#aewriting

The air was getting thinner in the cavern, the mix of carbon dioxide slowly taking over the available oxygen. Michael wasn’t sure if Mr. Jones wanted him to die from lack of water and food, or suffocate in the sealed space, only that he wanted Michael to suffer. That much had been made clear to Michael as he laid on the rocky ground with the depowering serum coursing through his veins. This was meant to be both his prison cell and grave, sentenced and executed for the crime of being his mother’s son. “I read up on these overly intelligent beasts you’ve surrounded yourself with, and I know they had your mother for a long time, tortured her for years, but it wasn’t by my hand, which lacks a certain emotional closure for me, I’m sure you understand.”

Collapsing the mouth of the abandoned mine with telekinesis, Michael’s last view was the self-satisfied expression of his brother but-not Jones, backing away with a sketched-salute.

After the dust settled and the walls stopped rattling, Michael had taken a quick accounting of the situation. A quick pat down of his pockets had revealed his multi tool, his truck keys and his cell phone, which was half-charged but with zero signal from the insulating barren rock walls of the mine. He had swept the meager flashlight over everything, hoping that he would find a place where there was water seeping in, or evidence that there was a forgotten shaft, only to be met with disappointment. What was even more concerning was that the mineral composition of the mine was unfamiliar to Michael, different from the patterns of strip-mined turquoise he recognized from the caverns that sheltered their pods. 

He wasn’t in Roswell. It was possible he wasn’t in New Mexico at all. The black void from his last memory of leaving his bunker for the night and waking up on the unforgiving ground with Mr. Jones smirking above him could have stretched anywhere from hours to days. 

Michael had paced around the small confines and had traced each crevice with his fingertips for some sign of give to attempt to dig himself out only to realize Jones had brought down the side of the mountain on him. Without access to his powers there was little hope of moving the rock debris on his own. The last time he had been dosed by Helena Ortecho, the effects had lasted for several days, including those frustrating moments when Jesse Manes had held a gun on Alex and then him at the Crashcon. Lucky for all of them that Gregory Manes had been there, and even more so for Maria’s quick thinking with the other bomb.

Luck took a faraway vacation from Michael after that night between getting unceremoniously dumped by Maria, to watching Alex move on easily with Forrest Long, to now. 

When the feeling of his old friend, hunger, began to gnaw at his stomach, he had some hope that the serum would wear off in time to save himself, but then slowly that hope faded from his body when the desire to eat grew quiet, sleeping inside with the burrow his missing powers had made in him.

He was trapped and the executioner’s axe, swinging down on him inescapable, was time. 

Thinking about time, like usual, sent Michael’s thoughts turning down the familiar roads in his mind and heart to Alex. At first, as he pillowed his head on his arms and stared up at the endless black of his prison, he had pretended there were stars above him and Alex was next to him. The rocky ground was just as unforgiving as the metal bed of his pickup truck. He was used to that fantasy, pretending Alex was there with him but just far enough away Michael couldn’t feel his breath or touch his skin. 

It had kept him going during those years when Alex was serving overseas under a whole different starlit sky. It had fueled him during the surprisingly harder times, when Alex was serving in the next state over, one timezone, two at most, but the separation was wider than the Atlantic Ocean under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. It had kept him hopeful as well, waiting during the in-between times of those scarce visits on leave. And then finally, Alex was serving in Roswell, but by then it was Michael who was out of reach, pulled down so deep in grief and pain he couldn’t see a way forward at all, let alone picture Alex nearby in his mind's eye. 

Now he was out of time to wait and see if maybe the fates would be kind enough to grant them one more chance at being together. 

The screen on his phone went black during his too-long pause. That was happening more and more, thirst was not enough to keep his thoughts sharp and his mind on the task. He kept drifting off on tangents, and time slipped with them as he worked to find the words to say goodbye to Alex. The battery life of his cell phone was dying under every pause, goddamn it, he needed to focus.

“I didn’t have the words then, to tell you how bad things were that summer. You know the one. I know I was too much for you, for anyone, hell even for myself. But… I didn’t mean to do it though, to make you the only good thing in my life back then- that was too much to put on you, when you were just a kid too, trying to survive.” 

His skin was tight and dry, he couldn’t spare the moisture to cry, but his eyes burned with the need. “I blame myself, you know, for you leaving that first time to join up. Going to war. I know you what you said, about wanting to learn how to fight battles and win, but I’m not dumb, Alex. I know your dad catching us together was the real reason. You were trying to fly under his radar, to get out of the house and disappear to California or New York once you turned 18, and I ruined it. And I’m sorry-”

Another rib shaking cough seized Michael’s body, ripping through his throat like a wildfire, leaving ash in its wake as he tried to close his lips around it and hold it in uselessly. It was futile, trying to protect Alex, but he hoped that Alex would hear this goodbye, hear how slow and sleepy the words were and perhaps picture Michael’s death as being a peaceful slip into oblivion. Not the true state of affairs, that he was fighting for air as the walls of the mine seemed to creep closer and closer with every inhalation.

Like the rest of his previous attempts to protect Alex in his life, he was failing again.

 “So, that apology was twelve years overdue. It wasn’t your fault I was a mess back then. And, the shitty part is Alex, if I had to relive that summer again, I can’t promise I would do anything different… except, maybe I would have been there to say goodbye to you.” 

The bar on the phone was slipping closer to the critical red line. 

“Guess that’s what this is. This recording. My poor attempt to make amends and give you a proper goodbye. I don’t have enough room on my phone or battery life to apologize for everything I’ve done, and honestly, what good are apologies? They don’t change the past. I think we did the best we could at the time. It is just- I lied before when I said I used to think we’d end up together.”

That bittersweet morning of watching Alex walk away one last time had changed something inside of Michael though he didn’t know at the time. He had thought he could close the book on their sad story and move on, trying as hard as he had with Maria, only to have that same damn book hurled at his head after Crashcon by Maria when she had ended things. He had spent so much time holding his and Alex’s story open in his heart, that the book didn’t close anymore. The spine was cracked, the binding bent in all the places where they had loved each other and hurt each other, that it made it impossible to shelve again and move on. All it took was the softest breeze of memory; the cover would flip open, and then Michael was right back in the middle of their story again, knowing that he would love Alex forever. 

His thoughts were wandering again, bounding down hallways of melodrama. He almost laughed at the metaphor he had crafted for Alex; that their love was a roughly handled book. Forrest would appreciate it, being a researcher and lover of libraries. Forrest seemed to appreciate everything that Michael hadn’t. 

Michael forced his eyes open, struggling to make sense between the black that circled his vision and the black of the mine. “I tried to stop thinking about it, picturing it, you and me, making a life together. I might have succeeded for a little bit, probably long enough for you to think I got over you. But I didn’t. It never really took. So yeah. I really thought we were going to have more time together. Time to try again. Or like, really try for the first time. I was ready now, to be good to you.” His lips cracked as he smiled in thought, the taste of blood sharpening his attention. “I had these big future plans. I was just waiting for- for the right time.

“Now I’m out of time- fuck, is it cruel to tell you this? I don’t want to be cruel to you. I love you. So much. So, I’m sitting here in the dark, and I’m trying to think good thoughts. God, Alex, you’re every good thought in my head, and I was planning on showing that to you, if you still wanted me.”

If. Michael forced himself not to linger on that. It was a huge ‘if’, considering how happy Alex was at the moment with someone else. Amazing what sharing hobbies but not trauma could do for a relationship. Well, Michael could admit it, that he was selfish enough at this moment not to care. He had held all these thoughts inside for so long, their only company his lost opportunities and dead dreams about finding his family. If he was going to die here, so be it, he didn’t want to leave anything unsaid.

“Maybe you don’t, maybe all you have for me is love in the past tense and that’s okay, sweetheart. I’ve stood there before myself, when my tank was dead-empty, and I couldn’t trust that another go-around would take me anywhere but back to heartbreak. Just, if you could indulge me one last time? I want you to know how I saw us.”

His lips stung, the cut breaking open again as he uselessly tried to wet them one more time. Michael curled around his phone holding it close to his mouth, his head was too dizzy to hold up anymore, but he pushed on, this was the important part of his message. “So, the plan was this. It is the same plan I had when we were 17. We’ve both taken some detours, almost got lost even, but I think this was where we were heading. A house, a yard, kids. We were going to have it all. I was going to play the guitar, you would play the keyboard, our daughter would play the drums, our son the flute because fuck gender stereotypes, am I right? Of course, you would have to sing, my voice only sounds good when I’m backing you up.”

The battery hit the final red bar of warning. There was a splash on the phone screen. Carefully Michael brought it to his lips to lick the precious tear away for moisture. His body had surprised him one more time, with tears. 

“And yeah, that’s the gist. I would back you up on everything in our dad band, but you have to let me be the disciplinarian about homework, okay? Also, you don’t know this about me, but I make the best breakfasts ever. That was going to be what I led with by the way, if you were ever single again. I was going to make you breakfast and woo you. Every day for the rest of your life if you wanted. Whatever you wanted. I just want you to be happy… I love you.” 

He closed the recording, saving it as the phone shut down on the exhausted battery. It wasn’t perfect, his last message to Alex, but then, when had he ever managed to tell Alex everything and get it right? He never had, and would never get a chance again. Never. 

Michael tucked the phone into the pocket of his shirt, resting it over his heart and shut his eyes. He was aware that he was breathing harder, his lungs were looking for more non-existent oxygen in the closed off mine. Hopefully, he would slip into unconsciousness soon and feel the weight of grief that had taken up lodging in his chest sometime after the age of 7, finally check out. Evict that pain at last, and he could be free. 

It was the bitterest irony of his current imprisonment.  

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