#mrhurtcomf

millie’s long list of malex fics | caught in the moment by prouvaireafterdark / @prouvaireafterdark​​

Michael is digging through his tool box when he hears a familiar voice behind him say, “Hey, Sanders. Wanna take a look under my hood?”

He turns around to see Alex Manes standing before him in all his emo glory: a black band t-shirt tight across his chest, immaculate black denim skinny jeans hugging his thighs, and a messenger bag stuck with pins slung across his shoulder. His eyes are lined in black, like always, and he’s got a beautiful smile on his face, one of those rare ones that are becoming more common by the day. Michael would like to think he’s got something to do with that.

Five times Michael Sanders’ dad almost walked in on him with Alex and one time he did.

comment: if you haven’t read lynne’s whole michael sanders au, you should absolutely go and do that. written in the wake of the sanders-tried-to-adopt-michael revelation, this is a beautiful, much happier version of the teen!malex story. i love it so much. please don’t stop at this fic; read the whole series!

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 | When You Walked In (the air went out) by el_gilliath / @el-gilliath

Alex doesn’t remember how it happened. He just remembers red eyes, a pain in his wrist, and waking up the next day in a bunk in Bahrain, a full-bird Colonel and his commanding officer sitting by his bed. It made him nervous then.It still makes him nervous now. 

While serving overseas in Iraq, Alex is infected with a rare local virus labelled VBT-01, whose symptoms include sensitivity to strong UV rays, most notably those at dawn, accelerated cell regeneration and heightened physical capabilities. Oh and a somewhat slightly inconvenient craving for human blood. But this virus isn't a stranger to the military and they help Alex manage his affliction, while using him as a weapon, until he's permitted to return home. Intent on living out a quiet, temptation free extended life in the desert with his suppressants, Alex instead finds his hard earned self control tested by none other than Michael fucking Guerin, the stupidly attractive nerd turned cowboy and the unusual scent of his blood.

tl:dr - Alex is a vampire and, being an alien, Michael's blood is like catnip to him.

millie’s long list of malex fics | I see sparks fly, whenever you smile by SuchASeeweedBrain / @daffietjuh​

‘It’s my favourite day of the year.’ Liz said as she settled against the wall next to Michael.

‘If I had known this was a yearly thing, I would have moved to Santa Fe sooner.’ Michael said, and Liz laughed.

‘Well that’s why we’ve got to keep this on the DL. Otherwise we’d lose our front row seats to this.’ She motioned at the scene in front of them. There were at least twenty five firefighters on the grass behind the hospital. They were here for a “freshening up” of their medical training. It was partially an excuse to keep the ties between the first responders and the hospital good, and partially actual training. But, because this was New Mexico and it was hot as fuck, all of the firefighters had taken off their heavy fire-proof overcoats and most of them were now left in either formfitting t-shirts or tank tops.

Michael is a doctor and Alex is a firefighter. (Can I make it any more obvious?)

comment: daphne is so good at these au fics and we were absolutely missing a fireman au. as well as firefighter alex, this fic has some of my favourite things; dr guerin, michael + liz friendship, first dates, hurt + comfort... if you’re not interested yet i don’t know what to tell you!! the whole first chapter is michael and liz watching the firefighters in their form-fitting shirts as they do their training.

millie’s long list of malex fics | In the Bleak Midwinter by aewriting / @aewriting

In the end, none of it had mattered.

Not the perimeter alarm Alex had so carefully installed around his property. Not the favors he’d called in from his decade of service. Not the hours he’d logged poring over Project Shepherd files.

No, they’d gotten him on a normal Wednesday, up in Albuquerque, right before Christmas..

When Alex and Michael are caught by Jesse and imprisoned together, they find themselves facing increasingly desperate circumstances. Will they be able to find a way out when it's clear that Jesse has no plans to let them out alive?

comment: any fic that involves the capture of one or both halves of your ship has the potential to be devastating and boy howdy does this fic deliver. probably don’t start this one if you’re looking for a feel-good fic, but if you’re in the mood to enjoy some angst, hate jesse manes, and get real sad about boys who will endure anything for one another, i can’t recommend this fic highly enough. the emotions in this author’s fics are always so raw, so near to the surface, and despite how much it hurt me, i would read it again a thousand times.

millie’s long list of malex fics | A Soft and Elegant Semaphore by InsidiousIntent / @insidious-intent

It was the kind of day that required a solid sartorial armor before venturing out into the world, and Alex had spent the last six months cultivating an entire wardrobe. The neutral oversized clothing he had hid under since his return to Roswell was now solidly folded and packed away in space bags, replaced with deeper hues of navies and burgundies.

He moved to pick the black wool coat, draping it over his arms. While he was never overjoyed about these occasional visits to Master Sergeant Jesse Manes, he had kind of resigned himself to the reality of spending a lot of time around people (and things) who had tried to kill him. 

Roswell New Mexico is moving forward. Alex Manes is not.

comment: this is the kind of spooky shit i like!!! the underlying tension throughout the fic, the way that alex solves the mystery and how michael intervenes... i don’t want to say too much and spoil the way things unfold through the fic but it gave me goosebumps, and then came for my heart with the malex. it’s weird and beautiful and i was really captivated by it.

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 | The Black Parade by Strangeredlantern, Vague_Shadows / @vague-shadows

"Nobody owns you, Guerin," Alex says.

“Yeah, right, of course not,” Michael agrees without conviction. “No one owns me. My body is just entrusted to the guardianship of the good ol’ Global Resource Alliance for the Care of Extraterrestrials.” With an acronym like GRACE the program couldn’t possibly be an evil, twisted, farce, after all. Michael’s seen the videos from the propaganda campaigns--been featured as one of the haggard faces in the videos of the crash survivors. It’s what made him such a popular request for the Antaran Family Placement program--except of course, the people who saw that terrified young alien on their screens had all been expecting some timid little child who’d lap up their praise and coddling eagerly and be a Good Little Showpiece of how generous and benevolent his placement family was.

Boy were they all disappointed to meet the real Michael Guerin....

A RNM-AU Inspired by District Nine, Arrival, and real-life coverage of UNHCR work.

comment: i know a lot of people are already on this fic but i wanted to highlight just in case there’s people out there who haven’t seen it! the premise is absolutely fantastic; antarians are refugees that came to earth and have been integrated into the system, although that’s going about as well as you can imagine. michael ends up on the manes property for his placement, meets alex, and well... you can imagine. the issues of power, control, and consent are so carefully navigated within the writing whilst not sacrificing any of the narrative or flow, which is so wonderful. the sweetness of blooming young love is explored parallel to the overarching dread of jesse manes, the warden and The Worst.