millie’s long list of malex fics | leave the light on by sabrinachill / @sabrinachill​

“Explain it to me again — why do we need to pretend to be married?”

It’s a question Michael knew was coming, but not one he has a good answer for. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

He cuts his eyes away from the road to steal a glance at the passenger’s seat for the seventeenth time in the past hour; the view is the same as always. Alex, frowning so deeply his entire face is drooping downward, his dark hair dancing in the wind that whips through the windows as he stares at the simple silver band circling his ring finger.

Its twin sits on Michael’s hand.

A Malex Fake Marriage fic.

comment: the absolute joy that this fic brought me (and others) during may/june cannot be accurately described. i eagerly awaited an update every day and mattie never disappointed. now that i can read over the whole thing, it’s only gotten better. the ramp up of tension, the action of the second half, it involves a list of amazing tropes, the main of course being fake marriage. god, it’s just so good. but don’t take my word for it! get over there and read it!

millie’s long list of malex fics | Right Where I Want You by prouvaireafterdark / @prouvaireafterdark​

“The bunker in my basement,” Alex preambled. He waited until Michael swallowed his coffee before he leaned forward and asked, “What do you think about turning it into a playroom?”

Michael’s brow crinkled in confusion. “A playroom? What, you got some nieces and nephews coming to visit or something?”

Alex laughed before he could stop himself and the expression on Michael’s face soured a little. Alex shook his head, grabbing Michael’s hand across the table. Letting his voice drop to that pitch that drives Michael crazy in the best way, he clarified, “Not that kind of playroom, baby.”

Smutty Malex one-shots focusing on D/s themes with plenty of tenderness and aftercare to go around.

comment: i’m sure you all know @prouvaireafterdark for her delightfully smutty fics by now, but if you’re not familiar with this little series than you should definitely check it out! it involves the unconventional use of the cabin’s bunker, plenty of bdsm themes, and an equal amount of love and tenderness. i cannot emphasise enough how nsfw these fics are. 

millie’s long list of malex fics |  Alienated by mansikka / @mansikkaomenabanaani

His head is pounding. His tongue feels both dry and like the final resting place for something rotten, which it might be, judging by the taste in his mouth. Michael rolls his neck, forehead pressing into the wafer-thin pillow provided in his cell. Are there normally pillows? He can't remember. Michael can't even think clearly enough to remember what happened last night. He knows alcohol was had, and maybe a little acetone in between. There was a lot of physical activity judging by the way his entire body aches. When Michael sits up to investigate the split knuckles and ache suggesting a bruise forming on his jaw, it speaks of brawling instead of fucking. That kind of night then. Could be worse.

After Caulfield and Max's death, Michael hits rock bottom and then just keeps on digging. Alone in the world, how the hell can he dig himself back out? In which, Michael Guerin learns to trust; other people and himself.

comment: this is a “michael is a total mess post-season one” fic. it’s a malex fic but at its heart, it’s a michael fic. i honestly just like fics where michael pulls himself together for himself, where he realises he has friends and doesn’t have to push people away. the malex is a wonderful bonus! the flirting is very sweet and it never feels as though one of them is earning the other; they’re just working on their own stuff separately and working their way back to each other. mansikka always writes heartwarming malex, plus there’s a (pre season two) buffy cameo!!

millie’s long list of malex fics | The Red Name by BeStillMySlashyHeart / @bestillmyslashyheart

Maria blinked and stared at him incredulously. “What’s wrong?” She pulled the sheet up to her neck as she sat up. “Did you think I wouldn’t be a little concerned about this?”

Michael looked around himself. “Concerned about what? What’s wrong?”

She laughed breathlessly. “You get your ex’s name tattooed on your chest and you’re honestly asking me what’s wrong?”

According to the Project Shepherd files, when an alien reaches the age of maturity (approximated to be 30 years old), a name appears on the skin over their heart. This name will reveal the person they love most in the world. The name appears in colored ink, in shades of pink or red. The darker the color, the stronger the love. Max, Isobel, and Michael received their marks 22 years after waking up in the pods. It's a damn shame none of them are actually with the people whose name they get.

comment: marlo is the queen of soulmate fics and this one... whew! this one. i remember waiting anxiously as it updated (so quickly! it was crazy) because it was so juicy right from the get go. it’s heavily malex but the way that it swaps between POVs to update the movements of the other pairings is SO INTERESTING. i especially love the interactions shown through the emails; sometimes it’s about the stuff you have to imagine in your mind. the point is, i was hooked the whole way through. remember to check out the tags, and despite the initial angsty chapters, look forward to a wonderfully fluffy ending!!

millie’s long list of malex fics |  Finding You by myrmidryad / @myrmidryad

Kissing a boy was no different to kissing a girl, in practice. Kissing Alex was different to kissing anyone else, and Michael’s brain didn’t have the space to think about it. He’d never kissed anyone like that before, without being absolutely sure they wanted him to. His mind had never gone blank and a little bit desperate like that. He’d never been so happy to find out that someone wanted to kiss him back.

Alex wanted to kiss him back. The fake stars were shining on the wall behind them, and Alex’s arms were around him, hands grabbing at Michael’s hoodie. Michael slid his under Alex’s sleeveless combat jacket thing, fingers catching in the cheap fabric of his UFO Emporium t-shirt as Alex made a soft noise into his mouth that Michael caught, a fizz of heat going through his skin. 

What if events in 2008 went slightly differently, and Michael and Alex joined Max and Liz on their summer road trip across the US? Features: escaping Roswell, camping, teen love, secret reveals, many confessions of feelings, and everyone involved generally having a very good summer with a hopeful ending.

comment: masterpiece after masterpiece! this is just another in a list of amazing long fics that @myrmidryad has gifted as with. if you enjoyed their fic  Take Me Back To The Start and their take on teenage alex, you will absolutely devour this. i love canon divergence that branches off during their highschool years, and this is a beautiful, indulgent cross-country roadtrip with these teen sweethearts. i really can’t do much more than insist you read it. it’s so lovely. i cried at several parts. i have visceral memories of certain paragraphs. this fic is worth every second you spend reading it.

millie’s long list of malex fics | chum, and throw me overboard by thepredatorywasp / @usbournejez

Alex has sympathy for them, his captors. He doesn’t have to condone their actions to understand their desperation. They are desperate, that much has been made clear. He has only an opaque sense of what they are truly after, but they clearly aren’t snatching people up for the fun of it. 

He wonders idly if the bootmaker he and Maria visited is connected to them somehow. He was off-putting, certainly. Set every alarm off in Alex’s head and hitch up every red flag, but there is no way to be certain, yet. Everyone he has seen since he was grabbed at Sander's has had their face obscured by a mask or a hood. Usually both.  

Alex is gone for four days before he is rescued.By the time he has had some real time alone to process, i.e. the approximate thirty minutes in the bathroom that he was granted, Alex has landed on his feelings on the matter. On being saved from sure death, on being the rescued part of a rescue mission. He is overcome with earned, rational annoyance.

comment: y’all probably know kieran for her masterpiece scream in there so be warned that there is no cute little baby river included this fic. instead, this is all about an alex-kidnapping, but written more than a month before 2x10. i just love alex’s attitude in this. “overcome with earned, rational annoyance” is my favourite line from the whole thing; i love me some alex-got-himself-kidnapped-on-purpose plot and when you couple it with kieran’s amazing prose, you’ve got 11k+ of brilliant fic. please be mindful of the tags, as alex is a unreliable narrator with some serious mental health issues. kieran notes that it’s “meant to be confusing because he is experiencing intermittent depersonalization” so honestly the fact that she can convey that whilst still maintaining a coherent story and consistent characterisation is why we  love her.

millie’s long list of malex fics | Things That Break by Nestra / @changingthingslikeleaves

As far as Michael is concerned, the competition for the alien with the most complicated love life is now a three-way tie.

Isobel, still mourning her dead husband, or the idea of her dead husband, who'd turned out to be an alien serial killer.

Max, who'd blitzed that serial killer (who had murdered his girlfriend's sister) and still probably wanted to tell Liz that her dead sister's burned body was in a pod in a random cave.

And Michael, who'd managed to fall in love with the son of the man responsible for torturing and killing the family he never knew he had. And who now has to figure out a way to explain his magically perfect hand, because Max couldn't keep his healing powers in his pants.

Sometimes things have to break before they can be made whole.

comment: another amazing post s1, pre s2 fic! there are a million and one things in this fic that i wish had happened in season two, and these little snapshots of michael’s time after the finale paint enough of a picture that you can imagine the days in between. he and alex have some conversations though, and you know that’s what i love to see. their conversation in the final chapter is one of my favourite post-s1 “get everything out on the table” conversations. even with season two almost done, i still go back and read this.

millie’s long list of malex fics | that’s not music you hear that’s the devil by misandrywitch / @leescoresbies

There’s a reason why Alex Manes doesn’t play shows in New Mexico.

It’s his own rules, unwritten but strictly enforced over the last decade. He knows a lot of people with complex and detailed pre-show superstitions, sometimes even written into riders and contracts. Chamomile tea. No red M&M’s. Forty minutes of warm-up exercises meant to encourage throat lubrication. Calisthenics. Meditation. Three rounds of solitaire. He tends towards black eyeliner, deep breathing, a little good whiskey - and a particular avoidance of geography.

That’s not superstition, though. It’s good sense. Usually, Alex has good sense in spades - with just enough seat-of-the-pants unpredictability to keep things interesting.

Alex Manes grabs his guitar and gets the hell out of Roswell in 2008, and he leaves behind a letter. Here's what happens ten years later.

comment: ahhhh we needed more band/music aus and sarah delivered tenfold. the dialogue is so witty it drives me crazy and the descriptions of the setting make me feel like i’m right there in the bar or the back of a truck in the desert. you know how i love canon divergent fics that explore an alternate path after the toolshed, and giving alex a career in music is so satisfying. he and michael hashing out their history in the back of the truck is also *chef’s kiss*. it’s everything i could have asked for in a folk band au, and the fact that it’s got two parts (alex pov and michael pov) is so so sweet.