Chapter Text
Alex woke up screaming. He was doing that a lot these days.
Not that his nightmares were anything new, but most of the time it was like his mind and body were so used to the trauma that instead of having him thrash in bed or wake in a cold sweat, as he’d done in his first few years as a new recruit, he now typically woke with either a silent flutter of his eyes, as though he’d known better than to fall into a deep sleep in the first place, or a slight jolt, like even though he’d known the nightmare was coming, he couldn’t help being terrified by it.
He rarely screamed. At least, he hadn’t. Until recently. In the last month alone, the worst of his nightmares had come at an alarmingly frequent rate, now ranging on almost every single night. Alex couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten a full night’s sleep. He was usually good at functioning despite that, but it was getting to be too much to handle, even for him.
His heart hammering and his hair plastered to his skin from the sweat, he reached for the light on his nightstand, the room bathed in warm yellow, and he did a quick scan of his room before settling back against the headboard, still panting. He closed his eyes, trying to take some comfort in the silence of the night, the faint chirping crickets, the tree branches rustling together in the chilly breeze. His bedroom window rattled in its frame, and Alex tried to remind himself that he was safe, he was at home, he was a long way from the trenches. The darkness couldn’t hurt him anymore.
“Breathe, Manes,” he whispered to himself, even as his voice shook, his lamplight nowhere near strong enough to cast away the shadows in the corners of his room. His heart was still rattling in his chest, his hands still trembling. He ducked his head, his eyes shut tight against the images his mind was trying to conjure up.
There were no enemy soldiers hidden in the shadows.
There were no explosions in the distance, lighting up the darkness.
His father was not outside his bedroom, lurking in the corridors, getting ready to bust down his door.
“Damn it,” he breathed. It wasn’t working. Sometimes it was hard enough that he couldn’t will his body to calm down, and it felt like lately, that was every night.
Finally, unable to stand the heat sticking to his body, he threw the blanket off, biting his lower lip hard enough that he bled, hard enough that he could focus on the pain and try to get his hands to stop trembling. After a few long, deep breaths, Alex managed to still himself, and licked the drops of blood off his lip. Reaching for his crutch, he pushed himself off the bed, rubbing his eyes. He grabbed his phone off the nightstand and did a cursory glance at the time. 2:40 am.
Not that it mattered. Once the nightmares hit, he had no hope of going back to sleep. Instead, Alex made his way into his living room and turned on the lights and television so that he knew he’d be returning to a bright room, the sounds of whatever comedy he’d flipped to following him into the kitchen where he switched on his coffeemaker. He groaned under his breath as he pulled a stool against the wall, sat down and waited, his world flooded with enough noise and light that there wasn’t any room to think of the latest nightmare that had woken him. He hummed idly to himself, if only to add to the noise. As the coffeemaker whirred and beeped, Alex did what he usually did on nights like this, and pulled his phone out. He headed to his contacts list, pulled up Michael’s name, and just . . . stared at it.
Sometimes, he liked to imagine what would happen if he called. He imagined Michael was awake too, the both of them forever insomniacs and almost okay with it because at least they were awake together. He imagined Michael half-waiting for Alex to call, just as eager to hear a minute of his voice. He imagined being able to talk to Michael about the miserable darkness that simmered just below the surface of his skin, waiting for any moment of weakness to release itself and take over Alex’s mind completely.
He imagined confessing how tired he really was, and he imagined Michael caring enough to listen, to drive here in the middle of the night, to comfort him. Then a tear would roll down Alex’s cheek, like it was doing right now, and it would wake him from his fantasies. He wiped any trace away with the back of his hand before shutting off his phone and stuffing it back into his pocket, right on time for his coffee to be ready. He just needed some noise and work to keep himself busy, that was all.
His desire for comfort and someone to hold him, he knew, was ridiculous, and the first person to say so would be the one man he wanted here with him more than anyone. Alex was used to feeling unwanted, after all. He supposed loneliness was not that much worse of a burden to bear.
This too, Alex reminded himself now as he leaned on his crutch and grabbed his coffee, just as he’d reminded himself every day since he’d enlisted. I can handle this too.
The days were losing their color. At first, Alex had thought that it was the winter weather, the white clouds blanketing the sky, the shorter days. However, with every moment at Deep Sky, whether he was doing paperwork or talking to his colleagues, whether he was working from home or taking his laptop out at the Crashdown, whether he was running into Max every now and then at the tiny out-of-the-way bookshop or having a beer with Kyle – the world felt like it was leaking color.
Alex wished he knew where all of it was going. Maybe he should go there too.
Not that he’d ever felt Roswell was particularly vibrant or anything, but he could’ve sworn the sky used to be bluer, the sun brighter, even the clouds almost sparkling. Everything around Alex used to carry such potential. Maybe he would see Michael today. Maybe Michael would give him a rare, genuine smile. Maybe Michael would hold him and kiss him and tell Alex everything he knew they both felt. Then the day would come and go, and maybe he did see Michael, but none of his happier fantasies played out.
Instead, Alex was left feeling worse than ever, terrified with no one to assure him that he was loved and safe from the person who terrified him in the first place, and the world would lose its color for the rest of those hours.
Then Michael dated Maria, and Forrest left, and the world’s color seemed to stay gone. He watched as the gray desert passed by him now, his head against the cold glass of the passenger side window. He sighed, and his breath turned to fog against the glass.
“That’s the third time in an hour,” Greg chuckled as he drove. “Anything you want to talk about?”
Alex turned away from the view outside, shutting his eyes and crossing his arms tight to ward off the chill in the air. Gregory had turned up the heat in the car, but Alex’s body always seemed to run cold. He’d only ever truly been warm in the presence of one person, so he didn’t expect to feel warm ever again.
“How’s mom doing?” he ended up asking, ignoring Greg’s question. “She sounded sick when I called yesterday.”
“It was just a cold,” Greg dismissed, a half-smile at his lips. “She misses you a lot. Asks about you all the time.”
“I miss her too,” Alex murmured. He imagined warm blankets and homemade cooking and laughter in front of the fireplace. Sometimes he wondered if he really remembered the sound of laughter. “I’m thinking I might come visit for a few days. Maybe a week or two.”
Greg raised a brow. “Yeah?”
He shrugged a shoulder. “I dunno. I have a bunch of vacation days piled up, and Eduardo thinks I’m overdoing it again at Deep Sky. Maybe a while away from Roswell is just what I need.”
“What you need,” he murmured. Alex could see the multitude of questions on his face. Alex, after all, didn’t usually take vacation days. Rarely any of them did, as part of their ingrained training from their dearly departed father, but it was especially odd of Alex, who’d always had something to prove. If not to Jesse, then to himself.
“I’m not dying,” he assured Greg, who barked a laugh.
“Good to know,” he said, and he seemed to sense that whatever was going on with Alex was not something he wanted to discuss just yet. Gregory understood him without any explanation, for although they’d spent so many years apart and were both a long way from their enlistments, they’d still both spent so much of their lives as military. There were always hard days, but Gregory understood the harder days better than anyone else.
Without another word, Greg reached over, ruffled Alex’s hair as though hoping to reach into his mind and fish out whatever was haunting him, and then turned up the music, filling the empty space with noise to help him breathe.
“Here,” Alex offered his mom the overlarge mug of tea, “while it’s hot.”
“Alex, I’m fine,” his mom chuckled, tugging on his sleeve. “I just want you to sit with me. Come on, honey, stop moving around, relax your leg.”
Alex did as he was told, unable to help but cast a glance at his mother to make sure she was okay. She had a shawl over her shoulders and the tip of her nose was red, like she’d been blowing it for hours, and her voice was scratched, but there was no fever and she was barely coughing anymore. Already, she sounded a lot better than she had on the phone the day before yesterday. He’d only been here a day, but he’d been making himself as useful as possible, helping his mother move around whenever she’d needed him.
Despite Alex warning her that sitting on the couch on the front porch would be bad for her cold, she was determined to get some fresh air. He wondered if he was this stubborn when other people told him to rest. So here she and Alex sat, the both of them in their pajamas as they took in the faint morning rain drizzling like mist over the landscape. The reservation wasn’t so unlike Roswell on the outside. It was more desert, more sandstone, more shops and people and nothing that different. Except it was completely different.
Out here, as Alex sank into the couch with his leg crossed beneath him, his mother at his side, the both of them hugging their mugs of herbal tea and basking in the warmth as the world rained down around them, Alex didn’t find a need for noise. When he was in his house in Roswell, he could feel the loneliness eating away at him more and more, so he needed light and music and laughter to chase the quiet away. Here, the quiet was almost . . . welcoming.
Come rest, it seemed to say. You are safe here.
It was why Alex had intended to come for a few hours and ended up staying overnight. It was why he kept coming back more and more lately, whenever the darkness came after him. His fingers still tapped occasionally at his thigh, and sometimes his eye would twitch with a sudden mental image of death or violence or fire or blood, or all of it together. His heart still clenched every now and then at the memory of Michael’s kiss, his touch, his smile – all given freely to someone else where he’d had to beg for scraps of kindness and understanding.
But it was better here. Easier.
“Having you here is a gift, Alex,” his mother said with a soft smile, her voice as gentle as the rain. “This is your home, forever and ever.” She tucked a strand of hair behind his ear and ran a hand down the back of his head, trying and failing to tame the wild strands that never seemed to stay put unless he forced them down, and he’d stopped forcing them down since he’d been honorably discharged. “But I hate seeing you haunted. Won’t you tell momma what’s wrong?”
Alex melted deeper in the couch, unwilling to respond. My heart’s broken, mom, he wanted to say. I don’t know how to feel happiness anymore. I don’t know how to feel anything. I’ve been fighting so long, and none of it mattered. Nothing matters.
Setting his mug on the straw and glass table in front of them, Alex leaned over until his head was on his mother’s lap. She put a hand in his hair and hummed softly, and he closed his eyes. He could almost breathe here. It would have to be enough.
“Haven’t seen you around in a while,” was Michael’s idea of a greeting. Of course, he said it with barely a glance at Alex, bent over an engine. It was cold outside, the sky white and threatening another snow storm, but Michael was still in a short-sleeved white shirt, stained with grease and the collar torn, his curls falling over his eyes as he worked. Alex felt a pang in his chest.
He’s so beautiful. He had no idea why he was here.
“Haven’t been around in a while,” he said, hands in his pockets. “I’ve been visiting my mom.”
Michael continued tweaking whatever he was tweaking with his wrench. “On the rez?”
Alex licked his lips. “Yeah, she . . .” she had a cold? She sounded sick? I missed my mom? I felt alone and wanted someone I knew wanted me there? What had he hoped with that line of conversation? Sympathy . . . a kind word. . . . What was the point? He knew Michael didn’t really care.
“Yeah.”
Michael must’ve heard something in his tone and stopped working. He looked up at him over the hood of the car. “Yeah?”
Why am I here?
He held out the files he’d looked over for Eduardo from inside his jacket and held them out to Michael. “I checked some surveillance from Deep Sky’s satellites. Heat signatures. They think it might be more turquoise rocks, so I got permission to give you a copy.” He nudged the files again at Michael when he just stared at them. “Here.”
Michael kept his eyes on Alex as he took the files, as though trying to see into his thoughts.
Alex started to turn away. “I’ll let you get back to work.”
He caught sight of Michael’s startled expression as he started to leave, but before he’d gotten a few steps, Michael called, “Wait! Is that it? You came here just for that?”
Alex sighed silently, exasperated and tired. “Did you want anything else?”
Michael seemed to consider the question, looking around as though hoping to find the answer in the air or the desert. Finally, when an entire minute passed and Alex had made it clear he wasn’t starting any more conversations, Michael smirked humorlessly.
“No,” he said with – Alex was sure – every bit of indifference he could muster. “I –”
“Fine,” and without waiting for Michael to finish his remark of how utterly useless and unwanted Alex really was, Alex walked away, shoving Michael’s unbearable silence to the background, trying to fill his head with as much noise as he could.
I can handle this, he thought as every step away from Michael felt like fire on his soles. Just as long as I can see him, just once in a while, no matter how many times he turns me away, if I can just see him, I can keep handling it.
Alex went back to the reservation that night, and he didn’t come back the next day. Or the day after that. A week had passed when his mother asked the very question Alex had been asking himself so often lately.
“What if you moved here?” she suggested. It was another quiet day. The skies threatened rain, but none had fallen just yet, and Alex felt pathetic for missing the scent. Instead a ray of sunlight peered through the clouds, weak and feeble, but still there. “Maybe it’ll help.”
She didn’t need to say what it would help with. Just another mystery that is a mother’s power that Alex would never understand. She was worried for him, probably terrified if she could see into the darkest of Alex’s thoughts and see just how far he’d fallen. Hell, he’d caught his reflection in the mirror, and he’d been terrified of the dark-eyed ghost staring back at him. He was already dead, what use was there in pretending otherwise? Alex knew in his heart that moving here wouldn’t help. Nothing will ever help.
Still, for his mother’s sake, he managed a weak smile and brought his mug to his lips. “Maybe.”
Alex was lying on his back on his living room couch, a long day at Deep Sky behind him as he idly watched the ceiling, some sitcom playing in the background, when he’d gotten a knock at his door. The show and laughter hadn’t been loud or busy enough to keep the quiet away, and Alex had just been considering whether he ought to squeeze in a few more hours of work before exhaustion overtook him, anything to keep moving, and got up to answer instead.
“Where’ve you been?” Kyle greeted, stepping past Alex into the house. He scowled at the ear-bleeding volume of the TV and grabbed his remote.
“Actually, can we keep the sound on?” he said when Kyle had muted it. “I’ve got a headache.”
Looking at him in the lamp’s light, Kyle’s face fell. “Damn it, Manes, what’d you do to yourself?” He grabbed Alex’s face and turned his head this way and that, examining him. “How long’s it been since you’ve slept? Or eaten?”
“I’m fine,” he said, even as his mind raged, What does it matter? “Did you want something?”
“Want something?” he scoffed. “Yeah, Manes, I wanted to check in on my best friend who I haven’t seen in weeks, is that okay with you?”
Alex grimaced. “Sorry,” he murmured, pressing his thumb to bridge of his nose and pushing as hard as he could. “M’just tired. Been a long day.”
“I can tell,” Kyle said slowly, still watching Alex like he was a particularly difficult medical case.
“Don’t study me,” Alex sighed, taking a seat. “I really am fine.”
“And I really did want to see you,” Kyle said with the same exasperated air. He sat down on the coffee table, his knees bumping into Alex’s as he blocked the TV. “That, and . . . someone was worried enough to blow up my phone until I promised I’d come see you tonight and make sure you were okay. I would’ve come earlier, except I know you’ve been at Deep Sky.”
“Someone,” Alex murmured, dropping his head back against the couch and staring at the ceiling. “Michael?”
“You’re surprised?”
“I don’t know,” he sighed. “Doesn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t matter?” Kyle frowned. “Alex, he basically traumatized half my nurses just to get to me.”
“Always someone else,” Alex murmured. He really was so, so tired. “He sat by her bed. Told her he loved her. Fought for her. Defended her. With me . . . it’s always someone else. Mattering just enough isn’t enough for me anymore, and I matter . . . just enough for him to bother someone else to care about me.” He heaved a sigh, pressing the base of his palms into his eyes. “None of it matters.”
Kyle said nothing and Alex didn’t bother to fill in the silence. When Kyle spoke again after what felt like forever, he sounded more serious than Alex had ever heard him.
“Why are you talking like that?” he quietly demanded, eyes boring into Alex’s. “Hey, look at me – why the hell are you talking like that? You don’t talk like that, you’re better than that. Come on, this isn’t the Alex I know, snap out of it.”
But Alex hadn’t slept in weeks, he hadn’t had a single peaceful moment, and the only man he wanted was passing him off like the unwanted baggage he was. He almost wished he could cry in that moment. Sadness and grief and heartache . . . they would’ve been so much more preferable to all this hollow . . . nothing.
“I’m too tired,” he said on a sigh, and curled on his couch, face buried in the cushions. It was too quiet.
“Alex –”
“Please go away.”
Kyle studied him a moment more, then stood. “No,” he said. “I’m staying the night. Can I borrow your sweats?” And without waiting for Alex’s response, he made himself at home, taking a pair of pajamas out of Alex’s closet, washing up for the night, and scooching next to Alex on the couch.
“Get off,” Alex said, his words muffled as his face was left smushed against Kyle’s shoulder in the tight space.
“No, I’m comfy right here, thanks,” Kyle said cheerfully as he lay on his back, his fingers interlocked on his stomach.
“I’ll kick you.”
“You don’t have a leg.”
“I have enough of a working one.”
“Won’t be enough.”
“Kyle, go away.”
“No, Alex,” he said, his voice softening, and Alex heard in it the refusal to leave him alone, to let him suffer by himself, to let him fall. “No.”
Alex said nothing for a long time, pushing his face deeper and deeper into Kyle’s shoulder, hoping it hurt him, hoping that he himself would hurt. He just wanted to feel anything.
He didn’t know when he’d fallen asleep. These days, it was getting impossible to tell when he was awake, or the difference at all.
Try as he might, Kyle couldn’t keep an eye on Alex all the time. Despite the fact that they’d both fallen asleep on the couch, Kyle having wrapped them in a blanket some point in the middle of the night, clearly unwilling to have woken his best friend, Alex was still an early riser. As dawn approached, Alex found himself watching Kyle’s sleeping face. A soft pang of affection bloomed faintly in his chest for the doctor, but whatever stones were weighing down his chest also made it impossible to feel anything very strongly.
He heaved a sigh that was never deep enough as he turned his eyes to the ceiling. There was something on his heart, in his lungs, that felt frighteningly permanent. Every now and then, Alex felt the weight shift and it let him breathe for just seconds at a time, but with every passing day, that weight turned more and more immoveable.
Alex tapped his forefinger on the back of his hand twice, then without any thought, he pushed himself up and as carefully as he could, moved off the couch, keeping Kyle tucked in safely before he dressed and grabbed his car keys. He knew why Kyle was here, why he was keeping such a close eye on him. He ought to have known better than to voice his darkest thoughts, thoughts he’d spent so much of his life pushing down until no one but him knew they were there. Hidden, but always, always there. He tried to muster the ability to care, but he couldn’t.
He couldn’t recall why he’d fought so hard to keep others from knowing how bad his thoughts had gotten. He’d tried to be strong for everyone, and look at all the good it had done him. No matter how hard he’d fought, Michael still only ever saw him as weak. What was the point in trying anymore? What was the point in anything?
Alex parked in the junkyard, the usual bout of nerves from being in Michael’s presence a mere tickle down his spine now. He supposed he’d always been secretly flustered about coming to see Michael because he’d hoped that every visit – this visit, this time – Michael would tell him how he felt. He would be honest with Alex about what he wanted, he would hold him and kiss him and finally tell him it was them against the world.
That hope was gone now. In a way, it was freeing.
Alex mechanically texted a reassurance to Kyle that he was getting breakfast for when he woke up, and stepped out of the car. He came up to the airstream door, knocked, and waited. It took a whole two minutes for Michael to answer, wearing nothing but jeans and his hair tousled. Alex tried not to feel sick at the familiar look.
“Alex –”
“You got someone in there?” he asked, unable to help the resignation in his voice. Michael looked startled, then stepped back in answer, holding his arm out to gesture at the empty trailer. Alex wanted to be relieved, but no date now could’ve just meant one later. Every time he’d found Michael here alone, he held onto the hope that it meant Michael didn’t want anyone else, that he’d been waiting for Alex, that he’d ask him to stay instead of playing off his fears with such contempt.
It was too early to be here, but Alex didn’t want to be anywhere else.
“Good,” he said, and without a word, sat down on the steps to the airstream, his leg aching in the cold. As he rubbed his thigh, he could feel Michael tense beside him, then sit down as far away as he could on the step, wary.
“Your leg bothering you?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “Thanks.”
“But why does –”
“Can I ask you something?”
Michael blinked, surprised. He shrugged a shoulder, an indifferent gesture to go on.
“Why’d you send Kyle? I mean, if you were worried, why didn’t you just come see me yourself?”
He stared, then looked away, licking his lips. “You’re not here about some files, are you?”
“I’m never here about some files,” Alex said wearily, “and you know it. Why didn’t you come?”
“Because it’s not my job to look after you, Manes,” Michael scoffed, then seemed to realize what he’d said. Alex slowly looked back out at the desert, the last vestiges of his hope shredded and gone. He wished he was surprised, but he thought deep down, he’d always known that he wasn’t good enough to be asked to stay. He’d fought his whole life to win, and in the end, he’d still lost Michael. What a waste.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Michael said quietly, his body turned to him now. “I didn’t.”
“I would’ve come for you,” Alex whispered, his hands almost tearing at each other as he kept his fingers tightly interlocked.
“Alex,” Michael sounded fierce now, “I didn’t mean it like that.”
Alex’s eyes burned. And just when he’d thought he didn’t have anything left in him to cry. He supposed this was a good thing. It didn’t feel good.
“I think I’m going to move to the reservation,” he said in response, unable to look at Michael anymore. He felt the cowboy still beside him, but kept going. “I’m so tired, Michael. I just feel . . .” he shook his head, pressing the base of his palms into his eyes. “I don’t know what I feel.”
Alex could feel Michael’s eyes on him, could feel his body as rigid as stone. He didn’t know why he was here anymore. Being here didn’t feel good, and Alex didn’t think it would help him any more than anything else. As much as he wanted to be with Michael all the time, he suddenly wanted to be away from him even more.
Sniffling and wiping a stray tear with the back of his hand, Alex pushed himself up in one move. “M’sorry I bothered you,” he murmured, hands in his pockets and head down as he hurried to his car.
“Wait wait,” Michael caught his arm within steps, probably having only taken so long because he was recovering from the shock of seeing Alex so broken. Alex certainly felt broken. “Damn it, just . . .” he looked back at his trailer, and Alex wondered if he was lamenting having left his phone behind.
“Please stop doing that,” he begged. “Stop passing me off to other people.”
Michael looked stunned and . . . hurt at the words. “Alex, I don’t –”
“I just want you,” he confessed, and Michael fell silent. “I want you, Michael, and I’m really sorry that I do because I know it’s not what you want to hear, I know you don’t care, but you keep handing me over to other people like it’s nothing, like it doesn’t even hurt you, and it’s taking a lot for me to finally understand that it just doesn’t. That you don’t . . .” he shook his head. “You don’t love me like I love you.” He huffed a miserable chuckle that sounded terrifyingly like a cry. “I couldn’t give you up for the world, Michael, but it always looks so easy for you to give me up.”
Michael’s expression turned shocked. “Alex.”
“It’s okay,” Alex said, pulling out of Michael’s grasp. “It’s not your job to look after me, I heard you.”
Michael started to shake his head, looking at a loss for words. It turned out Alex did feel a little more than nothing. Even a decade after that toolshed, Alex looked at the trouble he’d caused the love of his life, and he felt another stab of guilt.
Alex cupped Michael’s jaw and pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek. “It’s okay, really,” he said, and he hoped the small smile he’d mustered was convincing enough. “I can handle it.”
Hoping that was enough to ease Michael’s misplaced guilt, Alex forced himself to let go, and walked away, pleading that this would be the last time he’d ever have to leave Michael again.