millie’s long list of malex fics | Wednesday's Child by beamirang

Alex is engaged in an ongoing battle with his alarm clock. He's starting to think the damn thing is sentient. It knows he's always wide awake by the time it delivers its shrill ring and is enacting some kind of twisted psychological torture as payback for being made to feel redundant.

Instead of accurately recording the passage of time, his clock seems to be stuck in some kind of loop. It's been two fifteen for the last eight hours at least.

It's also possible that he's just massively sleep-deprived and the vindictive machinations of his alarm are all in his head.

Alex isn't someone you make plans to save, he's someone you ensure dies properly.

comment: i would be super grateful if bea would stop breaking my heart for like, a second. she continues to write the most devastating alex manes and it just takes my breath away every time. this one’s a little angstier than most, dealing with alex as a very unreliable narrator, which can be hard to face sometimes. it’s a slow progression towards a hopeful ending though, as michael starts to figure out what alex actually needs, and they learn to speak to each other instead of running around in circles. there are heavy, heavy suicidal themes in this fic so please thoroughly check the tags before you read, and have a little bit of fluff at the ready in case you need it afterwards. it is an incredibly good character study though, well worth the more challenging bits.

millie’s long list of malex fics | Operation Switchblade by beamirang / @beamirang

It starts with his fuckwit of a brother deciding that he’s in charge of Christmas.

Actual, honest to god fucking Christmas.

Michael Guerin, Santa Claus.

Michael Guerin, St Nick.

Michael Guerin, wanted for fratricide. .

Christmas AU - in which Antar has been behind this whole Christmas thing from the beginning, Michael accidentally explodes a planet and is landed with Santa Duty. .

comment: holy hell, this was so funny. and also heart-warming. it has that wonderful bea flavour that makes everything and anything a delight to read. i can’t believe she wrote a santa au that isn’t completely ridiculous. amazing.

millie’s long list of malex fics | Genetic Cloning for Idiots by beamirang

“You’ve never been to war,” Alex snaps back. ‘You have no idea-“

“I was fucking bred for war!”

“You are not Rath, Michael!”.

In bea’s words: “the fic in which Michael Tries His Best (and Still Fucks Things Up). It's silly until it isn't”.

comment: look, we know that anything bea touches turns to gold, but some of these fics i want to single out because i loooove them. obviously fics that include antar or its lore are my absolute fave and this fic follows the pod squad over to antar, after the squad itself has taken power on the planet. michael’s the high general and alex is a bamf (of course) and kind of military link between antar + earth. michael wants to prove himself to also be a bamf, and things go sideways. i just love the way that bea tells stories; she doesn’t hand-hold but hits the ground running with the story itself. the world building comes through that. okay, go read this!!

millie’s long list of malex fics | I am a constant satellite by beamirang

“Is there anyone there? Can anyone hear me?”

Alex vanishes from Earth on a Friday. Michael, who hasn’t seen him in nearly three months, is half a bottle of tequila down and elbows deep in the guts of his ship. His parting gift from Alex has completed the console and left him with no shortage of doubt that Alex wants him as far away from him as possible.

Or, the shamelessly self-indulgent temporary character death groundhog day angst fest.

comment: i’m pretty sure bea owes us in emotional damages at this point. there was no need to go so damn hard with this fic but i can’t regret reading it because it’s glorious. there are some truly incredible lines, i honestly couldn’t even pick one to put in here cause i’d immediately spy another one that i wanted to highlight. it is absolutely heartbreaking from michael’s pov which just makes the end all that more satisfying. don’t read this one for a pick-me up, but do read it to experience how desperately michael is in love with alex and the lengths that he’ll go to save him. also, take a moment to bask in the absolutely stunning writing. obvious warning for character death (several times; this is a time loop fic after all) but there’s a happy ending!!

millie’s long list of malex fics | Sir, that's my emotional support alien by beamirang

He doesn't know the owner of the new voice, but he does know the man who appears next to him.

His brain can't compute the revelation that Alex is alive: he's dead. Michael's mourned him. He's still fucking mourning him. So he focuses on the smaller details instead.

Namely, Alex looks fucking amazing in a suit. He knows that. Prom and all. But this is a suit that fits so well it looks like it's been crafted by magical fucking pixies or something. He's had a lot of dreams where Alex walks back into his life, alive and unharmed, but he's never been so well fucking dressed in them.

Alex is recruited to the Men in Black. Three years later, he's back in Roswell.Michael takes it about as well as you'd imagine.

comment: so i think we can all agree that anything bea touches turns to gold. each new fic, be it au or not, makes me lose my goddamn mind and this one’s no exception. it completely matches the wild humour of the MIB films and merges it seamlessly with the roswell characters. it’s now multi-chaptered which is, honestly, the best. i could read a thousand little chapters set in this universe, no matter which combination of alex, michael, and albert they’re based around. please just go and read this and smile and be happy today; there’s no way to come away from this fic unhappy, i promise!!

millie’s long list of malex fics | the old astronomer by beamirang

He’s thought about this moment every day for nearly a decade. Three times now, he’s felt the quiet elation of knowing Alex has served his tour and is back on home turf, safe and unharmed. This last deployment is half the reason Michael couldn’t face him before he left.

He’s never imagined this, though. Never figured he’d get the call. He’s always imagined just overhearing it in the bar some day. ‘You hear what happened to that Manes boy? Such a shame.’ He’s imagined all of the pain and none of the right to it, none of the right to mourn.

“I’m Second Lieutenant Blackburn. I serve with Captain Manes. This isn’t an official call. It’s a favor, really. But. He was injured in the field three days ago. They MEDEVAC’d him back to base, but - but he’s in a bad way. They’re not sure if he’s gonna make it.”

Michael gets a phone call after Alex is injured, and it changes everything.

comment: i’m sure everyone is already reading this masterpiece but if you’re not, do yourself a favour and have a look! canon-divergent from when alex gets injured, but the author ties in more recent canon information in a really clever way.

millie’s long list of malex fics | Ad astra by beamirang

Michael’s been picked up off the floor of more bars than he can count. Usually by irate bartenders, occasionally by begrudging crew members of whatever ship he’s serving on... and then there are the times he’s been arrested…

But he can say without a doubt that it’s been a long, long time since he’s been hauled up off his ass by his old Academy roommate.

AKA the Star Trek AU that won't leave me in peace.

comment: listen, i don’t know what we as a fandom did to deserve beamirang, but i am beyond grateful. one of their latest masterpieces in progress comes to us in the form of a star trek au in which alex is the captain of a ship and he’s recruited michael, his old academy roommate and something-else-it’s-complicated-when-isn’t-it, as his engineering chief. this thing is curated perfectly, with all our fave characters in perfect star fleet positions, an on-the-edge captain alex, reminiscent of dear captain kirk, and enough sexual tension to shake the ship itself. it’s only five chapters in as a i write this and i’d already sell my soul for another five. please do yourself a favour and get in on this, even if you’re not a huge star trek/au fan. beamirang has a way of writing plot, character, smut and everything else in-between that will have you begging for more. this got long but you get the idea.