5 word prompts: “actually... I just miss you” for Malex. Maybe one of them says it drunkenly to the other?
So, this is longer than I planned and doesn’t have the ending I planned. So basically I failed. BUT HERE.
Michael made a point to himself to avoid The Wild Pony once Maria was out of the hospital. Even though the misstep in his routine ate at him to be there as the resident town drunk and waste of space, he couldn’t. Not on Open Mic night, especially, and not on nights when the VFW met up to swap stories. But also, he just couldn’t go there and snark with Deluca anymore. They were on a different playing field now, and he knew that the game now involved Maria losing both of her best friends, her boyfriend, and any semblance of heritage that wasn’t now tainted with alien stories. She needed time and Michael knew that. He was also willing to give that time to her because please, God forbid he’d run into Alex and Forrest or worse, overhearing Alex laugh and be free of his father with someone else. He supposed he knew what Alex meant now when he’d called that momentary slip of judgment -- the threesome -- something like hell. He couldn’t have Alex because someone else had Alex and they were happy, and everything just… sucked. Sucked the life right out of Michael.
Not to be forgotten was this new trouble afoot at the OK Corral with Mr. Jones being out after some seventy years in a pod. It was a showdown every day as the three of them -- Michael, Isobel, and Max -- tried to work this fourth alien who was identical to Max (save for the weird and at times, comical drawl) and learn what they could about their homeworld. Mr. Jones wasn’t very forthcoming and tried a new plan of escape practically every day and so having time to drink his sorrows was actually low on the Michael Guerin To-Do List these days.
Still, here he was. At The Wild Pony, sucking down glasses of bourbon because life was a bastard and Michael Guerin? He was a bastard, too. So bully for everyone. He’d buy a round for the whole bar if Maria even had the notion to allowing such a stunt. Besides, time was coming up on his shift of overseeing Mr. Jones who was currently housed in Max’s cellar. He might as well be going and was picking up his black cowboy hat to bid adieu to Maria when a voice so familiar that the sound made him weak, proudly proclaimed there was a round of drinks on him.
Oh, why did this have to be him?
Michael didn’t turn around and he saw the concern briefly cross Maria’s face when he let out a pained noise, which was drowned out by cheers and the slapping of a credit card on the bar. Michael grimaced and tried to school his face, but he was tired and attempted to turn the other way to leave.
“Guerin, you’re not passing up a drink when I’m buying are you?” Alex’s voice asked and Michael finally had to face him.
“Actually, I got somewhere to be,” Michael hummed as he put his hat on his head and tipped the brim with a finger toward Alex. “Thanks for the offer, though. I mean, you’ve bought me enough before. Let’s just call it even, yeah?”
Alex blinked but otherwise didn’t betray any emotion on his face. Michael hated this -- the moments when he couldn’t read the other man. Iraq had made him a soldier all right.
“Raincheck,” Alex insisted. “Would you at least come to meet Forrest as more than the guy who steals the microfiche reader from you?”
“Raincheck,” Michael echoed with another tip of his hat and he turned to leave without getting in any more words because he was definitely going to vomit if he had to see Alex being lovey-dovey with Nazi Guy.
Michael made his way to the parking lot and was fumbling with keys when they were abruptly snatched out of his hand. He groaned and tipped his head back. “I’m not that drunk,” he said in a stubborn way as he turned his head and cocked his eyebrow at Alex. “You gonna drive me? You’re not sober either.”
“No,” Alex said but he tucked the keys into a pocket anyway. “But I’m trying this thing. It’s called being a friend. I’ve dropped the ball on that recently. Also, if you’re leaving to drive drunk because I’m here with my boyfriend, then that’s a problem for me, Guerin.”
Michael rolled his eyes and turned to lean against the cab of his truck. “I don’t need your hospitality or reparations, Alex. We’re never going to be just friends.”
“Maybe,” Alex said slowly with a nod. “But it’s more than that.”
“Oh?” Michael prompted, not willing to help at all here.
“We -- Forrest and I -- keep coming here, to The Wild Pony, and you’re never around. It feels weird. Does it feel weird to you?”
Michael sighed. “Yeah, it’s weird, but I don’t get what you’re trying to say. You want me here so you can introduce your boyfriend?”
Alex went quiet and looked at their feet before he met Michael’s gaze. “No, Guerin. I don’t want you here to meet my boyfriend.”
“So, what? You just need some rowdiness in your life?” Michael facetiously asked with a shake of his head.
“Actually…” Alex said and looked at Michael’s lips before guiding his eye line back up. “I just miss you.”
A beat of silence passed. A second beat passed. And a third.
Michael didn’t meet Alex’s eyes when he suddenly nodded slow-like and backed away from the truck and Alex. He kept going and soon he was walking out of the parking lot.
“Where are you going, Guerin?” Alex demanded though it sounded a little more like a plea.
Stuffing his hands in his jacket pockets, Michael swung around and held open his jacket as he continued to walk and stumble backward. “I’ve walked home before and I’m too sober for this conversation, but the next time you want to try to rope me into being a third wheel? Don’t.”
Alex looked like he might say something, but then he didn’t and nodded, looking troubled. Finally, a face that Michael could read even if it seized him up just as much as Alex saying he missed Michael. Michael couldn’t believe it’d actually been said, especially with Forrest inside the bar.
“One step forward, two clown jumps back,” Michael said to himself as his wet eyes shined in the moonlight as he walked the dirt road to head toward Sanders’ Auto.
