand, and Michael took it to humor him, letting him haul him to his feet.

“I’ll let you off the hook this time,” Maria said as she led the way back into the bar, cool and dim in the daylight. “You can sweep up to say you’re sorry.”

“My pleasure,” Michael said, reaching out a hand, hoping he could summon the broom as nonchalantly as he once could. It sat unresponsive until a spike of formless frustration zipped through him, at which point it flew to his hand fast and hard enough to sting his palm when he caught it. Great. Just what he needed right now—puberty flashbacks.

“I need to run,” Maria said, stowing her binder behind the bar. “Late lunch with Rosa. I’ll see you later, Max—Michael, it was so good to see you. Say hi to Alex for me, okay? I know you’re gonna see him before I do.”

She left with a wink while Michael was still pink and stammering. Maybe Alex had told her already—or maybe that was just Maria, putting him so at ease it was easy to forget how much she saw. His chest glowed so warm he couldn’t stop blushing at that casual acknowledgement, that easy validation, that he and Alex—that Alex and he were what they were to each other, now, again.

“Wait, is she talking about you staying over there, or does she mean—dude!” Max grinned ear to ear and bounded out from behind the bar to pull Michael into a back-slapping hug. “Congratulations!”

Old, brotherly habit had Michael squirming out of Max’s affections, but it didn’t dent his exuberance; he retaliated with a swipe through Michael’s hair, making him duck further out of range, huffing and laughing all at once as he tried to fix it again.

“Yeah, um, Forrest and Alex broke up, and then one thing led to another, so.”

“I’m really happy for you, man.”

“I—thanks. I’m…I’m really happy, too.”

The sudden urge to comfort Max gripped him, a strange survivor’s guilt that things would be working out for him and Alex and Max and Liz would still be so far apart. But it wasn’t his place to throw that in Max’s face now, so he bit his tongue and basked in Max’s honest happiness for him.

“Could you feel, uh, any of my emotions through the handprint?” Michael asked. He ran his hand through his hair over the spot on his temple where Jones had held him, erased by Max’s healing hands, then dropped it back to his side abruptly, flexing away the phantom stiffness that still plagued him, that probably always would. He gave it a shake as if to chase away nervous tingling.

“Nah. But it’s not like I’m looking; I respect your privacy, man.”

“’preciate that,” Michael snarked, and Max just shrugged.

“Any particular reason you ask? I don’t need to know what you and Alex are up to,” Max joked.

Michael considered his answer for a little bit as he made his way between the tables. After all, it wasn’t as if this was the first handprint Max had ever given him. The ones on his neck and hand cut off by his death aside, dozens of times over dozens of years, Max had practiced healing on him and they’d explored that connection. Michael was always the guinea pig; he never wanted for injuries to work on, after all.

But there’d been a lot of handprinting over the past year and change. Max felt something from Liz; Liz felt something from Noah; Rosa and Max had a connection strong enough to tether Max to the world of the living. And then there was Michael, with Jones’s voice in his ear, dripping condescending words about his lack of psychic ability being phenomenal, considering.

At various times in his life, Michael had looked up at the stars and wondered in the silence what it was in him that was irreparably broken.

“Just curious. It’s been a while, and all juiced up like I was, I was wondering if anything felt different.”

“Nothing different. Just you.”

Max smiled like that was a good thing, a comforting thing. And you know what? In between the adrenaline of change, good and bad, in between the rock of Project Shepherd and the hard place of Jones, on an afternoon in a closed bar, a home to both of them, alone with his brother, Michael let it be.

He cleared his throat. “Good. So there’s no…interference or anything? Nothing weird lurking around up there?”

“Not that I can tell; Isobel would probably know better than I would. Whatever he did to you was bizarre, man. It wasn’t like the way, uh, the way I’ve killed people before. Or the way Noah killed.”

“I don’t think he was just trying to kill me.”

Michael made his way over to a booth and beckoned Max over; he lingered over his work for a glance at the clock and then came and joined him.

He continued, “He kept going on about teaching and knowledge and this being the wrong way but the most efficient. He knew it would hurt me, but maybe it would have worked better if he did it to someone more, uh, receptive than me.”

“What are you talking about?” Max leaned over the table, brow furrowed. This close up, the dark circles below his eyes were more noticeable. “Michael, what he did to you wasn’t in any way your fault—”

“I know, I know, that’s not what I mean. Just…look, I saw the security footage from Caulfield, from the day of the Valenti incident. The way that alien approached Jim Valenti and put his hands on him was identical to what Jones did to me, and I think maybe that guy was just trying to communicate but it fucked up a human in a way he either couldn’t expect or was too out of it to realize. And, well,” Michael gestured to his own head. “I’m the most human of the three of us up here.”

“I…huh.” Max sat back and drummed his fingers on the tabletop as he processed that. “Well, whatever the case, it proved you and Isobel were right about him. He can’t be trusted. Nobody should have any more contact with him. We’ll start doing our monthly drop offs contactless until we all figure out what should be done with him.”

His voice was firm, businesslike. Traffic Stop Max was Michael’s least favorite version of his brother and he’d hoped that his turn to the civilian would’ve put that guy to rest, but he had a tendency to rear his head in a crisis.

But in this case, he saw through him, and that façade was hiding something.

“How do you feel about that?” Michael asked, leaning back and slouching, reflecting Max’s rigid body language the way he had for a decade, cops and robbers style.

“It doesn’t matter how I feel about it. He almost killed you; we’ll do what has to be done.”

“Uh, it definitely does matter. You’re the closest thing to a next of kin he’s got, as far as we know. If anyone gets to decide what happens to him, it’s you.”

“That’s what I’m doing.”

“Is it? ‘Cause, look, I know I fucked up a lot of stuff running off to Jones half-cocked like I did. I don’t want to set off a chain reaction of more bad mistakes that rips us apart again when we’re just startin’ to…” Michael trailed off with a self-conscious shrug. It was realer than he’d intended to get, but it was the root of the issue, wasn’t it?

Max’s face softened, and Michael slumped lower in the booth.

“You’re not. You won’t.”

“You’re just saying that—”

“Michael.”

That tone was always a coin flip if it’d get right under Michael’s skin or if it’d shut him up. It landed on the second one this time, to Michael’s relief.

Max said, “No chain reactions. What we were doing before wasn’t working, okay? I knew I wanted something from Jones, but I couldn’t bring myself to reach out and take it. All you did was force us to make a choice when I would’ve dug my heels in and not been able to for a long time otherwise.”

“The answers you’re looking for, though, you deserve to look for them if it’s what you need,” Michael forged on, battling his clumsy tongue. “I should’ve said that before. You deserve to know who you are and to learn who that is in whatever way you can. Everybody deserves that.”

“Thank you. I mean that. But I was getting so desperate—the things I was thinking of doing—I scared myself, okay? I didn’t think—I don’t think I am that person. And being this person I am right now and who I want to be right now is more important than any answers about the past, if that’s what it means to find them.”

Michael sat with that, looking Max up and down, sitting with his own feelings as much as Max’s words. Parsing his own reactions to Max was something he took steadier, more carefully than most other things in his life. It was a set of muscles he needed to practice with as much as he needed to get power back to his telekinesis.

“Okay, man. I respect that,” he said finally, leaning over the table to punch Max in the shoulder. Max made a face and rubbed that spot.

“Ow, man, thanks, I guess.”

“Damn, did I get you in your writing arm?”

“Try my drink-mixing arm. If I’m off tonight, I’m ratting you out to Maria.”

Michael let out a scandalized noise and slipped out of the booth.

“Where are you going?” Max laughed, dark eyes shining with life in a way Jones’s never could. For all they were identical, Michael barely saw the resemblance.

“To lay low, what do you think? You’re makin’ me a fugitive.”

“Uh huh. Good luck; you know she’s just going to ask Alex.”

“Damn it. The things I do for love.”

A smile on his own face as soon as he turned his back, Michael was almost at the door when Max called his name and he turned to face him again.

“Michael? Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Asking. Listening.”

Those two words held a lifetime of desperate loneliness between them, and Michael would be sitting with that, too, as long as he was holding it in his head, making it a conscious decision, to do right by his brother.

“You don’t have to thank me,” he said.

“I wanted to,” Max replied simply.

“Well in that case…I guess you’re welcome.”

Michael’s phone buzzed in his pocket, not the single pulse of a text but the longer jangling of a phone call. He fished it out, smiling when he saw the name, and he didn’t even wait to get privacy from Max before answering.

“Alex—”

“Thank God. Where are you, Michael? Are you okay?”

“Alex? I’m fine, I’m at the Pony, what’s wrong—”

Max hurried to Michael’s side.

Alex repeated, “Thank god. Don’t come home, do you hear me? Do not come back to the house until I give you the all clear. Stay with Max and Maria.”

“What? No!”

But the line cut off midway through his protest, leaving him with nothing but the dial tone.

#my fic #malex fic #michael guerin #alex manes #malex

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skinsharpenedteeth · 3 years

Text

Tonight, We Are Young

So as a New Year’s gift, I give to you another NYE Malex fic, because apparently I can’t help myself. I hope 2021 treats everyone better than 2020 did!

Also available on AO3!

“This party is fucking lame,” Alex commented, watching his classmates mill around the Evans’ mini-mansion with their red Solo cups filled with vodka, rum, or whatever mixed with fruit juice or soda. He was tired of watching people grind on each other to Christina Aguilera or 50cent while was left dodging assholes like Kyle Valenti all evening.

“Well, what do you propose we do instead?” Michael asked, head hanging upside down from over the side of the pool table he was laying across. His eyes were half obscured by gold, glittery 2008 glasses and he smelled a little like weed and spring rain. Alex thought briefly about wanting to Spiderman kiss him while he hung like that, but stopped himself with a sharp reminder that they were ‘just friends’.

They’d been hanging out since Alex had offered the backyard shed for Michael’s use during the cold winter nights. He knew he was using it, but hadn’t gotten up the courage to go talk to him yet while he was there. He was afraid he’d bring his father’s attention to it if he spent too much time out there, spent too much time with another boy in a room with the vaguest notion of privacy and a bed…

“You wanna get out of here? I know a place…,’ Alex started, but Michael was already sitting up before Alex could finish. He rolled off his back and then jumped off the table to stand beside where Alex was still sitting cross-legged against the pool table leg. He grinned down at Alex, smile wide and sweet and making Alex blush a little like he always did when Michael looked right at him like that, and held out his hand to pull Alex up off the floor. Alex took his hand and Michael gave a helpful tug as Alex pushed his way up. It was too much, Alex was overbalancing and falling against Michael’s chest. Michael’s hand let go of Alex’s so he could grip his waist and help steady him. The blush that had been only a pink tinge at Michael’s smile flared red as his hands landed against his solid chest and he felt how close they were.

“Oh-OH! Watch out Guerin or he’ll take advantage of you!” a raucous yell rang out through the crowd. Alex shut his eyes and stepped back quickly, cursing the gods for creating Kyle Valenti, and also for the feeling of Michael’s hands quickly falling from his body.

“Fuck off, Valenti,” Michael yelled back, throwing up a middle finger.

“You got something to fucking say?!” Kyle yelled, obviously a little drunk, as he pushed past the intervening people and shoved Michael backwards a step or two. Alex stood shocked, not sure what was happening, when Michael shoved Kyle back.

“Pretty sure I said what needed saying. Why don’t you go back to ‘your boys’ and circle jerk until midnight? Make sure you ‘no homo’ before your dicks out though, or it's definitely homo,” Michael goaded, getting into Kyle’s face. Their chests were touching and they looked so close they couldn’t possibly be able to focus on one another. Alex reached out and grabbed Michael’s arm, his hands closing firmly around his bicep as he stepped close.

“Let’s just get out of here,” Alex pleaded, well aware of how many eyes were on them. He didn’t want this kind of attention, didn’t need to be on anyone else’s radar.

“Going to let your boyfriend tell you what to do, Guerin?” Kyle taunted, obviously itching for a fight. Michael looked at him for another moment before sliding his eyes over to Alex’s. Alex could see the softening around the edges of Michael’s eyes as they held contact with his and hoped he couldn’t see the fear in him. He didn’t think he was successful in hiding it, because Michael’s mouth jaw clenched and he closed his eyes in resignation.

“Yeah, I am. Get fucked,” Michael said tiredly, not looking back at Kyle's face but backing away from him instead. He turned and headed back towards the bedroom where everyone's coats were and then to the front door with Alex hot on his heels. Alex could hear Liz cussing at Kyle half in Spanish as they left and at least felt safer knowing they would be gone before he could shake free of her to continue trying to rile Michael into a fight.

The cold late December air hit him hard as they left the warmth of the Evans’ house and stalked towards Michael’s truck. As soon as Michael shut the driver’s door, the engine roared to life and he turned up the vents to try and make the heaters kick in quicker. Alex slid in the passenger side and quietly buckled his seat belt.

“So where we headin’?” Michael asked, turning to look over at him with his usual lazy grin. Alex marveled how quickly the anger and violence had drained out of him. He looked like he hadn’t just been about to throw punches. He was casual and relaxed as he slouched in his seat, wrist resting over the top of the steering wheel. Alex noted the mostly full bottle of Jack sitting next to his thigh and had an idea.

“Uh, once we get out of the neighborhood, hit Main going northwest,” Alex instructed, eyeing the bottle warily. He knew how he got when he was drunk, but he’d never been with Michael inebriated before. He was worried he’d say the wrong thing or touch him when he didn’t want to be touched. Drinking was easier with Maria, Liz, and Rosa because he didn’t want to kiss them or see them naked so if he collapsed with his head in a lap or held someone’s hand it was innocent. There was no intention behind it. He didn’t think he could have that same freedom with Michael. He definitely wanted to kiss and touch Michael in ways that would make his dad kick his ass if he ever found out.

Michael followed his quiet instructions until they were driving out past the city limits, high beams the only lights for miles around. Michael had turned on the radio and put the volume on low while he waited for Alex to speak. Alex fidgeted with the strings of his hoodie, pulling them taut on one side and then the other, his leg bouncing rhythmically against the bottom of the foot well. Silently, still watching the road, Michael reached over and curled his fingers around Alex’s knee. Alex froze, staring wide eyed at Michael’s hand, before he let it slip off Alex's leg and rest between them on the bench seat. He looked up and saw Michael darting a grin over at him.

“So where are we going?” Michael asked, leaving his hand between them and making Alex ache with how much he wanted to reach over and cover it with his own.

“There’s a place not too far from here where my brothers and I used to build bonfires. I figured we’d go set some shit on fire for awhile,” Alex replied, a little self-consciously. Would Michael think this was dumb?

“Cool,” he answered, his fingers starting to tap on the bench seat. Alex watched his fingers for a moment, marveling at how square and even his nails were and how perfect his knuckles seemed to be before turning his attention back to the road. He was getting distracted and they were getting close to where the turn off was.

“There’s going to be a sign pretty soon that says Camp Honor. It’s going to be over here on the left. That’s the turn we make. Then there’s a fork about two miles in and we’ll take the right fork,” Alex rattled off, wishing they were already parked so he could take a shot of bourbon to calm his nerves. He actually hoped Michael had some more weed on him. A joint would help put him to ease.

“Camp Honor?” Michael asked, shooting Alex a curious look, eyebrow raised.

“It’s a hunting camp. There’s no season right now, so no one will be around,” Alex replied. At least he hoped there was no season that time of the year. He hadn’t been up there since he was fourteen and that had been its own disaster he’d like to never remember.

The truck bounced over the ruts and hills in the barely discernible road up to the fire pit. Alex sincerely hoped that the tradition of hauling all the fallen branches and detritus from around the cabin and hunting grounds had kept up in the years since he’d been the one sent out to do most of it. They rolled up to a clearing and Alex could make out the fallen trees they’d moved to make places for them to sit around the pit.

“Go ahead and park. This is the place,” Alex said, turning to Michael and putting a hand on his arm as if he weren’t paying attention. Michael slowed the truck and put it in park. He peered through the darkness.

“You know, when you said you knew a place I was imagining… something different,” Michael said as he continued to look skeptically at what little was illuminated by the truck’s headlights. Alex rolled his eyes and pushed open his door. As soon as his Docs hit the ground, he was excited to see how high he could get the flames. Bonfire night had been the only night he looked forward to when he’d been forced to do long camping trips with his brothers and the Valenti’s. He went ahead and walked forward towards the pit, hoping against hope there was a stack of wood in its sunken sand floor. When he got to the edge, he let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding, and then looked over to Michael and grinned broadly.

“Let's get this thing lit and then you can turn off your headlights,” Alex said excitedly, carefully making his way down into the shallowly dug ten by ten dirt bowl they used for fire nights. He checked over the wood and was glad to see he should be able to get away with just lighting the thing up. His brothers or Kyle must be planning to come out here soon. He took a small, sadistic pleasure in knowing he’d get to use it before they would and they’d have to go get chopped wood from the cabin and haul it out here if they wanted a fire. He patted his pockets and fished out a lighter from the pocket of his black skinny jeans. He flicked it a couple times before it caught and then he carefully moved his hand down through a gap in the wood until he could catch the tiny yellow flame on the tinder. As it caught, he carefully extracted his hand and started gently blowing air towards the flame. When it started to catch and spread, he stood back up and watched it, feeling oddly proud about starting the easiest fire of his life. When he turned, Michael was smiling at him fondly.

“Guess I’ll go turn off my headlights so I don’t drain the battery and we can roll out of here later,” he commented, turning and clapping his hand over Alex’s chest before letting it slide away as he started back towards his car. Alex tried to ignore the thrill he felt at Michael’s affectionate gesture and instead concentrated on the way his breath fogged as he exhaled and how cold his hands were even stuffed in his pocket. The fire was slowly getting going, but it would be a while before it was truly letting off heat to warm them.

Scuffing behind him alerted him of Michael’s return and he turned to see him sitting on the edge of the fire ring, whiskey uncapped, and being raised to his lips. Alex went and sat next to him, leaning towards the warmth that radiated off his body almost unconsciously. When Michael passed him the bottle, he took a healthy swig, coughing as he handed it back.

“Fuck, how do people drink that shit?” he asked, wiping his mouth with his sleeve and trying vainly to hide his grimace and watering eyes.

“Pretty sure nobody drinks for the taste,” Michael observed with a grin, watching him as he caught his breath before taking another swig from the bottle himself. He didn’t cough after his swallow and Alex felt heat infusing his cheeks at how uncool he must look to not be able to handle the burn of alcohol on his throat.

“I do better with vodka,” Alex said defensively, picking at the sides of his Vans as he stared at the growing fire. He toppled to the side when Michael slammed his body into him, elbows, shoulders, and hips pressed close against Alex. Alex let out a squawk of indignation, but didn’t protest when he righted himself and could feel the warmth of Michael bleeding through his too-thin layers of clothing where they touched.

“Jesus, it’s fucking cold,” Michael hissed through gritten teeth. Alex could feel the small tremors of him shivering and he wrapped an arm around him gingerly. He waited for Michael to protest or push him away and call him a ‘fag’, but when he just huddled closer Alex relaxed against him. Alex pried the whiskey bottle out from his fingers and took another manly swallow, coughing into his shoulder when he finished.

They stared at the fire, both shivering and sharing the bottle between them. As the alcohol and flames started to warm them, Alex felt Michael shifting more until his head was resting on Alex’s chest. Alex found himself running his fingers through Michael’s curls in fascination at how the light from the flames caught the brown ringlets and turned them to gold.

“We really should have thought this out better,” Michael observed.

“Hm?” Alex asked as he stretched out his legs towards the warmth.

“We should have brought snacks and music and something else to do besides drink,” Michael complained, lifting himself off of Alex’s chest and sitting up. He took the bottle from Alex’s side and helped himself to another mouth full.

“We could tell ghost stories?” Alex supplied, ready for the incredulous look Michael gave him. It still made him laugh when he looked over his shoulder at Alex like he was full of shit. “Well, what else would you do around a fire with someone if you didn’t have snacks or music?”

“Depends on the someone,” Michael replied, innuendo lacing his voice and making something hot in Alex’s stomach churn, but eyes staring straight into the fire in front of them.

“We… we can do what you do with them?” Alex offered bravely. His throat felt dry and he was pretty sure he was going to die. Did he really just say that to Michael? Michael looked over at him consideringly and handed him the bottle.

“We are,” Michael replied shortly. Alex shriveled a little in embarrassment, but he took the bottle and dutifully took a sip, trying to shift his body away so it wasn’t leaning quite as fully on Michael’s. Alex capped the bottle and put it in the dirt between legs before leaning back onto his elbows to stare up at the stars.

“Why did you stop me from hitting Valenti?” Michael asked a few minutes later. Alex had been staring at the stars, enjoying the heat on his legs from the fire. He tipped his head back down to see Michael half turned and staring at him.

“What do you mean, why? He’s a fucking tool and not worth the effort,” Alex spit out. He didn’t really want to think about Valenti right then.

“He deserves to get his fucking head knocked off,” Michael replied heatedly, turning back to stare at the fire. Alex looked at the back of his head for a moment in confusion.

“Well, I agree, but why do you care what he says?” Alex asked, a little unsure what answer he was hoping for. Michael looked back over his shoulder at Alex for a split second before snorting and looking back at the fire.

“You’re the nicest person I’ve ever met. I just hate seeing him treat you like shit because of his own insecurities. You’re not his punching bag. You deserve to be treated better.”

Alex sighed and looked back up at the stars. The sky was starting to spin a little so he let himself collapse all the way down onto his back. Without looking, he reached out and grabbed the back of Michael’s jacket and tugged him until he was laying down also. Their shoulders were overlapping despite the fact that they each had room to move. Tentatively, heart pounding so hard Alex could swear he heard it in his ears, he moved his hand over to press against Michael’s. He held his breath and waited, tensing as if he were going to be hit, but when it never came he let the air out of his lungs slowly. Then he felt Michael move his hand and in a gesture born more of instinct than finesse, scoop his hand up and thread their fingers together. Alex’s heart beat double time, practically in his throat, as he tried to relax into the warm hold Michael had on his fingers.

He stared at the sky, but he didn’t see the stars anymore. He was too hyper aware of the dry, brittle grass poking into the back of his hand and the way there seemed to be sweat collecting in his palm from the heat between them and the way the tips of his fingers were numb with cold, and how tightly and perfectly their fingers seemed to fit around each other… There wasn’t any part of his brain that wasn’t thinking about how much he wanted the rest of their bodies to fit together as well as their hands did. Then Michael started shifting around.

“What are you doing?” Alex asked, looked over at him in concern. He tried to move his hand, but Michael’s grip tightened slightly so he let it rest back where it was. Michael was digging around in his jacket pocket and flapping his arm about as he tried to dislodge his hand from the too-small opening.

“Lemme borrow your lighter,” Michael asked, still distracted by getting his hand out of his pocket. Alex furrowed his brow, but slipped his hand into the jean pocket with the lighter and then held it out for Michael to take. When he finally freed his hand, Alex watched him put a rolled joint between his lips and then take the lighter from him. He lit the end and inhaled deeply before passing it over to Alex. Alex did the same and they both laid and slowly let out their breaths at the same time. Immediately, Alex’s head felt lighter.

“Wanna shotgun one?” Alex asked on his next turn with the joint. Michael rolled onto his elbow, letting go of his hand in the process, and looked down at him with a shiteating grin.

“If you wanted me to kiss you, all you have to do is ask,” he snarked. Before Alex could squirm with embarrassment or deny that’s what his aim was, Michael plucked the joint from Alex’s fingers, took a deep inhale, and swooped down to seal his lips over Alex’s. Alex gasped at the unexpected contact, filling his mouth and lungs with smoke and causing him to cough reflexively. When he felt Michael’s weight shift, his body tensing to back away, he brought his hand to the back of Michael’s neck, keeping him in place as he breathed the smoke out through his nose. Michael froze and Alex squeezed his eyes shut and prayed to all the Gods he didn’t believe in as he tentatively started moving his lips. At first, it was just the drag of his own lips against Michael’s, slightly dry from the pot smoke and desert air, but then… then it was like Michael melted into him. His body relaxed back to partially rest his weight over Alex’s, his lips pressing harder and his tongue swiping invitingly over Alex’s. Alex surged into it, desperate to keep kissing him, to stop thinking for a while and just let things happen. His brain had other ideas.

First, he had to figure out what to do with his hands. The one on the back of Michael’s neck was nice, but the one lying on the ground between them… did he put it on his arm? On his chest? Lower? Much lower? As they kissed, he experimentally put it on Michael’s chest, fascinated by how he could feel his heart beating even through his shirt. In response, he felt Michael’s hand curling around his waist over his clothes. Dimly, Alex wondered what had happened to the joint, but he found he didn’t really care as long as Michael kept kissing him. Alex started to move his hand up Michael’s neck. He wanted to touch his curls again, tangle his fingers in them and maybe tug a little as they kissed, but Michael pulled away.

“I’m sorry,” he panted, eyes wide and imploring as they looked down into Alex’s. Alex felt shock jolt through his system, making his fingers tingle as he stared up into Michael’s face. He weakly worked his mouth, trying to find the words to respond. ‘Why?’, ‘It’s okay’, and ‘Don’t be’ came to mind, but he didn’t know which one to actually say. “I just mean… you didn’t ask for all that.”

“I didn’t mind,” Alex finally answered in a quiet voice. He gave what he hoped was a reassuring smile and took it as a good sign that Michael hadn’t moved off him. Slowly, he raised his head as far as he could and pressed an opened mouth kiss onto Michael’s lower lip. He pulled back to do it again, and Michael’s eyes fluttered closed. The hand at Alex’s waist tightened briefly and that was all the warning Alex got before Michael’s mouth was pushing against his. This time Alex let himself sink into the feeling. He let his hands roam wherever they wanted to, let his mouth move against Michael’s, tongues touching and fleeing, let Michael shift and press a leg between his which felt better than it had any right to with so many layers of clothes between them.

Alex let out an unmanly yelp against Michael’s mouth when his cold fingers found their way under his layers of jacket, hoodie, shirt, undershirt and touched the bare skin of his stomach. Gooseflesh immediately erupted over his chest and back and he felt his nipples tighten at the shock of the cold. Michael was snickering into his shoulder as he continued to move his hand over Alex’s stomach and Alex continued to whine and flinch away from his touch.

“Stop it! Oh my God your hands are so fucking cold! Quit, quit, quit,” Alex yowled, making a grab for Michael’s hand and finding himself in a short grappling match. It ended up with him pinning Michael against the cold earth with his wrists beside his head as Alex straddled his waist. He bared his teeth at him in a fiendish grin.

“I win,” he said simply. Michael laughed again, body relaxed under Alex’s.

“Did you?” Michael asked, moving his hips in a way that suggested he was settling in, but definitely brushed his half chub against Alex in a way he couldn’t miss. Alex felt a flash of panic as he realized he didn’t know how to flirt like that, how to be casual and cool and sexy in the face of someone else actually desiring him. He let go of Michael’s hands and rolled off to sit next to him. He hoped the firelight was dim enough that Michael didn’t see the blush on his cheeks as he grabbed for the abandoned whiskey bottle and uncorked it to grab a sip. Michael sat up and watched him before taking the bottle and slugging down his own drink.

“That wasn’t a demand, ya know?” Michael said, voice subdued as he watched the fire burning down.

“I know,” Alex replied, feeling his cheeks heat up more. He pulled his knees up towards his chest and hugged them as he stared awkwardly at the fire, wishing he could go back to five minutes ago when they were pressed against each other and their mouths were all that mattered. From the corner of his eye, he could see Michael turn to look at him and he kept his eyes trained forward with every ounce of his being.

“You wanna head back in? It’s getting really cold,” Michael asked. He was giving Alex an out and Alex didn’t know if he felt grateful for it or annoyed.

“There’s a cabin not too far from here. Let’s go there. We can build another fire inside and just sleep there. Neither of us should be driving right now,” Alex offered, noting exactly how spinny the world was when he closed his eyes.

“You’re probably right. Is this like… a place you’ve been before? Is it abandoned or something?” Michael asked, sounding nervous and wary.

“No, it’s not abandoned. Kyle’s dad owns it,” Alex explained.

“VALENTI’S DAD?!” Michael exclaimed, laughing and shaking his head. “No way are we staying there. Holy shit, I can just imagine how bad that would be if we got found.”

“No, no, no. Sheriff Valenti and my dad are old friends. Mr. Valenti loves me. He’s given me, like, blanket permission to use the cabin whenever I need to. It’s fine,” Alex said, distracted by Michael’s mini-freak out enough to turn and hold his shoulders while he explained. “We won’t get in trouble. It’ll be fine. Sheriff Valenti is the exact opposite of my dad.”

Michael sat and looked at him, as if he could see the future and gauge whether the risk was worth the reward.

“Besides, we’d really be fucked if he caught us driving home this fucked up. He’d be happier knowing we didn’t try to operate a motor vehicle while under the influence. Seriously, it’ll be fine.”

“Man, okay. You sure it’d be fine?” Michael asked again, still looking like a rabbit ready to bolt.

“Dude, it’s fine. Let’s douse this with some sand and we’ll roll down there,” Alex said, standing up and holding his hand out to Michael.

“Thought we shouldn’t be driving?” Michael asked sarcastically.

“I mean, if you want to walk a mile in this cold, that’s fine, but I think you can be reasonably responsible to drive a mile in the middle of the night down a dirt road one mile per hour about idle. But if you don’t want to, that’s fine. We’ll walk it,” Alex offered. Michael had grabbed his arm and was poised to get pulled up, but Alex wanted to know his decision first.

“Yeah, it’s fine. We’ll take the truck,” he said and then Alex stepped back and pulled him up to his feet.

“Cool, then let’s throw some sand on this fire! It’s fucking cold,” Alex shouted, before going over to the bucket of sand that was always kept on the side of the fire pit and picking it up. He started slowly pouring the sand over the remaining flames while Michael went and grabbed a second bucket and took the other side of the fire to do the same. When it was dark, Michael went ahead to turn on the truck lights while Alex stirred the fire to see if any hot spots were left. By the time he was satisfied, the high beams were streaming over the edge of the fire pit and Michael was revving the engine to get it to warm up. Alex climbed out of the fire pit and got back into the truck, then slowly gave Michael directions on how to get to the cabin. When they pulled up in front of the cabin, Michael looked at it even more warily than he had the fire pit.

“This isn’t your murder cabin, is it? We’re not going to get stabbed by some dude in a shitty sports mask if we make out some more, are we?” he asked as he followed Alex up to the porch. Alex snorted and started feeling around the top of the door frame for the extra cabin key. When he found it, he opened the door quickly and ushered them both in. He flipped one of the light switches and the living room and kitchen lights came on, giving the rustic cabin a warm, yellow glow. He looked at the fireplace and grimaced. Unlike the firepit, the cabin was not ready for a fire to be lit. Sighing, he went back outside and grabbed a handful of logs off the porch pile and shuffled them inside.

Michael was walking around the inside rooms, looking at the walls and knickknacks scattered around.

“Hey, where do you guys sleep?” Michael called out. Alex turned from where he was stacking logs in the fireplace to see Michael standing in the kitchen with his hands on his hips twisting around as if another doorway would suddenly appear.

“There’s another building that’s a bunk house,” Alex explained, turning back to the fire.

“Are we going to sleep in there?” Michael asked, his voice coming closer. Alex could feel the vibration in the floor as he got closer and then the warmth of him standing behind him. Alex grabbed a rolled piece of fire starter from the box they kept nearby. He pushed it into the middle of the logs and grabbed a punk to light with his lighter. He pushed it against the fire starter and blew a little, waiting until he saw the fire starter catch before withdrawing the punk and throwing it on top of the logs. When that was finished, he turned to consider his options. He didn’t really want to run both fireplaces in the cabin. He’d have to clean them both out in the morning and that seemed like far too much work.

“Let’s go grab a couple mattresses off the bunks and drag them in here. We can push them together and cover them with blankets and stuff…if that’s cool with you?” Alex asked, looking up at Michael who’d been watching him work with the fire.

“That’s fine. I’ve got a couple sleeping bags in the truck I can bring in. We can use them as extra padding or extra cover,” he offered. Alex nodded and they smiled at each other. It was oddly wholesome, like they were just having a sleepover and nothing else.

They went out to the bunk house and Alex used the key to unlock the door. They grabbed a couple of the twin mattresses off the closest bunks and hauled them on their shoulders over to the main cabin. They put them on the floor next to one another and then while Michael went to his truck for the sleeping bags, Alex went back to the bunk house for pillows and some extra blankets. By the time they’d made their nest, the fire had warmed up the room to something almost near comfortable. Alex shrugged off his coat and hoodie, throwing them onto the couch, and then toed off his shoes before stepping onto the thin, cheap camp mattresses.

“You’re going to sleep in your jeans?” Michael asked incredulously. Alex looked down at himself and then at Michael. He had planned on it, but not if Michael wasn’t. He was already unbuttoning them as he gave his retort.

“What if I get cold?” he asked, trying to balance on one leg and work the skinny leg of his jeans off his foot with the other.

“I promise, I’ll keep you warm. I’ve been told I run hot,” Michael joked, stripping down to his boxers and nothing else. Alex tried not to get caught staring at him, but it was so much skin and he hadn’t mentally prepared himself for it. When Michael turned to pick up one of his fallen socks from when he’d chucked his clothes onto the couch, Alex got too distracted and ended up toppling over onto the mattress with only one leg free from his jeans. Michael looked over at him and grinned like he knew what had caught his attention. He reached over and grabbed Alex’s foot, swinging him around so he could work the other jean leg down around Alex’s foot.

“These are really not conducive to getting naked quickly,” Michael commented as he tugged and pulled at the denim to get them to slide down over Alex’s calf and heel.

“I wasn’t really expecting to need to get naked quickly tonight,” Alex snapped, bending his knee to pull it out of the jean leg.

“Didn’t have plans to be naked at midnight with someone?” Michael teased, tossing the jeans aside when they’d finally gotten them all the way off. Alex snorted indelicately and watched Michael drop to his hands and knees on the mattress beside him. He pulled his pillow over from the other side of the mattress until it touched Alex’s.

“Not really. I was just hoping to get a kiss,” Alex said distractedly while watching Michael curiously as he started arranging the covers to his liking. Michael looked up at the wall clock.

“We were probably making out at midnight. I think you got your wish,” he commented before dropping onto his side next to Alex. Alex felt a spasm of shock go through him. He hadn’t realized it was so late, that they’d missed the turning of the clock from one year to the next. He turned onto his side and faced Michael, looking him over thoughtfully.

“Happy New Year,” he said, smiling and running his hand down Michael’s arm affectionately. Michael spared a glance at his arm and then leaned in, pressing his mouth to Alex’s in a sweet, open kiss that made something in Alex draw tight with need.

“Happy New Year,” Michael breathed against his lips when they parted for breath. This time Alex felt bold, felt like it had to be more than a fluke of the fire and whiskey if they’d kissed twice over so many hours. He slipped his hand around Michael’s back and pulled their bodies closer together while sweeping his tongue across Michael’s to beckon him to kiss him deeper. Now there were fewer layers, less guessing, and more to explore for Alex’s hands as they kissed. He couldn’t get enough of the swell of Michael’s shoulder blades or the sharp curve of his hip bone, or the way his stomach felt as it bumped against his when they drew in deep breaths before diving back into each other. He was drowning in it, drowning in Michael touching him back, exploring his body too, and when he ran his hand under the leg of Alex’s boxers and grabbed his ass to grind their bodies together? Alex saw nirvana. It was the best thing he’d felt outside of his own hand.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Michael breathed, kissing over Alex’s jaw to his ear. Alex nodded, but he was too caught up in how hot and hard Michael’s dick felt through his boxers as it slid along the inside of his hip and wondering if he could get his hand on him, if he could put his mouth on him…

“You ever do this before?” Alex managed to gasp before slipping his fingers under the waistband of Michael’s underwear.

“Yeah,” Michael replied with a embarrassed, proud grin, “but not like with a…”

“A guy?” Alex supplied as Michael trailed off. They both let out a burst of embarrassed, hysterical giggles.

“Yeah, a guy. But also, not with someone I like as much as I like you,” he finished, bringing Alex’s face back to his so he could see the sincerity in his words. Alex felt like he’d been given a birthday present and kicked in the gut at the same time. He smiled slowly at Michael’s words and leaned in to kiss him, softly, sweetly, and with all the emotion he could muster but couldn’t put into sentences.

“I like you, too,” he managed after a few more kisses.

“I would certainly hope so,” Michael joked, bringing his hand between them to gently squeeze the line of Alex’s prick through the thin jersey material of his boxers. Alex glanced down and could see the dark spot at the tip of his cock. He looked at Michael’s underwear and was relieved to see a similar stain starting on his own underwear.

“What do you want to do tonight?” Alex asked breathily as he ran a finger lightly up the length of Michael’s hard on. His hips twitched in response to the stimulation and Alex felt a hunger for more rise in him at the motion.

“I… I don’t know? M-maybe, hand jobs?” Michael stuttered, his eyes drifting closed as Alex moved forward to kiss his neck and chest while his hand continued to softly pet his cock. Alex watched in fascination as his hand framed Michael’s covered dick while he stroked over the fabric. He wanted more to do more, wanted to see him, taste him, make him feel good.

“I think I want to try giving you a blow job,” Alex said almost absentmindedly. He heard Michael’s sharp, quiet gasp and his eyes came up to meet his.

“You want to?” Michael asked, eyes pleading that he say ‘yes’, but voice making it clear that Alex could say ‘no’ without any repercussions.

“Yeah, is that okay?” Alex asked, trying to convey the same thing with his eyes as he waited for Michael’s verdict.

“I mean, yeah, of course. I… have you ever done this before?” Michael asked hesitantly.

“No, but I mean… I’ve watched porn. I’ve done my research. How hard can it be?” Alex asked, starting to scoot his body down so he could more easily access Michael’s dick.

“Oh, just thinking about it makes it very hard,” Michael replied cheekily. Alex shot him an amused, appreciative grin at the joke.

“Okay, I’m going to…” Alex started, reaching for the waistband of Michael’s underwear. Michael’s hands met his and together they pushed and maneuvered his underwear off and then he laid on his back, bared in all his glory to Alex’s gaze. Alex tried not to stare, but Michael’s was the first real live cock he’d seen in front of him, hard, turned on, and for him to do what he wanted with. He catalogued all the differences between them. Michael was thicker than he was, uncut, and he seemed wider at the tip. Alex grasped him, running his fingers over the soft, velvety foreskin before taking a firmer grip and jacking him slowly. It was such a different sensation than he got from jacking his own cock, more fluid, and he loved watching the head of Michael’s cock disappear and reappear as his hand moved on him. He heard Michael softly exhale ‘Fuck’ above him as he kept moving his hand slowly up and down the shaft of his cock. The precum that beaded the tip was clear and shiny. Without overthinking it, Alex licked a broad stripe across the sticky head. The bitter, tangy taste took him by surprise, but he found he wanted more of it. Pulling back Michael’s foreskin he pressed his tongue over the slit of Michael’s cock before lowering his mouth to seal around the head and suck gently.

“Shit, I don’t know if I’m going to make it to the main event,” Michael hissed above him as Alex sucked on the head of his cock and moved his hand in tempo. Alex looked up through his eyelashes at him, not stopping what he was doing, and could see the strain on his face as he watched Alex’s mouth and hand on him. It made a flood of arousal wash through him to see how turned on Michael was getting, how so little was pushing him close to cumming already.

“Hey, switch sides,” Michael gasped, clutching at Alex’s shoulder. Alex popped off and gave him a confused look for a moment. “Like, bring your bottom half up here. 69!”

Alex scrambled to comply. He practically tore off his underwear and both of them rolled onto their sides to face each other. He took Michael in hand again and looked down between them to see Michael do the same. He did it confidently, like he’d done this before even though Alex knew he hadn’t, but it was so typically Michael to always act like he knew what he was doing. He’d at least been blown before so, Alex surmised, he had to know more than Alex. Michael glanced down and their eyes met and for a fleeting second, Alex could see in some microexpression that Michael was nervous too. It made him feel better, made him want to make Michael feel the way he’d felt earlier, so he closed his eyes and wrapped his lips around Michael again.

This time he felt more confident. He smoothed his tongue over the hard flesh in his mouth and pushed his lips further down Michael’s shaft until he felt him teasing the edges of the back of his throat and he knew if he kept pushing he’d gag. So he took what he could and moved his hand over what he couldn’t. He’d gotten caught up in a rhythm of sorts to what he was doing when he felt the first touch of Michael’s tongue against his dick. It was barely there, a warm pressure and then gone. When Michael came back with his whole mouth, Alex pulled back off Michael with a gasp. That was a completely different feeling, one that made his toes curl and the muscles around his spine tense with pleasure. When Michael added his own bit of suction, Alex felt sure he would blow.

“Shit, shit, shit,” he panted, leaning his head against Michael’s hip for a moment.

“Right?” he heard Michael say and without looking, he knew the bastard was smirking at him.

“So can we just agree that if each of us is embarrassingly quick, this was just a warm-up round?” Alex panted out, finally opening his eyes to glance down towards Michael’s face. It was a mistake, of course, because his lips were red and spit slick, and Alex’s own cock was only inches away from them, and Michael had just had his mouth on him and if possible, Alex felt himself get the tiniest bit harder in Michael’s hand at the sight.

“Yep,” Michael agreed succinctly, before diving back in. Alex had to concentrate not to buck his hips at the sudden sensation of Michael’s mouth on him, but he managed it. Trying to get his head back in the game, he drew Michael back into his mouth and regained his earlier tempo. A deep, throaty moan from Michael almost sent him spiraling over the edge as the vibrations ran the length of him. He echoed the sentiment and felt fine tremors run along Michael’s thighs. Slowing down, Alex decided to try to push his limit and see how much he could get of Michael in him. He moved his head down lower, trying to relax through the feeling of something blocking his throat. He pulled back and tried again.

“Shit, Alex, what are you-- Oh my god,” Michael was gasping above him, hand reaching down to cradle the back of Alex’s head. He didn’t push or put any pressure on him, just tangled his fingers in Alex’s dark locks and held on as Alex continued to slowly work him deeper. Michael tried to pleasure Alex at the same time, but it felt more like he just held him in his mouth and moaned as Alex moved over him. He didn’t mind. It felt powerful to have him so distracted, to have him whimpering and see his muscles twitching with how bad he wanted to move and thrust as Alex swirled his tongue around him and hollowed out his cheeks.

A clench of fingers in Alex’s hair and quickly frantic “Fuck, I’m gunna --” was all the warning Alex got before his mouth was flooded with Michael’s release. It wasn’t altogether pleasant, but he swallowed quickly in hopes the aftertaste wouldn’t be as bad. He backed off and looked down at Michael’s face. His cheeks were red from exertion, his mouth open and panting, and his eyes closed in something between pain and bliss. After a moment, he opened his eyes and looked down at Alex, a lazy grin on his face.

“That was awesome,” he drawled, before sitting up and moving so he could capture Alex’s mouth in an overenthusiastic, sloppy kiss. Alex laughed at him, kissing him back and pulling him close, running his hands over all his new favorite places on Michael’s body. Michael’s hand reached between them and he grasped Alex’s cock.

“Is this okay?” he asked between kisses, hand moving purposefully over Alex. Alex nodded, pulling Michael into another kiss as he let himself get worked over. When he could no longer kiss because all his attention was on the rushing feeling through his body as he got pulled closer and closer to cumming, Michael started talking.

“You look so hot like this,” he murmured against Alex’s neck. “You’re the most gorgeous person I’ve ever seen.”

“Fuck, Michael,” Alex gasped, hips starting to make small, aborted thrusts to follow Michael’s tight grip on him.

“You looked so hot with my cock in your mouth, so focused, like you loved doing it, like you were made for it,” Michael breathed into his ear. Alex could only whimper, his body drawing tight before he started shooting, cum hitting his chest and stomach, dripping over Michael’s knuckles.

“Christ, that’s a lot of jizz,” Michael said, before laughing lightly as he grabbed someone’s underwear and wiped off his hand and Alex’s torso. “What a load of --”

“Shhh,” Alex said, turning and covering Michael’s mouth with his before he could make another terrible joke. Michael hummed contentedly as Alex kissed it, slow and languidly as he came down from his high. When Alex could muster up the energy, he reached down and grabbed one of the blankets to throw it over them. Despite there being two mattresses, they were sharing one, knees tangled together, arms wrapped around each other, chests touching.

“So what does this mean tomorrow?” Michael asked quietly when they’d begun to drowse and could no longer keep kissing. Alex opened an eye and looked over at him, having noted the tension in his voice.

“What do you mean?” he asked, raising his head and propping it on a hand so he could look down at Michael.

“Like… are we together? Boyfriends? Friends with benefits? Is this like… a drunk tumble for the holiday?” Michael asked, swallowing thickly as he pushed out the last option. Alex frowned down at him, wondering where this was coming from, why he’d need to ask. Did he want it to be a drunk tumble?

“I… I figured it meant we were dating? Like… like boyfriends. But if you don’t want that I--” Alex never got to figure out what concession he’d make to keep getting to kiss Michael.

“No! No, boyfriends is good. I-I want to be your boyfriend. I just wanted to make sure you wanted that too,” he finished, focusing on Alex’s shoulder as he ran his fingers lightly over the curve to his arm.

“So boyfriends,” Alex said decisively, laying back down, arm extended out under his pillow. He couldn’t help the smile that stretched over his mouth or the excitement that crept into his voice as he said, as calmly as possible, “I’m your boyfriend.”

“You bet you are,” Michael pronounced, meeting his eyes finally and swooping in to kiss him through his own smile. Their teeth may have clacked together because they couldn’t seem to stop grinning, but it didn’t hurt and no one seemed to care.

The night passed quietly and slowly. They fell asleep against each other only minutes before dawn started to lighten the sky, the fire burned low in the fireplace behind them, their bodies spent from discovering each other over and over. It was the happiest Alex had ever felt, the safest and warmest as he laid with his back against Michael’s chest, feeling him breathe deeply as he slept.

“Boyfriends,” he whispered into the dark room, still smiling as he forced himself to close his eyes and lightly squeeze the arms that wrapped around him.

#happy new years #malex #malex fic #michael guerin #alex manes #new years eve #rnm fic #tw: homophobic language #schmoop and smut

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bestillmyslashyheart · 4 years

Text

a fight for the heart

Maria tried. She really did. But she couldn’t destroy herself on the altar of someone who didn’t want her help. Michael Guerin was a hurricane of self destruction in the midst of the desert and the only thing Maria could do was try and stay of his path.

Maria gave their fledgeling attempt at a relationship six weeks before she couldn’t take it anymore. Clearly something had happened in Michael’s life just before they got together but he refused to talk about it, preferring to drown his sorrows in shameless flirting right in front of her, too much alcohol, and an endless stream of bar fights. And since she cared about it, could maybe love him, but there was only so much of herself she could give, only so much she could do.

The first two days were great, they sat and talked and laughed, Michael revealed his hidden talent for the guitar and played her her favorite songs. It was nice. Really nice.

After that, though, he swan dived off of the deep end. Over the course of a week he went from being the relatively social drunk, the friendly flirty guy who charms his way out of trouble, the man with a shoulder for her to lean on, to a man itching for a fight with every breath. If he couldn’t get it from the assholes at the bar, he picked at Maria until she walked away. His friendly flirts turned serious right in front of her, his eyes flicking to her to see if she was watching as he crowded up behind a woman shooting pool under the guise of helping her with her form. Maria spent a few weeks making sure every night he wasn’t in the drunk tank he got to a bed, either his or her own. She tried to make sure he ate actual food, drank water, showed up at work.

He resisted her at every turn until she finally called up Isobel Evans. Isobel showed up for two days before giving up. Maria couldn’t blame her, if she was being honest. Isobel’s brother and husband had just both disappeared into thin air and she looked almost fragile when Maria saw her around town, like she was one blow from shattering. When Maria saw her with Michael, she was afraid that Michael would be that final blow and she could understand Isobel trying to protect herself from that, even if it meant leaving Michael to his own mess.

The final straw came the night Michael flirted with a woman, even getting into a fight with the woman’s boyfriend, and then stared her down as he walked out the front door with his arm around her. He had his mouth close to the woman’s ear, his lips and tongue brushing it as he whispered to her and Maria decided then and there that she was done.

She had enough going on in her life between her mom’s health, helping Liz deal with Max’s disappearance, her shattered relationship with Alex, and seeing Rosa’s ghost around town, that she just could not break herself any more to help Michael. There was only so much of her left.

So she waved goodbye to Michael. Literally.

His eyes darkened when he caught the motion and she knew he’d gotten the message when he turned away and left without a backwards glance.

Didn’t stop him from coming back the next night though. Or the one after that.

Maria was a little amazed to realize he had actually been holding back before. Now, if there was one single night where he didn’t escape out to the back alley for a hook up or end up in the drunk tank, Maria silently called it a win.

She didn’t have many wins.

About two weeks after she called it quits, Alex started making an appearance. Maria hadn’t really seen him since she took up with Michael and he definitely hadn’t been to the Wild Pony but there he was, perched on a stool at her bar, his eyes fixed on the mirror behind her as he watched Michael suck on some woman’s neck by the pool tables.

“Hey,” she greeted softly as she wandered over to hand him a new beer.

“Hey,” he glanced at her quickly, his lips turning up in an attempt at a smile, before looking back at the mirror.

Maria looked out at the scene behind him. “He does this every night.”

“So I’ve heard.” He took the new bottle from her and handed over his empty.

“You meeting someone?” She asked as the silence stretched to awkwardness.

“No.”

Maria’s eyebrows furrowed. “Then what’s the occasion?”

Alex shrugged. “Wanted a drink.”

So Maria left him to it. Alex didn’t move for the next hour, his eyes only ever briefly straying from the mirror. She passed by twice to refresh his drinks but she didn’t try for small talk again.

Almost two hours after Alex showed up, Michael finally managed to get that fight he was itching for. There was a crash by the pool tables as cue stick hit the table and then a hush fell over the crowd. Maria didn’t even need to look up to see it. Next to her, her bartender held up the phone, silently asking if he should just go ahead and call the Sheriff. Maria nodded with a heavy sigh. She’d tried letting Michael handle it but it had gotten to the point that she needed the cops to step in if she had any hope of discouraging other people from thinking it was okay to fight in her bar.

She looked up at the first thud of a fist hitting flesh. Unsurprisingly, it was Michael’s mouth that came away bloody. For some reason, he never threw the first punch.

Michael got one hit in before Alex stepped in between them. Maria hadn’t even seen him leave his stool. As the other guy tried to retaliate, Alex smoothly grabbed his arm and twisted it behind him as he pressed him against the table. He said something into the guy’s ear and waited until he nodded before releasing him. The guy stepped back, grabbed his girlfriend’s hand, and walked away with only one backwards glance. They hadn’t paid, but Maria decided to let it sly. She would put it on Michael’s tab, anyway.

With the man gone and the fight clearly over, most of her customers turned back to their drinks and ignored Michael. Maria couldn’t do that. When she looked over at him, she almost took a step back from the vehemence radiating off of him, even from across the room. Alex, stood right in front of him, didn’t even flinch. Maria was too far away to hear what they said to each other until, “Fuck off, Alex!” Michael suddenly yelled. A hush fell over the bar as everyone turned to stare at the two men.

Alex stared at Michael, his body tense and his face stony, before he gave a sharp nod. Michael turned away in a huff when Alex relented. He downed his whiskey and punched the wall with his back to the rest of the bar as muffled chatter spread. Alex hadn’t moved right away, his eyes fixed on Michael’s back, before he glanced around. Maria wasn’t sure what he was looking for until suddenly he moved and scooped up Michael’s jacket. She watched as he checked the pockets and pulled out Michael’s keys and a flask. Seemingly satisfied with what he found, he gripped it tight and walked back over to the bar.

“Cover mine and Michael’s tab,” he handed her his credit card.

Maria took it slowly. “He hasn’t paid in a while, Alex.”

“I figured as much,” Alex replied easily. “I’ll cover it.” He nodded at the card.

She hesitated a moment longer before paying off both tabs and handing Alex the receipt and his card back. Alex glanced at the total and shook his head. “You should stop serving him.”

“Then he’ll just go somewhere else. At least here, I can keep an eye on him.”

“He’s barred from everywhere else,” Alex signed the receipt and handed it back as he tucked his card away. There was a crash and a curse from across the room. Maria looked up to see Michael’s glass in pieces on the ground as he shoved chairs around, clearly looking for something. “That’s my cue. Have a good night, Maria.” Alex gave her a small wave as he made his way to the door, Michael’s jacket still in his hand.

“Where the fu-,” Michael cursed as he looked up, his eyes catching immediately on Alex’s back as he disappeared outside. “Alex!” He stumbled his way after him, crashing into every table on the way out.

Maria tried not to dwell on it as the door swung shut behind Michael. She had come to accept that she didn’t know a damn thing about their relationship and she definitely wasn’t going to get involved.

---

She was starting to feel like she was involved. Despite knowing better, she kept letting Michael into the Pony. He only paid maybe a third of the time (Alex kept covering his tab the other two-thirds so she didn’t worry too much about getting paid) and he kept getting into fights; he seemed to have a thing for picking up other guys’ girlfriends. The difference now is that Alex was there more nights than not. They never seemed to talk much but Alex kept getting in the way of Michael’s fights. Maria was afraid that Michael would just throw a punch at Alex one night when he stepped in between Michael and his latest foe but Michael never did. Even when he was midswing when Alex appeared, he always pulled the hit.

“You can’t destroy yourself to keep him afloat,” Maria cautioned one night. It was late and Michael had been content to amuse himself with pretty strangers all night long. No one had risen to his bait for a fight and it seemed like Alex’s services weren’t going to be needed. But still he sat there.

Alex raised his beer to his lips without a word.

“I’m serious, Alex,” she lowered her voice. “I know how much it’s hurting you to sit here and watch him like this but you keep doing it anyway. You don’t have to do this. He doesn’t want to be helped and putting yourself through hell trying to help him isn’t doing anyone any favors.”

Alex’s lips twisted in a mockery of a smile. “If anyone’s gonna destroy me, it might as well be him.” The words sounded wrong, like they were someone else’s first.

Maria opened her mouth to reply when someone came up to Alex.

“If he doesn’t stop this bullshit soon, I don’t care if you get involved, I’m gonna deck him,” the man warned him with a glance back at Michael. Maria followed his gaze to see Michael bending a woman almost backwards over a table, his lips on her chest and wandering south via the low cut shirt she was wearing.

Alex glanced at the mirror with a sigh before throwing back the rest of his beer. “Yeah, okay.” He left a bill on the counter for Maria and stood up, brushing past the other man and making his way over to Michael.

Before he even got there, Michael was straightening up, his attention now in safer territory as the woman was able to stand up. His shoulders were tense and he almost looked distracted, as if the woman wasn’t quite enough to hold his attention anymore. Maria thought it was odd; nothing had changed over in his little corner of the bar, nothing to take his attention away from-

Oh.

Michael’s shoulders were already turning towards Alex as he walked up, even though his face stayed buried in the woman’s neck. Realistically, there should be no way for Michael to know Alex was walking over but that didn’t seem to matter. He knew it anyway.

Alex walked up and grabbed Michael’s arm just under his shoulder and pulled him away from the woman with an apologetic smile to her. The man who had come up to Alex was right behind him and pulled the woman away, whisking her back to the group she had come in with. Michael’s lips turned up in a smirk as he spat at Alex, his words no doubt intended to cut. Alex’s shoulders tensed but otherwise he showed no reaction. When he didn’t get the fight he wanted from Alex, Michael yanked his arm away with enough force that he had to take several stumbling steps to try and get his balance back. Alex reached out and steadied him before stepping away, Michael’s keys suddenly in his hand. In what was becoming a usual sight, Michael stormed after Alex into the parking lot, the door crashing shut behind them.

---

“Call the Sheriff,” Maria ordered as she stepped out from behind the bar, her shotgun in her hands. In the six years she’d been running the place, she’d never had to use it, had only pulled it out twice, but tonight she was thankful for it. “And call Alex.”

Michael had finally found someone itching for a fight as bad as he was and he managed it on the one night Alex hadn’t showed up. It started as a few friendly bets over a game of pool and then darts. It escalated into shoves and a few punches when the tourists decided that Michael had cheated. It escalated further into guns being pulled out when Michael only grinned and winked at the accusation.

“Hey!” She yelled as she got close, the shotgun hanging loose at her side. “Take it outside.”

One guy sneered at her as the other two stepped up around Michael, their guns in their hands and pointed at Michael. Irritatingly, Michael didn’t seem concerned in the slightest. “It’s okay, Maria,” he held a hand out towards her. “It’s all under control.”

“Give us our damn money back, you fucking cheat.”

Michael pretended to think about it for a moment before shaking his head. “Nah, I’m good. I’ve got a tab I gotta pay off.”

The man with the guy pointed at Michael’s knee pulled the trigger. Maria flinched back a step, pulling the gun up only as an afterthought. Her attention was fixed on Michael, expecting to see blood. But Michael stood exactly where he was and grinned brightly.

“What the fuck?” The man who’d shot swore. Maria understood his confusion. He was barely a foot away from Michael and he looked like he knew his way around a gun. There was no way he’d missed. And yet-

The man next to him tried again. And again, Michael was fine. Maria looked around him and saw the new holes in the floor at his feet.

“Put down your weapons!” Maria had never been so happy to see Kyle’s mom in her life. She lowered the shotgun without a word and stepped back as the Sheriff and a new deputy leveled their weapons at the two shooters. The two men dropped the guns immediately, both still captivated by Michael’s apparent luck.

As the two cops put away their weapons and moved to cuff the two shooters, Michael lunged forward. He had an arm cocked back to throw a punch and neither Sheriff Valenti or the new guy reacted in time to stop him.

His punch didn’t land. It didn’t even really get started. Alex came up behind him and wrapped an arm around his cocked back arm and grabbed Michael tight but the waist as he pulled him back. Michael struggled for a moment but Alex didn’t look too bothered as he dragged him away and shoved him out the back door.

Maria didn’t even know Alex was in the building. She glanced at the Sheriff before following after them.

“-ck you, Alex!” Michael was yelling when she pushed the back door open. “Can you not mind your own fucking business?!”

“What the fuck do you think you were doing? Do you not get how monumentally stupid that was? How much danger you could be? How much danger Isobel could be in right now?” Alex looked properly angry for the first time that Maria could remember in years. “What- what are you doing, Michael? What do you want from all of this?”

Michael let out a sound that could almost be called a laugh if laughter was cruel. “It doesn’t matter what I want.”

Alex shoved Michael back a step with two hands. “Get your shit together, Guerin.”

Michael shoved Alex in return only he pushed him all the way back against the wall. Maria took a step outside the door, ready to get involved if today was the day Michael finally took his anger out on Alex. But she seemed to worry for nothing as Michael crashed into Alex, his body flush against Alex’s, their lips meeting in a fierce battle as Alex tugged hard on Michael’s hair. Michael let out a sound Maria had never heard and pressed even closer to Alex as he grabbed his hips in a tight grip that almost gave Maria sympathy bruises.

She let the door slam shut behind her when she went back inside.

---

The sign for Sanders’ Auto loomed large overhead and Maria almost turned around. Her truck was making noises it shouldn’t and Michael was the best mechanic in town but it was early and she wasn’t sure she wanted to deal with him, if he was even awake. When they’d dated, if you could even call it that, Michael hadn’t really shown his face before noon and when he did, he was grumpy and irritable from the hangover. It was only ten o’clock now.

Maria bit the bullet and pulled around to Michael’s Airstream. She didn’t have time to come back later and she needed the car fixed. Michael could suck it up.

“Hey,” Michael called from the shaded workstation on her right as she got out of the car. Maria stared at him in shock. He looked...good. He looked like he’d actually slept the night before and had maybe even had a shower in the last couple of days. Also, he was up and working. That was good. Miles better than he’d been weeks before. “What brings you here?”

Maria waved a hand at the truck. “It’s making noises.”

Michael glanced at whatever he’d been working on. “You in a rush or can it wait until I’m done with this?”

She was in a little bit of a rush. “It can wait.”

Michael nodded and gestured to his trailer and the seats arranged in front of it. “Make yourself comfortable.”

So she did. Maria sat down gingerly in one of the lawn chairs, cautious as always that it might fall apart beneath her before realizing that the chairs had been replaced. They weren’t new but they were sturdy. Maria took them in, surprised that Michael would notice or take the time to replace them with everything going on with him right now.

She sat there for a little over half an hour before another car pulled up. It was Alex.

He got out of his car with a bag of groceries in his hand. “Hey,” he greeted somewhat cautiously.

“Hey,” Maria returned. They’d gotten better with each other but they weren’t anywhere close to what they’d been before. She was sure seeing her sitting outside of Michael’s home relatively early in the day was not something he expected, or wanted, to see. “My truck’s making noises and I’m waiting for him to take a look at it.”

Alex glanced at the truck in question and then beyond it to where Michael was working on his other project. “You been waiting long?”

Maria shrugged. “I’m sure it won’t be much longer.”

Alex nodded and walked past her to the Airstream. He pulled the door open without pause and disappeared inside. Maria waited a moment before giving into the curiosity and following him in.

“Wow,” Maria gaped. “It looks nice in here.” And it did. Everything was put away, the bed was made, and it looked like someone had given it a much needed, thorough deep clean.

“Thanks,” Alex muttered as he shook his head at the empty refrigerator. He quickly put away the groceries he’d brought before he started rooting through the cabinets.

“You cleaned up?”

Alex hummed in response. “I left him laying out on the ground by the lawn chairs one night and didn’t want to leave in case something happened so I cleaned instead.” He cursed as he pulled down an unopened bottle of whiskey. It made a loud thunk as he set it on the counter.

“Well it looks like he’s kept it clean.”

Alex scoffed. “He made it a mess the next day so I sicced Isobel on him. Since then it hasn’t been too bad.” He pulled another bottle of whiskey from the little cabinet behind the bed and a large flask from inside the shower. She watched as he took another look through the small space before he slipped past her to leave, the flask and both bottles in his hands.

Outside, Alex twisted open the two new bottles and started pouring them out onto the dirt. He got halfway before Michael noticed.

“Goddammit Alex!” He yelled as he ran over. His steps stuttered when he saw Maria but he didn’t falter. Michael grabbed Alex’s hands to try and save some of his whiskey but Alex didn’t budge. He met Michael’s glare with a hard look and kicked over the opened flask sitting on the ground, a clear liquid that smelled almost like nail polish remover spilling out. “I’m going to the store after work! Stop!”

Alex shook the bottles to get the last dregs out. “You had time to go buy more booze. Should’ve gone to the store then.” He capped the bottles and tossed them in the trash bin by the fire. “Food’s in your fridge, Liz is expecting you for lunch, and Isobel needs your help with something at Max’s house.” He pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and pressed it into Michael’s forehead. “Stop losing your fucking phone.”

Michael took his phone with a glare. “Aren’t you sick of this shit, yet?”

“I was sick of this shit the first fucking day.”

“Then leave! No one’s asking you to stay.” The words hung heavy in the air.

“I could do that,” Alex acknowledged. “But this has been so much fun I’ll just have to come back.” He glared at Michael. “Pony tonight?”

“Fuck you.”

“See you there then.” He nodded at Maria. “Maria.”

“Alex.”

Michael kicked the empty flask as Alex drove away.

“I don’t understand you two,” Maria admitted.

Michael laughed. “Join the club.”

---

It was three more months of Michael’s cycle of self destruction and he seemed to be getting better. Or at least, he was doing better at the Pony. Alex had broken up enough fights by now that most people didn’t bother rising to Michael’s bait and Michael had to be content with filling his time with flirting and anonymous sex. Of which he had a lot.

Maria had legitimately lost track of the number of times Michael had disappeared out the back door with someone only to reappear with his clothes and hair askew and a self assured smirk on his face. Alex was still there every night. And every single time Michael came back in he’d look straight at Alex.

“Alex,” Maria tried for the umpteenth time. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I know,” Alex sighed. He’d stopped getting angry around the twentieth time she’d brought it up. “But I can’t walk away again.”

“It’s not walking away and it’s not abandoning him if he’s pushing you away with two hands as hard as he can.” Maria itched to grab his hand but Alex was still reserved with her. “At some point, you’ve gotta let him go. He needs to be able to deal with his shit on his own, you can’t hold his hand the whole time.” Alex didn’t bother answering. “What about that guy you were seeing? With the hair?”

Alex rolled his eyes. “What about him?”

“Are you going to see him again?”

“That depends on your definition of seeing him, I guess.”

“You deserve to be happy, Alex.” Maria looked over at Michael. “And this? Whatever is going on with Guerin? It’s making you miserable.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it matt-”

“I’m leaving Roswell,” Alex cut her off.

Maria stared at him. “What? Why?”

“New posting.”

“I thought you were getting out?”

“I re-upped,” Alex shrugged and took a sip of his beer. “I thought I’d get to stay in Roswell a while longer but I have to report to my new posting in three days.”

“Three days?!” Maria gasped. “How long have you been sitting on this?”

“Found out two days ago,” Alex shrugged. “They have an immediate need for a codebreaker and I’m the best one up for relocation so…”

Maria couldn’t help but look over at Michael. “Does he know?”

“No.”

“Are you going to tell him?”

“Yes. But let’s just say I’m not looking forward to that conversation.” Alex drained his beer.

“Alex, why would you re-up? I thought you were done with the Air Force?”

He shrugged again as he stood up. “What else would I do?”

“Alex-”

He reached across the bar and pulled her into a hug. “I’ve gotta leave early on Thursday and I have a lot of things to do tomorrow so I won’t get to see you before I go.” He tried to release her but Maria clung tighter. “I’ve got your number, Maria.”

“Use it,” she urged. “And don’t be a stranger. You’ve always got a home here, Alex. Don’t forget that.”

He gave her a sad smile as he pulled away. “Thank you.”

For the first time in months, Alex left the bar before Michael without ever talking to him. It took Michael ten minutes to notice and another five to follow, his latest catch abandoned without a thought.

Alex left on Thursday. Maria didn’t get to see him go.

Michael left on Monday. Maria only realized he’d left when he posted a picture on his rarely used Instagram of the sign to Alex’s new base.

#malex fic #roswell fic #my fic #rnm #maria pov #i'm still generally meh about rnm right now #but i got the urge to write and i can't not write malex apparently

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newagesispage · 4 years

Text

MARCH 2020

PAGE RIB

The Stones are touring the U.S. again.

*****

Paul Reubens is touring with Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.

*****

Al Franken is touring.

*****

Keenan Thompson and Hasan Minhaj are bringing comedy back to the White House Correspondents dinner on April 5.

*****

Days alert: There is some casting news but most of this won’t show up until the fall. Word is a couple of newbies will be Remington Hoffman who will play Li Shin, son of Mr. Shin and Emily O’Brien may join the cast. Nadia Bjorlin (Chloe) may be on her way back. Let’s bring the original Phillip back for her!!! Brandon Barash (Stefan) will return as well as Louise Sorel ( Vivian )and Alison Sweeney ( Sami). Judi Evans is headed back. Will she play Adrienne or Bonnie?? It looks like Casey Moss (JJ), Freddie Smith (Sonny), Chandler Massey (Will) and Galen Gering (Rafe) mill head out for awhile.

*****

It looks like Friends freaks will finally get their reunion on HBO. I am glad they aren’t bringing the characters back and are just getting together to talk about their time together.

*****

Downhill hit theatres on Valentine’s Day with Will Ferrell, Julia Louis- Dreyfus and Zoe Chao. The film was written and directed by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash.

*****

The more I see of it, the more I LOVE Stumptown, the best show that nobody seems to know about. Please renew ABC!!!!!

*****

So.. Rush Limbaugh got the Medal of Freedom. Oh my.

*****

Shadow Inc. owned by former Clinton and Obama staffers made an app that thoroughly fucked up the Iowa caucus. It was good at calculating the results but not delivering them. And hey.. Wolf Blitzer, stay off the phone with people that are trying to get those results. Let them just do their job!!

*****

Brooklyn 99 is back and Vanessa Bayer is there!!!

*****

Rod Blagojevich is out and hitting every show that will have him. Trump pardoned him along with 10 other criminals including Ed DeBartolo Jr., Mike Milken and Bernard Kerik.

*****

Forty thousand kids won’t get free lunch because Trump threw them off food stamps. The two usually go hand in hand. Getting food stamps automatically sets a kid up for the free lunch program.

*****

Over 1000 former DOJ officials have asked Bill Barr to resign.** 70 former Senators have written an open letter to congress to tell them they are not fulfilling their congressional duties.**” Yoo Hoo! Bush, Clinton, Carter, Obama, you’re up.” –Patricia Arquette

*****

Pete Davidson and Kaia Gerber have split.

*****

Indiana Beach is closing after 94 years.

*****

Denny Hamlin won the 2020 Daytona 500.

*****

Can’t we get some real gigs for Rainn Wilson and Curtis Armstrong? Ok, so Cyrtis Armstrong was on Stumptown so thank goodness for that! They can do better than Dominoes and Little Caesars ads. And how funny is it that Dominoes, known for its very Chrustian owners use a Risky Business ( a film about prostitutes) ad for their product. Hmm.

*****Hey.. Comics, quit bringing up Trump and his former womanizing. It didn’t work with Clinton and it won’t work here. People just don’t seem to care. Focus on the real damage he is doing.

*****

Scary Clown is working on opening nearly a million acres of land in Utah for energy exploration that had been a National monument. Redford and Romney can’t be happy about that.

*****

A new animated series from a brand new production company owned by Natasha Lyonne and Maya Rudolph looks promising. Look for The Hospital.

*****

Southern Illinois University is giving Bob Odenkirk an honorary degree.

*****

Ukranian immigrants Lt. Col. Vindman and his twin brother are out. Ambassador to the EU Sonland is out.

*****

The Democrats had a debate on Feb. 7 . At Andrew Yang’s first chance to speak, he rehashed his stump speech. I mean, c’mon give us something new. There really seemed to be a restrained nervousness on the stage that night. Klobachar seemed too needy but she got great reviews. Biden called Buttigieg ‘a friend ‘ a couple of times. Mayor Pete did quite well. ** Deval Patrick is out** Andrew Yang is out.**Michael Bennet is out** Another debate was on Feb. 19.** Bloomberg/Yang? Is this true?

*****

Check out the new series, Hunters. It is awesome, funny and terrifying!

*****

Dozens of Native American women and girls have disappeared from Big Horn county, Montana over the last few years. The victims were later found dead and Trump has put a federal task force together.

*****

Grassley and Wyden are trying to get lower prescription drug prices but Moscow Mitch won’t bring the proposal to the floor. Others are looking to get some traction on HR3.

*****

JSW Steel has sued the Trump administration for refusing to exempt it from paying the levies on slabs of steel that the company imports.

*****

64 women have filed sexual harassment or discrimination lawsuits against Mike Bloomberg. I’m not a fan of the guy but it does seem sort of coincidental. It does not seem to matter cuz all his ads seem to be working, he is picking up steam. Tom Steyer is gaining a bit of momentum as well.

*****

The corona virus has brought us Covid 19. 600 people are being held in quarantine camps that the military has set up. Italy has new cases and the disease is spreading. Scary Clown is trying to spin it all.

*****

ICE is being sent into sanctuary cities to cause trouble for immigrants.

*****

You have to check out Horse girl with Alison Brie, Molly Shannon and Matthew Gray Gubler on Netflix .

*****

Rapper Larry Sanders AKA LV is letting us in on a miscarriage of justice he has had to live thru. LV, best known for his work on Coolio’s Gangsters Paradise, was approached by police and later put on the Calgang database. The practice put about 80,000 mostly African Americans on a sort of gang list. In a 2016 audit it was found that there were many inaccuracies including the names of babes who could not possibly be gang affiliated.

*****

Nature does not need people. People need nature. –Harrison Ford

*****

The Clark bar is back. The roll out has started in Pittsburgh and will soon spread across the country.

*****

Scientists have found some turtle fossils that are the size of a car in South America.

*****

U can donate to the Trump campaign and may win a yaqut and hunting trip with Don Jr. The Beach Boys will perform.

*****

The Oscars were held Feb. 9. Brad Pitt and the production design team won for Once upon a Time in Hollywood. Woo Hoo! Word is that Pitt has hired a speech writer to write his acceptances. JoJo Rabbit won for adapted screenplay. Little Women won for Little Women and Toy Story 4 for animated film. Laura Dern won best supporting actress. Renee Zellweger and Joaquin Phoenix too home the top actor prizes. Parasite surprised everybody and won best pic and got Bong Joon Ho a best director statue. My best dressed were Billy Porter, Antonio Banderes and his date, Janelle Monae ( her opening seemed to make some in the audience uncomfortable), Robert DeNiro, Laura Dern, Diane Ladd, Geena Davis, Regina King, Charlize Theron, Adam Driver, Joanne Tucker, Cynthia Erivo, Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman and Kathy Bates, I don’t know what Kristen Wiig and Idina Menzel were thinking. Wiig always has a unique style so I have to admire that. ** The ratings were down. I have heard people saying they just don’t watch award shows or late night shows anymore because they are afraid things will get political. Funny, that is part of the reason I watch!

*****

Tom Papa was pontificating about a real dog show that should have REAL dogs. It would make a great weekly show with people bringing on their dogs.

*****

The goalies of the Hurricanes were out of commission and David Ayres, the Zamboni driver was brought in to help and the won against the Maple Leafs. Woo Hoo!!

*****

Hooray for New Hampshire and their use of paper ballots. Things in the campaign got a little shook up with Bernie taking the top followed by Pete and Amy.

*****

2 years of research in Canada has brought the announcement of a new discovery. Skull fragments that were cleaned and collected about 10 years ago have been named Thanatotheristes or the reaper of death. The discovery helps us all learn more about the early times of Tyrannosaurids, a sub group that includes T.Rex.

*****

New Jersey has a ban on self- serve pumps and another state is talking about getting in on the action. The gas station attendant act has been proposed in Illinois.

*****

Van Jones was right when he said we shouldn’t give Trump any press coverage for a week. He would hate it. Trump loves the old adage of bad publicity is better than none because he just must have attention. It would never work for they just can’t resist.** Joe Mcguire is out after he warned of Russian interference. If you want to keep your job in this administration, do not tell the truth. Now at the Department of National Intelligence is Johnny Mcentee , a 29 year old former football player who worked on the campaign. He immediately called department heads and said he wanted lists of never Trumpers in their offices. ** And who is in charge of weeding out the people in the government who may be disloyal to Scary Clown? Well, it is none other than Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court justice Clarence. She calls it the list of snakes. Trump is now saying he even wants liberal judges on the Supreme Court to recuse themselves when it comes to “Trump related cases”. It just keeps getting worse.

*****

Trump had fun in India. He should, his business has 5 projects going there right now worth 1.5 billion.

*****

Harvey Weinstein was found guilty of rape and criminal sexual assault. He was not found guilty of all the charges that included predatory behavior.

*****

Andrew Yang is a new correspondent at CNN. He tells us that he is getting word from former donors that Bloomberg is calling those big donors. Allegedly he is telling them they do not have to donate to his campaign because he can afford his own campaign but he still won’t forget them. He would like them to save their money and not give money to other democrats running either.** And I am so sick of talking heads trying to tell us to play it safe. We are not as stupid as we look, thank you!! ** Now there is a firestorm about Bernie telling the world that the education program that Castro implemented was a good thing. I understand the anger and it could not have come at a worse time and he did it to himself. BUT.. We are adults and we have to be able to talk about things as they really are, not in sound bites. Castro sucked and history teaches us that bad people do good things occasionally and good people do bad things once in a while. ** It seems that everyone was in agreement that we would all gather behind the winner of the democratic campaign to beat Trump. Suddenly when it could be Bernie, everybody is bitching.

*****

This month held 2 more Democratic debates. The Nevada debate got pretty heated. I see that Mayor Pete and Bloomberg are lefties (left handed that is). Pete always looked poised and articulate which I appreciate and he got in a good one when he mentioned that the party should choose someone who is actually a democrat. Bernie seemed a little rattled by that. Later Pete really dressed down Amy Klobuchar and made himself look like a dick. Joe Biden jumped in with his credits occasionally but often seemed a bit lost. He slammed back that they were all talking about the health care plane he helped to create and that he himself had dealt with the Mexican President. His name came up after it was mentioned that Amy could not remember the President’s name. The gloves were off with Bloomberg as Elizabeth Warren called him out on Billionaires and NDA’s. I loved the interaction but realistically Mr. Mike can’t just release people from agreements they made in an NDA, especially if it did not involve him. Bloomberg sounded pompous and clueless about the world outside of his company. He got a moan when he said he couldn’t exactly use turbo tax and when he said he may have told a few jokes that women didn’t like. He brushed off his taxes much like Trump does. The former mayor of NY called out socialists as communists. Klobuchar had the best comeback of the night when she was told her health care plan could fit on a post it. She proclaimed that the post it was invented in her state of Minnesota. Again, there were people shouting from the audience as Joe tried to talk. C’mon give everybody an equal chance.

*****

The South Carolina debate was fiery as well. The CBS debate was hosted by Gayle King and Norah O’Donnell. Bloomberg was booed right off the bat about Russia helping Bernie but he late had many cheers. He and Biden and Steyer had some real support there. Tom Steyer was actually quite impressive and seemed well spoken. He was the only one who brought up the impeachment. He had a great point that we all know that republicans who did not convict Trump are complicit in the Russian meddling. Then he ruined it all by being alarmist with his fear. He warned us off the former republican and the socialists. I loved Bernie’s ideas about small business’s getting in on the marijuana business and not letting big corporations taking it over. He is also the only one in debates that I have seen consistently bring up Native Americans. Biden again kept jumping in to tell us that he did this or that. Amy disagreed about a bill he claimed to have written. Warren said “dig in” numerous times. She went for the jugular with Bloomberg when she said a former female employee of his said to “kill it” in response to her pregnancy. He denied it but it sure is memorable. She did make great points that he has given much money to Linsey Graham’s campaign as well as other republican runs including against her. BTW he also gave 2.3 mil to Rick Snyder, the Gov of Michigan after the water crisis was well known. I love that Amy is always saying that we shouldn’t fight amongst ourselves but she just does not have the votes so she needs to go. Bernie got some boos about guns for he seems the softest in that area.

*****

Joe Biden won the South Carolina primary in a big way.

*****

Dick Van Dyke, Sarah Silverman and Public Enemy among others will be at the Bernie Sanders rally in L.A. on March 1.

*****

Just think what the 400 million that Bloomberg spent on his campaign could have done for the debt of the average American. Instead of a campaign for a presidency that he can’t win, he could have helped so many get a leg up.

*****

I don’t understand why “respected” journalists like Chuck Todd don’t throw W H reps off the set when they disrespect him or his colleagues with fake news jabs.

*****

Bob Moore of Bob’s Red Mill is giving his company away to his employees. Now, that’s a boss!!

*****

Bone, Thugs and Harmony have made a deal with Buffalo Wild Wings to rename themselves Boneless thugs and Harmony. The publicity stunt is to promote boneless wings.

*****

NASA is hiring.

*****

Scotland has made feminine sanitary products free!!

*****

Is this true? There were pigeons in Nevada with MAGA hats glued to their heads??

*****

The final Criminal Minds has aired. CBS often aired double episodes which made it seem like they really wanted to get rid of it. Kirsten Vangsness and Erica Messer wrote the final episode which seemed to give special attention to Penelope and Reid as they were the originals. The other characters seemed a little overlooked but they all had happy endings. Where was Reid’s new girlfriend? I was hoping to see Shemar Moore but it was great to see Reisgraf and Howell which are old favorites.

*****

Animal Kingdom returns to TNT on May 28.

*****

So there is a bit of a mess with the Roger Stone sentencing. Trump is hopping mad about the long sentence recommendation, Barr is said to be pretending to spar with the Prez, the DOJ is backing down and people are resigning.

*****

R.I.P. Shirley Jean Cade, Robert Conrad, Katherine Johnson, Lyle Mays, B. Smith, A.E. Hotchner, Bashir Jackson, Ja’net Dubois, Pat Agee, victims of the Molson Coors shooting and Orson Bean.

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junker-town · 6 years

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A secret history of Thanksgiving football

The NFL has worked hard to turn football into a Thanksgiving tradition. But there are many Thanksgiving NFL games from the past that the league doesn't want you to know about.

Thanksgiving and NFL football are inextricably bound, seamlessly and seemingly. But the history of the NFL and this holiday is neither as clean nor as simple as the NFL would have us believe. There have been a great many more NFL games played on Thanksgiving than the NFL cares to talk about, for reasons that will be made plain below. It's not that the NFL and Thanksgiving don't go well together -- they do, for reasons good and bad. It's just that not every Thanksgiving game follows the NFL's narrative. This was written by amateur NFL historians David Roth and Jeff Johnson.

Kevingate

Pittsburgh Steelers at Philadelphia Eagles, 1979

In the Philadelphia of the late 1970s, it was understood that fans at any and every type of sporting event would behave unreasonably. That they threw batteries at referees is common knowledge; less widely known is that Phillies fans routinely launched cans of expired tuna fish at opposing players. Eagles fans once trapped Kansas City Chiefs head coach Hank Stram in a McDonald's bathroom and made him eat Egg McMuffins until he couldn't see.

Stram was eventually rescued, but the rowdy crowd forced him to coach on the sidelines wearing a T-shirt that said "Hank Stram's Privates," with an arrow pointing downwards.

The whole city was filled with vile, sick people. Fans kidnapped Phillies third baseman Mike Schmidt and made him punt, in loafers and slacks, for an entire home game against the Houston Oilers. They once put hot cinnamon oil in Washington Redskins QB Billy Kilmer's mouthguard and wouldn't let him take it out until his lips and gums were torched. This last offense was justified under the guise of fresher breath. "C'mon Kilmer. You're old. You smell like Band-aids and vinegar." After the game, many of the fans forced Kilmer to thank them, even though "th" sounds were especially painful for him in his condition.

Which is to say that no one expected Thanksgiving 1979 to be any different. The challenge for Eagles security was to mitigate gameday carnage to the greatest extent possible; one of these innovations, the practice of taking crossbows and hatchets from fans attempting to bring them into the stadium, continues to this day at Eagles games, and in some other cities as well. Another innovation fared less well.

For this Thanksgiving afternoon game, all fans attending the game that were able to prove that their names were Kevin received a bag of lukewarm gravy. The Kevins, many of them already drunk or watching the game from the sour bottom of a Qaalude gully, were told that they could do whatever they pleased with that bag of gravy. Census data told the Eagles that Kevin was the best first name for this plan, but an estimated 659 Kevins showed up for the game.

Thanksgiving 2013

• Spilly's Thanksgiving potluck • Cowboys look to push lead in East • Packers fight for playoff lives • AFC North on the line

By the third quarter, the Steelers were covered in beige splotches. Franco Harris played the whole game with his body Saran Wrapped to protect himself. By halftime, Steelers head coach Chuck Noll looked like one of the convicts who dug his way out of prison at the beginning of "Raising Arizona."

This was, Eagles officials would later allow, the best-case scenario. The idea was: "This is a preventative measure." Gravy, at this temperature, would not burn. It wouldn't sting. It contained small flecks of basil, which is good for the skin. It also tasted great.

The problem: Distributing the bagged gravy only empowered the Kevins, and Kevins from all over the northeast -- many of them not even Eagles fans -- showed up at the game. There were Kevins with grudges. Kevins who wanted only to hurl hot liquid. Kevins who brought their own meat to the game and used the gravy to keep it moist and add flavor. An AMC Pacer filled with Kevins came all the way from Moline, Illinois. And then the inevitable.

Once the gravy was gone, the Kevins stormed the field. They took a curling iron to what remained of Steelers QB Terry Bradshaw's hair; the amateur perm -- performed by hundreds of drunken Kevins using a since-recalled product called Kurli -- is considered to be a major factor in Bradshaw's present baldness. The Kevins picked up Harold Carmichael and wouldn't leave until they'd heaved him across the goal line 41 times. After the game, Carmichael allowed that his hips were chafed from being hoisted and heaved, but added, "the most important thing is we got the win."

When the clock read all zeroes and the Eagles had "won" 351-19, the Kevins marched on City Hall and captured it easily. The lawyering Kevins, for a brief window, diverted significant portions SEPTA revenues to small pubs in Philadelphia's Old City, Beard/German Village, Cathedral Goiter, and Grumptown neighborhoods. Many pub owners received new carpeting, others drapes. No games have been played on Thanksgiving on the East Coast ever since.

The "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" Game

Cleveland Browns at Miami Dolphins, 2006

This game, an ill-fated NFL tie-in with Best Buy, technically was not played on Thanksgiving. The first and likely only NFL Doorbuster Kickoff Classic was played at 3 a.m. on Friday, with a Best Buy-themed (and -shaped) football, and was broadcast in every Best Buy parking lot to the crowds camped there, waiting to surge into stores.

Tecmo Bo Breaks Madden

Tecmo Bowl Bo Jackson remains the greatest athlete in the history of gaming. In this episode of Breaking Madden, Bo wreaks havoc in the present day.The two teams were bleary and not sharp; it would later be revealed that Browns coach Romeo Crennel had insisted on serving the team a large Thanksgiving dinner, at which he'd delivered a particularly emotional toast about the meaning of family. Several players, including quarterback Derek Anderson, reported being dehydrated after weeping so much, so deeply. Members of the Dolphins, who had observed the Miami tradition of spending Thanksgiving at nightclubs, were clearly inebriated and arrived by limousine in groups of three and four, beginning 15 minutes after kickoff. The game ended, shortly before sunrise, in a 5-5 tie.

If the game is remembered at all, it's for a halftime show that lasted 171 minutes, and which featured J.Lo and Marc Anthony performing an on-field production of Edward Albee's bruising domestic drama Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf; Mike Nichols directed, and Lou Diamond Phillips and Nelly Furtado co-starred. The crowd was riveted. Albee's family called it the purest distillation of his vision ever produced, despite the widely held public opinion was that Furtado was overmatched as Honey. It also resulted in an embarrassing on-air argument between broadcasters Cris Collinsworth and Al Michaels:

Collinsworth: And that is how couples fight, Al. Not sure this is the appropriate venue for it, but wow-

Michaels: For my money, this doesn't touch The Mountain Goats Tallahassee and it's not just because-

Collinsworth: Here we go again, Al. You've always valued music over theater and I never minded. Until tonight. This is it.

The two quarreled throughout the second half, which was marked by a rash of hamstring pulls for both teams.

Jon Kitna's Message Game

Cincinnati at New England, 2002

Before the 2002 season, Bengals owner Mike Brown complained to the league that his team had been denied the opportunity to build a national fan base through holiday games. Brown, moved by television shots of military members watching games on Thanksgiving, became obsessed with the Bengals becoming "the Coast Guard's team," and threatened to play an unsanctioned game on Thanksgiving if the NFL did not deliver an official one. "I should tell you that Cincinnati is full of people who think they can beat the Bengals," he wrote in a letter to then-commissioner Paul Tagliabue. "Whole town full of freaking tough guys. Buncha fat shits, more like." The league caved and gave Brown the game.

An exclusive, all access look at the people, technology, and highly organized chaos that results in the NFL's most advanced game broadcast.

The game itself was uninteresting, a lopsided New England rout that's most notable for Bengals quarterback Jon Kitna's insistence that he was playing to show fans "the reason for the season," and to "put Christ back in Thanksgiving." Kitna finished 17 for 41 with a touchdown and five interceptions.

The most enduring artifact of the game is not Kitna's statline or fervor, but the seven-song EP by Jon Bon Jovi and Bill Belichick that all fans in attendance received. The songs -- spare, tender, and revelatory -- are widely considered Belichick's most personal work, and were recorded by Will Oldham on his farm in North Carolina. The record is highlighted by the haunted nine-minute ballad "Brother Lyle," in which Belichick sings in a near whisper about his hunting trips with former Broncos defensive end Lyle Alzado. Highly prized by collectors, it's almost impossible to find today.

Vince Evans vs. Don Dokken

Los Angeles, 1987

1987 was supposed to be a magical year for Vince Evans. The former Bears quarterback had returned to the NFL after several years in the USFL, and found himself in Los Angeles, where he'd gone to school at USC, as a backup with the Raiders. These were the Silver and Black Attack teams of Marcus Allen and Bo Jackson; all Evans had to do, he figured, was hand the ball off and the team would probably win. He had an Alfa Romeo convertible. There was talk of a guest-starring role as a visiting professor on "The Facts of Life." Things were going well.

Evans was also madly in love with a woman he'd met at the Chateau Marmont over drinks one night with Ken Wahl and Carlos Santana. There was just one problem. She was the wife of the heavy metal singer Don Dokken. Or ex-wife. Christ, the stories were never clear, they never ended. This was the problem. There were many, many drives through Laurel Canyon, tears on both sides. Evans professed his devotion. He had never been this open with a woman before. He'd never met a woman like Cherri.

There was no Raiders game on Thanksgiving in ‘87. Instead, for Evans, there was a quiet dinner with the lady, which was interrupted by Don Dokken pulling down the front wall of Evans's dining room with his 4x4 and some chains. He'd driven right onto his lawn and filmed it all for a music video. Thought it looked pretty cool. So did his wife, or ex-wife, or whatever. Evans, standing amid crumbled drywall and a damaged LeRoy Neiman painting of Jay Schroeder, didn't agree. It was the end of the affair.

Evans did gain 13.1 yards per scramble that season. Running away, one might guess, from the pain of a broken heart. The "Facts of Life" thing didn't come together, either.

Hungry Hungry Hipple

Green Bay at Detroit Lions, 1986

In 1986, the Detroit Lions were a shambles. In today's NFL, MSRA is considered a real threat in NFL locker rooms, but in the less sanitary NFL of the Reagan years, MRSA was a sort of low-level constant. The larger threat was fenestrated bowel, or Lynn Dickey's Disease, the cause of which is usually used athletic tape being "jokingly" discarded into Gatorade kegs. You get old adhesive, male body hair and various bodily drippings interacting with artificial lemon and lime flavors, forming bonds with the electrolytes and such, and even the hardest-nosed and oldest-school of players were vulnerable.

NFL Week 12 #Lookits

• Jets bring us the NutFumble • Photographers punching each other • The Cowboys forgot to tackle on this TD • Philip Rivers meets Andy Reid's butt • Burleson shows off broken arm after TD

The lay definition of fenestrated bowel is "toilet paranoia," which aptly sums up the extent to which the disease is a mental disorder. You think you have to go to the bathroom, but you actually don't. Still, your brain will not let you get off the throne. Steadfast refusal. An outbreak of Lynn Dickey's Disease right before the holiday left the Lions shorthanded and toilet bound; the receivers were paranoid about having an accident in tight silver pants, right there on television.

With so many of the team's pass-catchers sidelined, Eric Hipple volunteered to move to play receiver. An interesting note: One receiver, Jeff Chadwick, only pretended to have fenestrated bowel because he really wanted to go to a Thanksgiving party for "All My Children" in New York City, where his sister was a production assistant. He was later busted when Lions kicker Eddie Murray saw him playing a dentist on the soap opera; they'd given him a walk-on role during his visit.

On Thanksgiving, Hipple caught 17 Joe Ferguson passes for 381 yards and four touchdowns in a shootout. He looked like a much slower version of Don Beebe, but played with the sheer balls of Jeff Query. He moonwalked in the end zone, twice; after one score, Hipple pulled a feather from his helmet, and the camera caught him raising and lowering his eyebrows in a pervy way, before he gently blew it into the crowd. Hipple is the last recipient of The Ombudsman's Chalice, an award formerly given to the player who displays "the most attention to detail" in a holiday game.

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ralphmorgan-blog1 · 7 years

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Jordan Edwards’ killing fuels community’s grief — and a call for justice

Balch Springs, Texas (CNN)On the first day back to school since Jordan Edwards was killed, more than 100 of his football teammates gathered early Monday for a meeting in a Dallas suburb. The 15-year-old's parents and brothers joined them. There were prayers and tears.

The players hugged the Edwards family, shared stories about their teammate and scribbled messages on a memorial on his locker: "RIP lil bro." "Rest Easy my boy."

"It was a lot of sadness ... just because of how close everybody felt like they were to Jordan," said Jeff Fleener, head football coach at Mesquite High School, where Jordan was a freshman.

Emotions have ranged from grief to shock -- and frustration and determination -- since police in Balch Springs said an officer fired into a car as it was driving way from the party, killing Jordan, an unarmed black teenager in the front seat.

The Edwards family and others praised police Chief Jonathan Haber's swift firing of the officer on Tuesday -- a day after Haber said he "misspoke" when he said the car Jordan was in was moving "aggressively" toward police leading the officer to shoot -- and called for criminal charges.

Others drew parallels to the actions of officers that resulted in deaths of other unarmed black males across the country, raising what they say is a need to reform how police interact with black and Latino communities.

"It surprises me that situations like this are still happening, but it doesn't surprise me that the officer got fired but somehow hasn't been arrested," Everett Young, 45, who owns a barbershop near Mesquite High School, told CNN Wednesday.

Young said he believes the police are necessary but would want to see them get psychologically evaluated regularly.

"They need to understand that when they get in a hot situation and kill somebody, they just killed someone's son, brother, grandson."

'There could have been neighbors outside smoking'

The officer, Roy Oliver, has not been criminally charged. A police representative for him could not be reached Wednesday.

Jordan along with his two brothers and two friends were in the car when it was fired upon last Saturday. Jordan died from a fatal gunshot wound to the head, the Dallas County Medical Examiner's Office said. His death has been ruled a homicide.

Candace Gonzalez, a home health company employee who lives three blocks from the shooting, recalled hearing what sounded like multiple gunshots that night.

"What I want to know is what that officer saw that made him pull out a rifle? There could have been neighbors outside smoking," she said.

Balch Springs Police said officers discovered a large party when they responded to a 911 call reporting underage, intoxicated teenagers walking around. They allegedly heard gunshots outside as they tried to find the homeowner in the residence.

Sarah Evans, who lives next door to the house where the party took place, said she has children around Jordan's age. They all played peewee football together.

"We are a tight-knit community here. We don't want a protest because we want justice," she said. "But if the officer is cleared, the community will stand up and rally."

Another neighbor, Willie Williams, who said he also heard what sounded like gunshots that night, said the killing is the buzz of the neighborhood.

"You never know with these police, just because they put on a uniform doesn't mean they want to serve you," he said. "If the chief saw something to fire him, something that we the public didn't see, then why isn't he arrested?"

Haber had said the body cam footage showed the car was driving away from officers not reversing toward them.

'Proud of what the chief did'

At the press conference Tuesday announcing Oliver's firing, Rev. Ronald Wright credited Haber with "setting what should be considered a litmus test" for dealing with similar police shootings.

Wright, executive director of Justice Seekers Texas, a civil rights and social justice organization, cautioned the public not to judge other Balch Springs officers by Oliver's alleged actions.

In an interview Wednesday, Wright said he believes the reaction in Balch Springs and nearby Dallas to the firing has been generally positive.

"And a lot of them are proud of what the chief did because the average police department wouldn't have done it," he said.

Wright said the Balch Springs police has forged a better relationship with the community in recent years, citing a community liaison that works with churches and youth.

In the past, officers would often stop and question black residents, he said.

According to US Census figures, Balch Springs is 45% Hispanic or Latino and 24% African-American.

'People are weary right now'

Traelon Rodgers, the Dallas NAACP Youth Council president, said the shooting has caused fear and confusion among young adults.

"Afraid of the powers that be ... confused that their lives may be next, and confused as to what causes this and what triggers the violence," Traelon, 17, said after at a meeting Tuesday by Dallas NAACP Branch and Youth Council.

Pastor Marcus D. King of Disciple Center Community Church in DeSoto, Texas, said "people are wary right now."

"It's a lack of trust that something will actually be handled and true justice will take place," he said. "People are asking, 'Why should I continue to raise my voice? Because I'm going to be hoarse after a while because nobody is listening.' "

The officer's firing 'does not bring justice'

Oliver was fired on the same day former North Charleston officer Michael Slager admitted using excessive force in the 2015 shooting death of Walter Scott, an unarmed black man in North Charleston, South Carolina. Slager shot Scott in the back as he was running away from Slager after a traffic stop.

In a reversal from his earlier account, Slager admitted in court he did not shoot Scott in self-defense and said his use of force was unreasonable. Slager is white.

On Wednesday, the Justice Department declined to file civil rights charges against the two officers involved in the death of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in July 2016.

But officers Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake II, who are white, could still face state criminal charges.

In a statement, the ACLU of Texas referenced the three deaths in South Carolina, Louisiana and Texas at the hands of police.

"How many Black men have to die before law enforcement changes its culture and regains the trust of the communities it's sworn to serve?" Terri Burke, the executive director, said.

Aubrey Christopher Hooper, president of the Dallas NAACP Branch, said the Oliver's firing is only the first step in getting justice.

"But the larger question that the community is now awaiting is 'how is this officer going to be held accountable?' " (Oliver) being fired does not bring justice to the death of this innocent young man," he said