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Michael remembered very clearly when he first met Alex Manes. He’d just been moved into the new foster family’s home in Roswell and had run off immediately after having finished unpacking his limited possessions. He wanted to find his…siblings? Were the three of them siblings? They must be siblings, he needed them to be his siblings. Why else would they have been put in that cave together? Why else would they be connected like this?
He didn’t know where in Roswell the Evans family lived, which meant that Michael wandered for the most part. He took random turns, looking at houses and trying to see if he felt a pull from their connection. He just knew he’d know the house when he saw it. Which is why he is so confused.
This is most definitely not the Evans’s house.
Not only was it not the Evans’s house, there was still something pulling Michael to it.
Curious and confused (and maybe just a little bit hopeful that this meant that there were more people like him on this strange world), he came around to the front of the house. He peaked around the corner to see a boy around his age wearing some protective gear and trying to balance on a beat-up skateboard. Just as it seemed the boy had achieved balance, he pushed forward and the front wheel caught in a crack in the cement driveway and sent the boy flying forward.
Startled, Michael didn’t even register he’d reached out with his powers to soften the landing at all until he heard a mocking laugh off to the side where Michael couldn’t see.
“I told you! Told you you’d eat shit and break your nose!”
The boy pushed up from the ground, face red and eyes narrowed. But his nose wasn’t broken or anything, so Michael had no idea what the voice was talking about.
“Shut up, Flint! I’m not even hurt so you didn’t tell me shit!” the boy yelled back.
“You’re, like, five, you’re not allowed to swear.”
“I’m not five! I’m eleven and a half and you know that!”
“Well, you cry like you’re five, so I don’t see a difference.”
“I do not! Shut up!”
“Alex Manes!” another voice—louder, deeper, angrier, scarier—yelled from the same direction Flint had been talking from. “You do not tell your older brother to shut up. Ever. Do you understand me?”
Michael watched the boy—Alex—avert his eyes to the ground, head lowered and shoulders starting to shake. He mumbled something but Michael couldn’t hear. Apparently, neither could the others.
“Speak up, soldier! And look at me when I talk to you! Look me in the eye and tell me you understand.”
“I-I underst-stand,” Alex stuttered, voice growing thick and shaking more noticeably. Michael could feel the air around him grow cold.
“I said, look me in the eye,” the older voice growled. Alex’s head raised faster than Michael could blink.
“I-I understand, sir!” Alex called back, rehearsed and militaristic but with more control over himself. The other voices didn’t say anything else but there was a door slamming shut and Alex curled in on himself on the ground, tears spilling over and breathing coming in gasps and body shaking. Michael knew that feeling too well, and he knew this one too.
He wasn’t being pulled to this house. He was being pulled to Alex.
He waited until Alex’s breathing started to even out and he wasn’t shaking as much before letting his presence be known. Michael stepped around the corner and just said the first thing that came to mind.
“That sounded rough.”
Alex turned to look at him, face bright red in patches and hands wiping at his face.
“Yeah, well, dads and brothers just suck, I guess,” he grumbled. He didn’t move to stand, so Michael approached slow enough so the other could tell him to scram if he wanted. “Who’re you?”
“Michael,” he introduced himself as he sat down on the ground across from Alex. They stared at each other unblinking in a not-quite-comfortable silence for a couple of minutes until Alex’s eyes are no longer watery and only slightly red.
“You’ve got nice eyes,” Alex said, voice quiet. Michael tilted his head to the left, eyebrows scrunching and cheeks warming.
“Nice…eyes?”
“Yeah,” Alex shrugged, “you’ve got nice eyes. They’re…pretty. The—The color, I mean.”
“Oh. Thanks…yours are nice too.”
“No, they aren’t. Mine are boring.”
Michael leaned forward into the other boy’s space, knocking their foreheads together. Alex’s eyes widened in surprise, but he otherwise didn’t move as Michael stared.
“Don’t look all that boring to me,” Michael muttered. “Reminds me of the sky at night. And the sky is just what we can see of the universe, and the universe holds everything. So, not boring.”
He leaned back out of the other’s personal space and gave him a small smile. It was while he leaned back that he felt the insistent tugging on his consciousness to get closer, the same pull that had brought him to this house in the first place. Well, it didn’t bring him to the house—it brought him to Alex.
--//--
They’re fifteen when the whispers start. Michael doesn’t pay much attention to them at first. Not until they’re in the boys’ locker room and no one will say anything, but he notices Kyle Valenti is clearly staring at Alex while he whispers something to his friend. Then that friend whispers to the boy next to him, and the boy next to him, and the boy next to him, until Michael’s neighbor has started to turn to tell him too. Michael cuts him off with a sharp look, too irritated to be interested in whatever gossip Valenti is spreading that’s clearly about Alex.
He still feels that strange pull to the other boy; it’s so like the connection he has with Max and Isobel, only just different enough to be distinctly unique from it. There’s a sharp tug on that connection, and Michael glances over at Alex just in time to see him slam the door of his gym locker closed.
Alex turned to the rest, narrowed eyes focused on Valenti, and flipped the bird. Michael startled a laugh which drew Alex’s gaze. Eyes so like the night sky, harsh and confused, softened ever so slightly before hardening again. Michael watched as Alex walked out of the locker room, eyes trained on the door as it closed, and the other boys stopped keeping their words quiet.
“Geez, I can’t believe they let him change in here with us,” Valenti said, loud and disgusted. “This is basically a living wet dream for him or something.”
Michael’s temper flared as the guys around Valenti laughed uncomfortably.
“Sounds like you’re just pissed he didn’t wanna suck your dick, Valenti,” Michael said, voice disinterested with a sharp edge. The laughter quieted to a couple muffled snorts. It was the anger and embarrassment clear on Kyle’s face that satisfied him though.
“That faggot wishes,” Valenti hissed. Michael slammed his own locker door shut and leaned against it with arms crossed and eyebrows raised. “But it looks like Manes has got himself a boyfriend to protect him.”
“Now you’re just sounding jealous,” Michael tsked. “Really not helping your case here, man.”
Michael noted the shaking shoulders of contained laughter amongst Kyle’s cronies and the way Kyle seemed lost for a response. He shook his head with a biting smile and left the locker room. When Coach Newman picked him to be one of the captains for dodgeball, he made sure Alex was his first pick. It earned more whispers among the boys who’d been in the locker room earlier, but Michael didn’t care.
All Michael cared about was the happy surprise on Alex’s face.
--//--
They’re seventeen and ‘promposal’ season had just started.
Michael wouldn’t have noticed if it weren’t for Isobel complaining about the clichés and terrible puns, or for the fact that Alex had started sulking more than usual. In the two years between the initial locker incident, Alex had cut his hair and darkened his wardrobe, evolving from skater to emo punk. Sulking had become a typical setting for the boy to be found in. No one would really notice if it was happening more than usual.
No one except Michael, anyway. He was particularly attuned to Alex’s moods and mannerisms. He was a curious being by nature, and the strange connection he had with the human boy was the one riddle he had yet to crack; as such, he’d spent quite enough time observing the other to tell when he was off.
It became rather obvious at lunch that day. Kyle had rounded up his football buddies at lunch to help him perform an off-key musical number to some cheesy pop song to ask Liz Ortecho to prom. And, since they were at lunch and Liz was one Alex’s best friends, Alex had been trapped at the table right alongside Liz and Maria. By this point, Alex’s being gay was an open secret amongst the student population, and, while Alex didn’t like to admit it, the boy enjoyed going to school dances and hanging out with friends. Michael remembered the way he would smile and laugh at middle school dances while Maria and Liz dragged him to the center of the gymnasium to actually dance.
Now, though, it was likely that Alex believed he wouldn’t be asked to prom—at least, not by someone he’d want to go with as a date. The unfortunate consequence of being the only semi-out gay kid in a small-town high school.
Isobel scoffed in the seat next to him.
“Could this be anymore embarrassing? Please tell me neither of you are planning to ever do something like…that,” she said, eyeing a forlorn looking Max more so than Michael. Max sighed and shook his head, pushing around the food on his tray and clearly upset about Liz going to prom with Kyle.
Michael, however, avoided eye contact and weighed his options.
“Actually, I, uh,” Michael cleared his throat and lowered his voice, “I was wondering if you two could help me ask Alex Manes to prom?”
His siblings’ eyes grew wide and jaws dropped in their shock. Isobel recovered faster than Max, their brother still gaping like a fish and struggling to string words together.
“You want to ask…Alex Manes…to prom? As in, like, a date?” Isobel asked. Michael nodded his confirmation and bit his lower lip. He’d already come to the realization that he was bisexual, but he’d never said it aloud before and he wasn’t sure he could get the words out without shouting them.
“Whoa,” Max finally wheezed out. “You’re…?”
“Uh, sort of?” Michael shrugged, not quite ready to shout the words, not yet, but maybe he could write it down or whisper them or make them understand through their connection to each other.
“What do you mean by sort of?”
“Just means that I’m not, you know…straight? But I’m not, like, gay either. Just somewhere in between them.”
Max still looked confused and like he wanted to ask more questions, but Isobel got that look on her face that made it clear they were communicating telepathically, and he’d closed his mouth and nodded instead.
“Obviously we’ll be talking about this later,” she said firmly. “We’ll talk about it after school, while we help you figure out how you want to ask him.”
Isobel smiled wide and Michael pulled her into the tightest hug he could while sat at cafeteria lunch tables. Across from them, Max gave his own unsure-but-trying-to-be-supportive smile and Michael supposed that was all he could really ask for. He could help his brother understand after school.
--//--
The benefit of living in his truck, he supposed, would be that he could park it in the high school parking lot for the night and no one really cared. Which meant that he was always there before any of the other students and being there before any of the other students—specifically, Alex—was crucial to the plan he’d put together with Isobel’s help.
Michael stood anxiously, fingers tapping against his arm. He was leaned up against the locker across from Alex’s, watching people slow and stare and whisper at Michael’s handiwork. But none of them were the boy he was waiting for. Their opinions didn’t matter. The only opinion that mattered was—
There he was, flanked by Liz Ortecho and Maria DeLuca. Hair spiked, diamond stud earrings and silver septum piercing glinting, dark eyes expertly outlined with black eyeliner, even a silver chain attached to tight ripped black jeans—he was a vision of punk sexiness, in Michael’s completely biased opinion. The students in their path seemed to part, either because of Maria’s flailing arms as she recanted some story or because of the decorations on Alex’s locker. Michael’s heart was in his throat by the time the trio finally stalled at the locker to read: I know you’re gay / so I wanted to say hey / and bi the way / would you be my prom date.
“Is—Is this some kind of joke?” Alex’s voice shook as he spoke, hesitant and pre-emptively angry. Liz’s hand gripped his elbow, and Michael’s blood ran cold. This…had started to go sideways already.
Michael pushed off the wall and cleared his throat.
“Not a joke,” he said, hand rubbing the back of his neck. Alex whipped around, eyes wide and mouth slightly ajar. Liz and Maria exchanged looks that weren’t entirely surprised and more than amused. “So?”
Alex’s eyes darted from Michael, to his friends, to the small crowd around them whispering and some even taking pictures. Eventually his eyes came back to Michael’s, his never having left the other’s face. Michael can see a maelstrom of emotions in those eyes and he feels their connection spark and burn in a way it never had before.
“You…want to go to prom…with me?”
“Correction: I really want to go to prom with you.”
One corner of Alex’s lips twitched upwards, though his expression was still doubtful.
“Like, a real date?”
“Exactly like a real date,” Michael said clearly and concisely.
He couldn’t fault Alex for wanting complete clarity, not when homophobic jerks like Kyle Valenti and his football cronies were around and making his high school life hell. That’s not even mentioning the rumors Michael has heard about the patriarch of the Manes family. According to Isobel, who heard from her mother, word on the housewife scene shone Jesse Manes in a fairly abusive and manipulative light. Not that Michael was surprised.
Alex searched his face, looking for any hint of deceit, but, when he didn’t find any, he smiled. Alex Manes smiled in the middle of a Roswell High School hallway—and it was because of Michael.
Liz and Maria giggled beside Alex, pulling them both out of their staring contest. Maria nudged him.
“Come on, Manes, don’t leave the boy in suspense,” Maria teased. Alex rolled his eyes.
“I’d like that,” Alex said.
The rest of that day, Michael was followed by whispers and strange looks and the occasional slur thrown his way. He couldn’t bring himself to care. Not even when Valenti tried to shove him into the lockers between classes and Isobel had smacked him so hard across the face that there was a bright red handprint on his cheek.
--//--
They met up at the dance. Alex didn’t have a car of his own and refused to ask to borrow his father’s car for the night. He’d also turned down Michael’s offer to pick him up, telling him he’d rather spare Michael the torture of having to meet his dad.
He, Max, and Isobel are in the middle of posing for pictures together, so he misses Alex’s arrival. But it also means that the photographer captures the exact moment Alex taps him on the shoulder and Michael sees his date for the first time. His sister heaved a sigh and grabbed Max by the elbow, dragging him into the decorated gymnasium. Once at the door, she threw a wink over her shoulder at them.
“Hey,” Michael said. “You look amazing.”
“Oh, he’d better,” a voice behind Alex huffed. Looking over the other’s shoulder, he spotted Maria DeLuca with a fond but exasperated smile. “He spent literal hours trying to look perfect.”
“You sayin’ he doesn’t just wake up this handsome every day?” Michael teased, face flushed, and chest warmed with pleasure that Alex wanted to impress. Sure, it was prom, but he’s found that there’s a difference between getting dressed up and putting an effort into trying to look good. Maria snorted and gave Alex a pointed look with meaning behind it that he hoped meant something good.
Maria walked past them, saying she was off to steal Liz for a dance. As she passed Michael, she placed a hand to the back of his shoulder and pushed him towards Alex. He stumbled into his date, whose hands darted out to grip his waist to steady him.
Oh. They were close…a lot closer than Michael had realized until they were suddenly nose-to-nose. They just stand there and stare. He even forgot other people were around. Sound didn’t reach his ears while he stared, entranced by the way Alex’s eyes echoed his own. The illusion is ruined when someone—one of Valenti’s friends, no doubt—shoulder-checked Alex and caused their foreheads to smack together painfully.
Alex scowled and turned to focus on the asshole who’d shoved him. Michael, on the other hand, rolled his eyes and grabbed his date’s hand, pulling gently towards the gymnasium doors.
“Ignore him,” Michael murmured. “The best revenge’ll be having a great time tonight.”
Alex squeezed his hand, looking him directly in the eye as he twined their fingers together. Michael squeezed back, just as tight. It had them both smiling, sour instance forgotten.
The gymnasium is dimmed, lit only by colored lights, and a DJ is set up on the far end of the gym. A handful of tables are set up near the punch and various cookies and fruit for anyone wanting off their feet. Michael is, admittedly, underwhelmed after the way Isobel had talked it up the past two weeks. Even so, he’s no less excited to be there with Alex on his arm.
So What by Pink is just ending, flowing right into Burnin’ Up by the Jonas Brothers, as they weaved through the people to get to where Alex had spotted Maria and Liz. Alex groaned as one of the Jonas Brothers crooned and Michael couldn’t help but laugh. Because of course his emo punk date would be staunchly against the pop songs destined to play instead of an alt rock playlist (maybe Michael would make a request, just for him; he’ll have to remember to ask what his favorite song is).
They hang out with Maria and Liz for a while, chatting about whatever—inside jokes, Maria and Liz cross-examining Michael, wondering when the Cha-Cha Slide will inevitably come on. When it does inevitably make an appearance, Kyle appears and grabs Liz, who grabs Maria, who grabs Alex, who’s still holding Michael’s hand. The entourage merged with the rest of the student body on the dance floor, going through the dance moves as they’re called. Michael tripped up a little during the actual cha-cha part, but Isobel somehow ends up next to him now that they’ve shifted direction and Alex is behind him and helped keep him upright.
After they’ve been cha-cha’d out, Isobel took him and Max off the dance floor and over to the punch bowl. As Iz pulled him past Alex, he gestured to the punch and tried to ask if he wanted some. The gym was loud though and Michael didn’t think he heard him. Alex’s head is tilted to the side like a puppy’s, confused and a little concerned. His sightline is promptly blocked by a cluster of giggling friends filling in the gaps on the dance floor.
“Having a good time?” Isobel asked coyly as she ladled herself a glass of punch.
“I was actually, but then my sister dragged me away from my date,” Michael said. “Any advice for dealing with nosy siblings?”
“Yes, don’t be psychically linked to them.”
“That’s too bad, we kinda hatched that way.”
“Guys,” Max admonished while looking around the crowded gymnasium. The punch table was empty except for them, and no one is paying them any real attention.
In fact, the large cluster of people closest to them cheered as the song changed to The Pussycat Dolls’ song When I Grow Up.
“Alright, well, I’m gonna get back to my date now, if you don’t mind,” Michael said. Isobel shifted, rare uncertainty clearly displayed on her face. He smiled. “You guys can hang out with us too you know. I mean, we’re hanging with Maria and Liz anyway.”
He doesn’t wait for an answer. He turned and tried to make his way back to where Alex was, knowing his siblings were trailing behind him. The scene they arrived to was tense, Valenti staring down Alex with a smirk and Maria between the two with her arms crossed. Liz is stood behind Alex, frozen with eyes wide and jaw slack.
“We got a problem?” He asked tersely, glancing between Valenti and Alex. Valenti scowled at him.
“Always to the rescue, Guerin. A real knight in rusted armor.”
“Clever. Hope you didn’t hurt yourself, thinking that one up,” Michael rolled his eyes and held a hand out to Alex. “Wanna ditch the douchebag and dance?”
Alex answered by grabbing his hand. He grinned and started to lead them anywhere Valenti wasn’t. They hadn’t gone far enough by the time Valenti pulled himself together because they still caught the slur he said next.
“I’d say go suck a dick, but you faggots would actually enjoy it,” Valenti sneered. Alex yanked them to a stop, turned with a fist clenched, but before a fist could be thrown, Liz’s hand made contact.
The sound of skin smacking skin was sharp but eaten by the pounding music and laughing teenagers moving to its beat. Only the people in the immediate vicinity had heard, turning to stare. It was as if time slowed around them, the music fading to leave only the silence between the shocked group.
Liz’s eyes watered, hand still raised in the air, and her bottom lip trembled. Instead of tears falling from her eyes, a storm of Spanish swears fell from her lips. Keeping up with it was as difficult as standing still directly in front of a tornado.
“Liz, what are you saying,” Valenti asked, still stunned.
“I’m saying, I’m breaking up with you, you asshole!”
Michael looked to Alex, who looked back at him, wide eyes meeting as they lost all sense of composure. They both devolved into barely contained laughter as Liz swiped at her eyes and turned to a dumbfounded Max who seemed only able to communicate in different pitched grunts. She’d grabbed his hand and dragged him to the dance floor. Michael was convinced his brother might spontaneously combust when she directed his hands to her waist as a slower song came over the speakers.
A tug on his own hand reminded him that his watching brother’s flailing wasn’t the only thing to be doing. He let Alex bring him to a spot near Liz and Max before hesitating.
“Do you—”
“Should I—”
They huffed a nervous laugh at having talked over each other. Michael placed one hand on Alex’s waist, pleased at the stutter in his breathing and filling him with confidence. Alex’s hands went to his shoulders then slowly slid around his neck, one hand giving a teasing pull to his curls.
“I have to ask,” Alex whispered, “why did you ask me to prom?”
“It’s senior prom; you deserve to get asked by someone who actually likes you. And I, uh,” Michael licked his lips and forced himself to maintain eye contact, to let Alex see the honesty. “I’ve never liked anyone as much as I like you.”
He’s never seen Alex smile so wide before. Even in junior high, that beautiful smile had been contained, never quite taking over to brighten his entire face the way it did now. It was a sight he was sure was now engraved into his soul. He doesn’t think he’s seen anything quite so beautiful before in his life—on par with the single piece of glass that clearly didn’t come from this world. They even share the same pull that first brought him to where the piece had been.
Alex Manes had his own gravitational field and he felt lucky to have been caught in it.
They continue to sway, even as the song changes to something faster, preferring to stay wrapped up in each other and the small bubble of happiness stood in. When the dance began to wrap up, the DJ announcing the final song, he walked out of the gym with Alex and his friends. They trailed behind the girls as they walked to Maria’s car.
Maria unlocked her car to let Liz into the passenger seat and turned to the boys.
“I can give you guys a minute, but then we really gotta head out if you want to get home before the Master Sergeant’s curfew,” she said, glancing between them with a sly smile. Alex rolled his eyes but nodded.
“Thanks Maria,” he told her.
She winked and got in the car. The car stuttered loudly as it struggled to life, eventually turning over just as Michael started to doubt it would. Alex looked so fond, rough edges softened by amusement, and handsome features highlighted by moonlight. Oh man, he really wanted to kiss him.
His eyes flick to Alex’s mouth as the boy’s tongue wets chapped lips. He can feel the heavy gaze focused on his face, and he knows that Alex knows what he’s thinking.
“Can I—?”
Alex only nodded, already leaning toward him when he surged forward. Michael has kissed people before, but it had never felt like it this before. It was intoxicating and made him lightheaded. If he hadn’t been sure about what the connection between them meant, this kiss wiped any uncertainty away. They’d been connected since they met, and this had to be why; it felt right in a way nothing ever had before.
They pull apart slowly while keeping their foreheads together. Alex’s eyes are still closed, giddy smile pulling at his cheeks.
“Best. Dance. Ever,” he said against Michael’s lips.
A wolf-whistle from the car causes them to jolt apart. Liz and Maria sit in the car quite obviously watching them. Reluctantly, they back away from each other.
“I’ll see you later?” Michael asked, hopeful and cheeky, as Alex opened the car door.
“Count on it,” he answered. He got in the car with a wave, and Michael could still hear the girls giggling and teasing while Alex told them to shut up.
He isn’t sure how long he stood outside, watching the direction they left in, but Max found him without any trouble when he and Isobel are ready to leave. When he falls asleep that night, all he can think about is the dance, the kiss, Alex. His last conscious thought echoed Alex’s own words:
Best. Dance. Ever.