Where's My Love?
Summary: What if Michael and Alex have a collective nightmare where their lives look so very different without each other?
Notes: For @jule1122, Written for the @malexsanta Exchange 2022! Merry Christmas Jule!
Prompts: Future fic dealing with nightmares. Also borrowed some lyrics from a few of the songs left as prompts.
A/N: All mistakes are my own, and there's probably a lot. Deepest apologies. Otherwise, hope you enjoy this discombobulated dreamscape nightmare of Michael and Alex finding their way back to each other.
Read on Ao3 or below.
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What if Michael and Alex didn't get married? What if Alex didn't attend their 10 year high school reunion? What if Michael had never stolen Alex's guitar from the music room?
What if Michael and Alex have a collective nightmare where their lives look so very different without each other? Usually dreams like these are meant to teach us a lesson. But Alex and Michael have each other and pretty much more than either had ever dreamed their lives could be.
Maybe Alex escaped the clutches of his father and he and Liz and Rosa sought their dreams in California? Maybe Michael became a successful agricultural engineer? Even though on paper, they should be happy with these alternate realities, it wasn't the same, not without each other.
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Alex woke up slowly, pulling the comforter around him tighter, more chilled than he usually was in the mornings. And then he connected two dots, rolled over, and saw that Michael wasn't in bed with him. By the look of his side of the bed it seemed that he was never there, but Alex distinctly remembered giving Michael one hell of a blow job, with Michael returning the favor enthusiastically before passing out in a tangle of limbs.
Once he finished reveling in those memories, he noticed some other changes in the bedroom, mostly that his surroundings were unfamiliar.
"What the actual fuck," he said, sitting up quickly in the bed. He was not in his own bed, not in his house, and with a quick look out the window it appeared that he was no longer in Roswell, let alone New Mexico.
Luckily, his prosthetic was leaning against the bedside table, so he quickly rolled on the sock and slipped everything else into place. The thing was though, the prosthetic was not his new one. It seemed to be one he'd had a year ago, before Michael had made some custom upgrades with Oasian glass.
As he moved around the house from room to room, he deduced that he did not in fact live alone, but shared it with two others, likely girls from all the products in the bathroom. And he figured one of them must be Rosa, what with all the custom artwork lining the walls.
The more he tried to figure out what was going on, memories of another life swirled around his mind. In his head it was as if two timelines of experience co-existed - one where he and Michael just got back from their honeymoon, and the other was whatever this was where he was roommates with the Ortecho sisters in Los Angeles. But there were no parallel memories with him and Michael here, and that made him ten times more worried about what the hell was going on. He had no idea where Michael was or what he could be doing. He hoped he might still be in Roswell after all these years, but he wasn't sure if he should call anyone out of the blue to ask about him. Calling Sanders at the junkyard or Arturo at the Crashdown, or hell even Mimi at the Wild Pony would likely be his best options. And since he didn't think he really knew Sanders in this timeline and he likely hasn't been back to visit Roswell in all the years since high school, Mimi and Maria probably would be pissed at him for calling them out of the blue asking about Michael - and rightly so.
So Arturo it would be, but he decided to wait until at least Liz or Rosa returned home from work, just in case.
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How do they find each within this bizzaro new reality? Can Michael tune into his powers to reach out to find Alex? Should he bring this up to Isobel, or will she call him crazy and go back to her perfect life.
He scrunched up his face and tried to make a mindscape connection to Alex. When that didn't work he tried to see if he could tap into those frequencies like Rosa was able to, but nothing worked. He was either too far away or that wasn't a thing he could actually do with his magical alien powers.
And this was when his other super power, his brain, kicked in and he realized he should check with Arturo at the Crashdown as he might know things - since he was vaguely recollecting that Alex had left with Rosa and Liz.
Michael snagged an empty stool at the counter, hoping he could easily get Arturo's attention. It was so busy in the Crashdown, busier than he'd ever seen it in real life outside of CrashCon week. But this was just a sleepy Wednesday in December, nothing special going on except that it was the week before Christmas. And then it dawned on Michael, regret tugging at his guts thinking about how his and Max's decisions on that night years ago had forever hurt the Ortecho family.
"Hola Michael, what can I get for you, your usual?" Arturo asked, his demeanor happy and boisterous like always, no matter what was going on.
"Actually, I came for a bit of help, but I would love a Chocolate Nebula Swirl milkshake, to go, muchas gracias." While he waited for the drink to be ready, Michael ran through in his head the best way to ask Arturo about Alex. He didn't really know what the whole situation was with the Ortecho sisters, but maybe that was the best course of action?
"Here you go," Arturo said, sliding the shake over.
As Michael laid the bills down on the counter to pay, he asked, "Soooo… when are Liz and Rosa headed home for Christmas?"
"Oh they won't be coming, unfortunately. My girls are off being too busy and successful to make it home very often. But at least Carlos can take care of everything for me - I'm headed to the beach for Christmas to visit!" Arturo's eyes gleamed with happiness. "It's not very often I'm able to visit them either, so this year will be very special."
"If you're driving, mind if I tag along? I can pay for gas." Michael hoped that Arturo hadn't planned on flying out.
"Why Michael, that is great of you to offer, actually. I would love the company," Arturo replied. While he didn't ask why Michael needed a last minute trip to California, the story would likely come out on the long, shared car ride. "I'll bring the snacks, of course," he offered.
"When should I be ready?" Michael asked. The sooner he could find Alex, the better.
"I'm leaving in the morning, first thing. Alex has a gig in a couple of days that the girls want me to attend, although, to be honest, I think I'm too old for the LA music scene…" Arturo rambled on about his plans with Liz and Rosa, but Michael's attention stopped and spiraled at his mention of Alex. It was as if he had two thought processes going at once - fucking happy that he would be able to see Alex and talk to him and help him figure out what the fuck was going on, and then at the same time his stomach was in knots, as if a whole herd of butterflies were doing loop de loops in his belly. It was a feeling he didn't think he'd had since high school, since before he kissed Alex in the UFO Emporium.
Over the following days, the trip west went by quicker than Michael expected it to, and in no time they were winding their way through the streets of LA, destination: Alex.
---
Alex never made that call to Arturo, getting wrapped up Christmas preparations and rehearsing for his show over the next few days. The show wasn't anything major or groundbreaking, just a few short sets at an art sale a group of Rosa's friends were hosting. It was just an opportunity for Alex to get back out there and perform. Every now and again, he came back to himself, realizing he'd gotten lost in this other Alex's life, nearly forgetting all about his own, about Michael. It wasn't as though this life made him happier or more fulfilled creatively, but it managed to fit in a comfortable way that was much too easy to get lost in.
He was in the makeshift green room, pacing back and forth, nervous because he would be hitting the stage next. His setlist was all sorted, a mix of his songs and a few versions of some Christmas songs that he was able to tolerate putting his own spin on. And then the scent of rain filled Alex's nostrils and his memories of Michael flooded back in.
There standing in the doorway was Michael, quietly watching him with a tilt to his head and a smirk on his lips.
"Nostalgia's a bitch." Michael couldn't help saying that line, as if the other Michael had hoped to say that to Alex in this other life.
Alex shuddered with a sudden jolt, and rushed over to Michael, crowding him against the doorframe, placing a tender kiss against Michael's lips. "I was stuck in my own head, or in the head of the Alex in this reality, but you pulled me out," Alex said, leaning back slightly, relieved that Michael was here. "Any idea what's going on?"
"Not exactly, but we might be caught up in each other's dream or nightmare, depending on how this all goes," Michael reasoned. "I'm hoping at some point we'll just wake up."
"Or is it like a Hallmark or Lifetime Christmas movie where we have to have some grand realization before that happens?" Alex had been suckered into a few movie nights recently with Kyle and Isobel where these types of movies had been the oeuvre of choice. And while he hated that his mind had twisted one all around and got him stuck in his own alternate reality dream, at least this wasn't the hot pocket dimension again.
---
They made it through the evening, Alex going through the motions of his performance, Michael mingling through the crowd and looking at the art and 'catching' up with Liz and Rosa, which was a weird bit of mindfuckery, since to them he hadn't seen them really at all since high school.
As the night wore on, so did Alex and Michael's unease. Something was still missing. They both wanted so desperately to wake up from this alternate reality dreamscape before something terrible happened to turn it truly nightmarish. And then as Alex was packing up after his last set, Michael picked up Alex's guitar, and after strumming a few chords, it all seemed to click.
Michael remembered telling Flint, of all people, about his dreams of a Dad Band with Alex. Was that what was missing? Them making music together?
"Alex?" Michael asked. Alex looked up from the keyboard case he was packing, but then everything faded away.
---
Michael and Alex woke up, their arms and legs tangled with each other and the bed sheets, reality slowly creeping back in after such a vivid dream.
Maybe it was time to start that band Michael had always dreamed about. But what about the dad part? Were they ready? How would they acquire children that would turn them into legit dads? Alex affectionately called Michael 'Plant Daddy' when he learned about his tender affection for his garden and his crop of sunflowers. But an actual dad to kids?
It seemed like it was time to have those conversations couples usually have long before their wedding. Even though they'd been dating and nearly living together for almost a year, not all the deep and long-term planning discussions happened. There was too much other lost time to make up for, and thinking about further into the future was put on the backburner.
After a long, very hot shower together to wash off the weirdness of that dream, they cuddled up on the sofa with cups of coffee to talk about what had happened in their dream.
"So, whatever that co-nightmare/mindscape we woke up from was, I think we need to hash out some goals for our life together," Michael started, which, starting conversations like this was definitely not in his wheelhouse. "I'm only saying this so that life doesn't pass us by and with only a blink of an eye, we're as old as Sanders, but without all of the things we maybe dreamed our lives could be."
"Is this about that Dad Band you joked about at our wedding reception?" Alex asked.
"Partially."
"Or is it more the kids part because I think I'd definitely be into having conversations and planning for that, as long as that was something you wanted too," Alex said, realizing as he was saying that that it was something he had only ever had an outside chance of ever being able to realize. "What were you thinking, adoption?"
"We could start by practicing baby-making?" Michael said, only half joking.
"I don't think it works that way," Alex replied with a grin, "but I'd be down for trying. You are an alien after all." Michael just countered with a tickle attack, the room filled with shrieks of laughter.
The end!
