Fandom: Roswell, New Mexico
Characters: Alex Manes, Max Evans
A/N: *long sighs* You know, it’s not cool how you found a tiny hole and now poke the squishy part just to get what you want because you know you’ll usually get it. Anyway, to mischief makers @faithtrustaliendust, @suzteel, and @queenrikki on this Manevans Monday.
Because our multishipping arses have had a soft spot for an emo punk vet and a soft nerdy cowboy since they exchanged one look in high school. #ManevansRights If they don’t give us Manevans scenes next season, we riot!
Warning: so much sh!tty poetry. Teen poet Max is not good, but Teen Emo Alex is weak for him anyway.
He slammed his locker shut, music blaring in his ears and drowning out the chaotic energy of the halls of Roswell High.
I’ll be your number one with a bullet A loaded God complex, cock it and pull it
If he could make it through his last class, he could hit the music room and retrieve his guitar, maybe work out a melody that had been scratching in the recesses of his mind, dying to get out.
He sighed at the Letterman jackets closing in, a sense of dread over which pea-brained jock would start shit today.
They swerved him, which was fine until one rammed into Max Evans knocking his books down and throwing that stupid baseball cap he always wore to the floor.
Admittedly, Austin Farrell stomping the hell out of the thing was him doing Max a favor, but the rest was just uncalled for.
Max was an odd one. On the surface, he was tall and fit enough to be a jock, and if he had anything that resembled coordination, he would have made a hell of a basketball player.
But he had P.E with him last year and quickly realized Max and sports didn’t mix.
He was tall, a bit dopey, and walked around hunched over and hiding behind books and baseball caps.
He always wondered why Max carried himself like he was afraid to take up space. Like he was too big, and the world was too small. Deep down, he knew what it felt like to want to hide –blend into the background and be left alone. So could he really judge him?
The jocks watched Max scramble to retrieve his things, one of them snatching up an opened notebook and scanning its contents.
“A shared glance, ephemeral, unlike the all-consuming inferno within for you. Relentless, like the curve of your smile – Oh shit, Shakespeare here is writing love letters!” Farrell crowed.
More mocking ensued, and by then, Max’s cheeks flushed crimson. A tuft of hair fell in his eyes as the notebook landed on the heap with the rest of his belongings.
He knelt down and helped Max gather his books, and nodded in acknowledgment of Max’s bashful smile.
But then he felt someone shove him from behind. He rose to his feet, turned and narrowed his eyes at Farrell. He could tell the brute was attempting to taunt him, but he refused to take his earbuds out to hear it.
He signaled at his ears, flashed a “f*ck you” smile, and waited for Farrell and his crew of nimrods to get out the way.
Some days, he discovered not giving them anything to work with bored them. Fortunately, it was one of those days.
He still had the opened notebook in his hands and couldn’t help scanning over the rest, his interest semi-piqued.
“Hey, could you…” Max’s embarrassment was transparent as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other and reached for the worn, leather-bound notebook.
He flashed him a sympathetic smile. The last bell sounded, and they stood outside their final class: study hall.
The prospect of spending the next 45 minutes in a room with Kyle and his friends wasn’t appealing, but something else definitely was.
He pulled his earphones out of his ear, cocked his head to the side studying the awkward boy in front of him, and made a decision.
“You wanna get outta here?” He asked.
Max was startled, or maybe he was too focused staring moony-eyed through the window.
“You– Me? You’re talking to me?” He stammered, pressing a large hand to his chest in askance. “Blow off study hall?”
Alex shook his head and snorted softly to himself. He jerked his head in the direction of the class.
“Or you could spend the next hour imagining that’s you slobbering on Liz’s neck and not Kyle. I’m out either way.”
“I wasn’t–” Max protested. “I was going to work on chemistry.”
“I bet you were,” he deadpanned.
“Actually, yeah,” Max tightened the single strap over his shoulder and stepped closer to him. “I’m quite flexible.”
He raised a brow – watched Max’s reaction when his own statement landed and his face flushed again.
“I meant, um, with my schedule,” Max stammered. “I, yeah, just,” he scratched at the back of his neck and ducked his head down awkward and shy as ever.
He was starting to wonder if that cap Max wore had some mystical abilities that made the guy less of a puppy. At the very least it rendered him capable of basic forms of communication and a latent ability for prose.
Max released a puff of air and flashed a smile that Alex found endearing. “Um, just, after you…”
He felt Max’s presence behind him as they walked down the hall. For someone so tall he was light on his feet. He wasn’t taller than him by much, but with close proximity came a comfort he hadn’t felt in some time.
Not since Cutter, who ironically, had a gift for words too. He had a gift for a few things.
Their makeshift band fell apart around the time Cutter moved away, and he hadn’t been able to get the gang to agree on much of anything ever since.
He didn’t have too many sanctuaries at Roswell High, but the music room was one of them. He slipped in with ease, wrapped his hands around his guitar and relished the feel of it in his hands.
It was like an extension of him. He hopped onto a desk and begin strumming away, trying to chase the melody that had been taunting him for hours.
Max wandered around the room gently gliding his hands across instruments and staring around.
“You play?” He studied Max as he played.
“Nah,” Max snorted. He held his hands up as if they were answer enough. “My br-best friend tried to teach me, but I have big, clumsy hands. No technique.”
“Somehow I doubt with hands like those you lack technique,” he tossed out.
Admittedly, he got a kick out of making Max blush. He made it so easy. Max turned away, fiddled with the cap in his hands, and sighed knowing it was ruined.
“It’s for the best,” he teased staring pointedly at the cap. “If it’s any consolation, you look better without it.”
Another shade. He really was having too much fun.
“Hey, it’s part of my style just like you and your …” Max waved at Alex before deciding on. “Septum ring.”
“You’d look good with one, too. I can get you a deal,” he leaned on the desk next to Max.
Max scoffed. “I can’t pull it off like you. I would look ridiculous.”
“Ridiculously hot,” Alex quipped with a shrug. “Who knows? Maybe it would get Liz’s attention.”
Max sunk further onto the desk. Falling back into that habit of making himself small with shitty posture.
“It’s that obvious, huh?”
“Evans, they can see it from the moon, man.”
“I didn’t realize I was that obvious. I’m usually better at hiding,” he dug his fingers into the leatherbound notebook and sighed.
“You’re a poet,” he said bluntly, cutting to the chase.
“I’m really not,” Max contested. “I like writing, but I’m not a writer.”
“Max, that’s the definition of a writer.”
“I’m not, like, good. I just…” his voice trailed off as if he didn’t know what else to say.
“Is everything you write about her?” He went back to strumming the same couple of notes.
“You mind?” He asked. His hand enclosed around Max’s as hoping Max would relinquish the book.
Max was hesitant. He felt him squirm beside him likely terrified of sharing such a vulnerable part of himself.
He tried to give his best reassuring look, squeezed Max’s hand in comfort. “I promise,” he whispered softly. “I won’t laugh.”
Max swallowed, his prominent Adam’s apple he still hadn’t grown into bobbing. He gave a brief nod.
He pried the book from Max’s grip and flashed a sincere smile. Max closed his eyes falling back until he was sprawled across a couple of desks as if he was trying to disappear into the furniture.
He pegged him for a sensitive type, but the melodrama caught him off guard.
He thumbed through the book, worn pages filled with scratchy notes and fanciful words.
Spilled ink and a bared soul, nearly as intimate as a diary. He hummed to himself, words painting pictures in his mind and pictures becoming sounds in his head.
A specific line caught him, and he twirled it around in his head. His hands were clutching the guitar again, his fingers gripping the guitar pick firm as his sounds playing in his head came through his fingers.
He sang quietly, hauntingly a tale of lost love, the ache of being peered through in a busy hallway and not gazed at. A soft brushing of fingers, accidental in lab, and a half-smile. He sang of deep, profound loneliness, and an aching for something unattainable.
He sang Max’s words, his own half-grin forming when Max opened his eyes, stared at him with a dropped jaw their eyes locked in the familiar way that they do when something inexplicable clicks into place.
The last chord died out in the room, and silence replaced it. Max stared, awed.
“That was you,” he replied. “Like I said, you’re a poet. Even better, you’re a songwriter. I could use one of those.”
“You want me to write songs with you?”
“Only if you’re up for it,” he shrugged noncommittally.
“I suppose it’s better than pining,” Max muttered.
“It’s still pining, just with kickass music behind it,” he smirked.
The final bell of the day sounded, and Alex hopped off the desk and gathered his things.
“But, we don’t listen to the same things,” Max slung his backpack over his shoulder and gripped his notebook like a lifeline. “At least, I’m assuming we don’t.”
“You got something to say about my look, Evans?”
“What? No, I, think you look nice…”
He really had to stop amusing himself by getting Max flustered.
“Music is universal, Max. If you keep writing, I’ll keep playing.” He shoved his earbuds in his ears. “I think we could make some killer music together.
If you’d have told him Max Evans would become one of his closest friends, he would have snorted in disbelief.
They were different, at least, he assumed they were, but in reality, they were more alike than the surface implied.
He had grown used to the notes Max slipped in his locker. Sometimes it was a full poem, and others it was only a line or two.
Sometimes Max would slide them across his desk – scribbled notes on frayed pages, Max’s script delicate and neat.
He kept them in a box in the shed – piled them up, scraps and whole pages of prose.
He’d pass Max in the hall, and Max would give him that dopey grin that made him smile. He tried not to, he did, but somehow, Evans always pulled a small one out of him anyway.
Max was non-judgmental. He didn’t understand some things, but it didn’t stop him from trying to, with rapt and genuine interest and attention.
He would cautiously wander to the bleachers sometimes, visibly wary of Alex’s friends, not sure how he would be received among the mishmash of metalheads and burnouts, a few stoners, and drama geeks, and a goth or two.
His musical taste was questionable, devoid of any real identity that set him apart from anyone like he was going along to get along.
He often wondered why Max was so determined to disappear into the background.
He was funny, kind, and personable. He was easily someone who others would gravitate to if they ever got the chance to know him, but Max Evans didn’t make himself known. Not really.
He showed people what he wanted them to see, a small peek into who he was, just enough to appear non-threatening but not enough to lure people in.
Yet, that’s precisely what made Max so alluring to him. He knew a chameleon when he saw one – a kindred, someone adaptable when they had to be.
Max seemed genuinely surprised by how easy he was welcomed into their mix, and it was nothing for him to hang out with the group sometimes if only to show his sister he did, in fact, have friends.
Study halls they would spend in the music room jamming out.
He introduced him to My Chemical Romance and was pleasantly surprised that Max dabbled with Green Day and Fallout Boy.
They shared a mutual appreciation for Johnny Cash, which is something he wouldn’t cop to in public. But they wore out his cover of Nine Inch Nail’s "Hurt” like it was an anthem.
Max was expressive. Far more than him, but still subdued enough to not be overwhelming.
They’d sit side by side, an earbud between them, Max’s eyes closed when a particular song struck a chord with him.
For Max, the music was about the words. Lyrics spoke to him more than anything else. He learned to predict which songs would speak to Max most.
He taught Max a thing or two with the guitar.
Max had a natural ability for percussion, which surprised him, and the way his eyes lit up when he pulled off a minute drum solo actually made him laugh.
He wasn’t used to that kind of enthusiasm. But Max’s quiet darkness spoke to him more.
He spent enough time around him to pick up on how Max would slip away into the dark caverns of his mind, introspective and deep.
His eyes would get stormy then like he was fighting battles that would never reach the light of day.
If he was honest with himself, he liked that Max best. There was a story there itching to be told, but he better than anyone understood untold stories and secrets, so he’d never pry. Maybe that’s why Max came back to him time and again too.
He saw more of Max than most, but he didn’t push. He’s pretty certain Max saw him too. They held entire conversations with a single loaded look.
Some weekends they’d go for a drive, hit the desert, and fuck around with music until dusk.
Max’s lip would curl up in that half-smile as he drove, peeking over on occasion as if wondering if Alex was actually enjoying his company.
Max was proud of himself for blaring “Jesus of Suburbia,” which had become one of his latest obsessions, and he admittedly was impressed that he did, in fact, know the entire song from start to finish.
They’d hang until dusk and went their separate ways after grabbing a bite at the Crashdown.
On those days, he figured Max needed to lay eyes on his muse.
One weekend they drove a town over, he hit the stage during amateur night at some underground coffee shop, and for five minutes their joint efforts came to life on stage.
He’s not much of a singer, but the feeling was right. It was worth it just to see Max’s face light up as he beamed with pride and breathed about making something so beautiful.
Some days Max was absent. He’d get caught up in something with his sister or Guerin, but if he worked on something, he would slip that leatherbound notebook in Alex’s hands like he was entrusting him with his life.
Maybe in some way he was.
They didn’t talk, but then, they never needed to … there was something about their silence that was comfortable.
But sometimes his curiosity got the best of him.
They sat on the hood of Max’s jeep, stretched out, takeout between them after he hitched a ride with Max to the record store to meet up with his friends – their friends. He supposed they were Max’s too now.
He couldn’t help stealing a few glances Max’s way. The guy was a bit of a pushover, and Roni spent two hours making him her latest project.
She stole that godforsaken baseball cap and left him with wind tousled dark hair that kept slipping into his eyes because he hadn’t cut it in a while.
He faults himself for that. He told him it looked good longer, and shockingly, Max took it to heart.
Smudged black eyeliner made Max look a bit edgier. The silver choker around his neck did too, but fortunately, Roni reined it in.
To him, Max still looked like a puppy, with sad Bassett hound eyes, but that’s how he liked him.
Galaxies behind every gaze and a black hole heart.
It was something Max alluded to in the latest scrap of paper he left inside his locker.
Months later, and he already could tell he had an influence on him. His prose lost some of the flowery edges and shifted into something darker, caustic but no less beautiful.
“You ever think of telling her?” He took a long pull of his soda and squinted into the distance.
He felt Max’s gaze on him.“What?”
“You ever think about actually sharing the things you write with the person it’s about?”
Max ducked his head down, that familiar demure action that Alex had grown fond of.
“Who says I haven’t?” He answered after a while.
He scoffed. He knew Liz well enough to know if she had known for a second about half the things Max wrote about her, he’d have heard about it.
Even if she let Max down gently, she would have had quite the reaction.
“I’m pretty observant, Evans,” he shook his head. “I would’ve noticed.”
“You sure about that,” Max muttered under his breath.
At least, it’s what it sounded like he said. He knew Max had a snarky streak, but it was rarely directed at him.
Max wouldn’t look at him, but he bore an unreadable expression. He slurped the last of his drink more out of habit than need, but then reached for Alex’s too.
He handed it over with a frown, Max’s large hand wrapping around his briefly before he sucked down the rest of Alex’s drink, too.
“Are you embarrassed?” He asked after a while.
The silence between then had stretched on for a bit, however, it wasn’t their comfortable kind. It was something else, something tenser, and he could only guess bringing up Liz was a sore spot.
He knew what it was like to have feelings for someone without them being reciprocated.
He hopped off the truck and reached into the passenger seat. He rummaged through his bag until he pulled out the box he kept all of Max’s poetry– his lyrics.
He climbed back on the truck, holding the box in his hand grateful he brought it along for the day.
He didn’t miss the small smile on Max’s face at the box in his hand, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Putting yourself out there sucks,” he shrugged. “I know better than anyone.”
Max didn’t say anything. Between the two of them, he was used to Max being the one to fill the silence, or at least respond when he talked to him. If he didn’t know any better, he would swear Max was channeling him.
“I’m not the best at … feelings,” he struggled even uttering the word.
“But you are. Have you read your work? All these bits and pieces – I know Liz, and if she just knew… if she read these … ”
He went through the most recent scraps on the top and felt Max tense up beside him.
“There are galaxies behind your eyes, infinite and wise all the things you hide.
"The darker you are the more I see what if we were meant to be something more…
"Short desert nights and long silence just you and me next to you is where I’m free
My name a low melody on your lips I wonder if you should know. How I dream of taking the risk. A shot at true bliss in kissing you hello,” his mind raced as he dug through more.
“You helped me see me the way that you do if only you saw how I do the same for you”
“I"ll follow you through the dark because you’re the light”
“Over the edge, but I’ve never been afraid of falling only that you won’t be there, you’ll disappear when I do”
“Jagged smiles that don’t come easily, each one burned in my memory, my pulse races staccato, breath caught you saved one for me, just maybe … ” he felt like he was punched in the gut.
He sneaked a glance at Max, a strong profile, hunched forward. The only giveaway that his nerves got the better of him was how he wrung his large hands, ink-stained and trembling.
“These aren’t about Liz,” his voice caught in his throat, and her name came out like a whisper.
Full smiles in the hallway. The way Max’s eyes crinkled in the corner when he laughed, how they deepened when he made Alex laugh too.
The way Max stood by his side, solid, warm, close all-consuming making him feel small but also safe.
Brushed knuckles while playing guitar. Late-night phone calls, and long desert drives. Study notes and tutoring, long days at the record store.
Grabbing a bite to eat and rotating who paid, stolen fries and shared drinks. Notes, every other day.
He looked down at the treasure chest of spilled ink."Shit.”
He played back snippets of the past few months, saw them through a different lens.
Max stopped staring at Liz months ago, but he never stopped looking at –“Shit. These aren’t about Liz.”
“They’re not about Liz,” Max agreed his voice low and husky.
“You,” Max supplied. “You’re not that observant, Manes,” Max joked softly. “You’ll see a dozen different angles however obscure but miss what’s directly in front of you.” Max chuckled low and deep.
He sat in stunned silence, and Max, the bastard, let him. He gave him the time to process, not that his proximity helped, warm, solid, pressed against him from shoulder to pinkies a ghost of an interlock as the hood of Max’s truck suddenly felt too small.
He never had anyone write about him before, write for him, and he didn’t realize that confession slipped from his lips another on top of the others until Max responded just as quietly.
“You should,” Max whispered. Max looked down at his hands as if sparing himself the heat of Alex’s gaze.
“You deserve songs written about you, Alex. You’re,” he exhaled resigned. “You’re amazing, and any guy who doesn’t see it doesn’t deserve you.”
Max turned the full force of his gaze on Alex, heated and open, vulnerability laid bare for Alex to see.
How could he have not seen it before?
“You wrote me poetry,” he breathed. He opened and shut his mouth feeling like a guppy.
Max shrugged, a sad half-smile. “You sang me songs,” he countered.
Max peeked down at him beneath lashes, bashful and sweet.
“They made you happy, ” Max whispered into the night air, trusting the wind would carry his words for him.
“They made you happy, and that made me happy. I liked surprising you, the way the curve of your lip turns up,” Max whispered, eyes slipping to Alex’s mouth for a brief moment. “And your eyes,” he reached his hand out as if to touch Alex’s face but caught himself.
His breath hitched in anticipation that quickly became a disappointment. He felt the loss of a touch that never reached him.
“It’s OK, though” Max murmured softly in that voice that haunted his dreams at night.
“Max,” he pushed past the lump in his throat and cursed this tall, dopey, adorable boy for drinking the last of his soda.
“I don’t expect anything, Alex,” Max breathed out, nervous energy tinging his voice. “Nothing has to change.”
Determined brown eyes fell upon him and he knew just how much Max meant that.
“It’s OK,” Max continued, and he couldn’t tell if the desperation in Max’s voice was an attempt to convince himself or him.
“I promise, Alex,” Max’s voice was desperate but sincere. “Everything this is, I – it’s more than enough, I swear. I –I’m really good at pining.”
He let out a startled laugh.
“You’re laughing at me,” a flash of hurt crossed Max’s eyes but he schooled his expression.
“No,” he breathed. “Yes, I mean,” he exhaled long and slow reaching out to grab Max’s hand in reassurance.
His mouth worked, open and closed as he struggled with what he wanted to say, how much of himself was he willing to give in that moment?
“I–” he squinted out in the distance, pinks fading into the blue. He shivered and wished he could only blame it on the cool evening air.
“I–,” he tangled his hand with Max’s, slightly callused, warm, comforting. He looked up, smiled a little at Max’s expression as he stared at their entwined fingers. “Why would I settle for enough, when you’re telling me I can have more?”
He watched Max’s head slowly lift, his expression openly hopeful. No half-measure. He felt it and felt it fully, openly. It’s what Max always gave to him.
He wasn’t used to letting others see him like that, but Max understood that, didn’t seem to hold it against him. He found ways to slip through the cracks.
He swallowed as Max’s thumb rubbed circles into his skin driving him crazy without even realizing it. Quintessential Max.
“I’m really good at pining too,” he muttered. He thought the confession would cost him something, but it left him lighter, freer.
It gave him something instead, that spark in Max’s eye, darkened pupils, goofy grin becoming something far more alluring, sexier. His breath caught.
“I really want to kiss you,” Max murmured, his face closing in, eyes slipping to Alex’s lips before meeting his eyes. It wasn’t until they were a couple of centimeters apart before he breathed. “But only if you want me t–”
He surged forward, capturing Max’s lips with his. He was urgent, needy, but Max’s hand cupped the back of his neck, pulling him closer, slowing them down.
Long, lazy, languid kisses dizzying in their delivery. Max’s tongue warm and wet was on the verge of driving him insane.
“Fuck,” he gasped. He clutched Max’s hair, moaned as Max trailed kisses down his jawline and neck, suckled at sensitive spots he didn’t know existed.
Max pulled away, the pads of his thumbs feather-light against Alex’s cheeks.
“Sorry,” Max stammered. “Am I not doing this right?”
For a moment he was gobsmacked, the only thing more shocking than the soft-spoken, awkward poet being such an incredible kisser was him thinking for a second that the sweet torture he inflicted on Alex was anything other than just fucking right.
Max flashed a crooked smile – a glint of mischief in his eye confirmed Max was screwing with him.
“You’re such a shit,” he smirked.
He rested his forehead against Max’s sighed when Max pulled them back until he was hovering over Max.
“You gonna write about this?” He ran his nose along the side of Max’s jawline, nipped along the bone before pulling back.
Their hands entwined rested on Max’s chest, a tangle of black fingernails, silver rings, and ink-stained skin.
The intensity of the adoration in Max’s eyes scared the shit out of him. But it was a fear he could get used to.
Max’s hand slipped to the back of his neck, fingers carding through his hair pulling him forward, chasing his lips.
“I’m gonna dream about this,” Max whispered against his lips.
“Me fucking too,” he panted breathlessly as they made out beneath the stars.
