zandroid | Letting Go of Past Mistakes

Letting Go of Past Mistakes

"Okay, next up," he heard Forrest call. "Manes." And that was his cue. He walked up to the stage, glancing at Forrest as they passed each other. Because he was the reason Alex was up here. He'd encouraged Alex to start writing again. To get out into the dating world again. Or maybe at all. And now, terrible as it sounded, it felt like there was this weight lifted. His father would never have another snide comment about who he chose to sleep with.

But he was still nervous when he sat down at the keyboard and saw a whole room full of people who looked as if they were judging him. But he knew there were two people who didn't. Forrest was here and so was Gregory.

My father taught me home is where the hurt is
So I built a fortress, where I lived alone
He said ships were never meant to have a harbor
So I've worn this armor, I've fought and flown

I was raised a soldier
Put my weapons down to hold you
Is a kiss an act of war

It was going well so far. He could just get into the song. But that was when he looked up and saw Guerin and Isobel walk into the room. And everything changed. Because he'd written this song for Guerin and never expected him to hear it. But maybe, just maybe, it was a sign. Maybe it was their second start that he'd wanted back before Maria, before things had gotten so complicated.

I just tried to keep you warm
Even though I couldn't stay
No you never looked away
Now I can't look away

And there was no way that Guerin wouldn't know that was about him. For one, he'd basically stolen Guerin's line and thrown it back at him and now they couldn't seem to keep their eyes off each other, emphasizing his point. Alex wasn't one who generally believed in signs, but he'd been trying not to believe in whatever seemed to be going on with Guerin and look where that got him. He should have felt guilty because he knew what Maria felt for Guerin, but he mostly felt a sense of relief. He'd been holding these feelings in for ten years it felt like.

He did look away, then, but just because he was getting into the song. He felt it, but it had taken on a new dimension with Guerin here to listen in and he could see that the crowd was getting into it, too. This was why he'd gotten into music. This feeling of connecting with a feeling and connecting with a crowd.

I still find my fathers shrapnel
Buried beneath my skin
But I've begun to heal in all the places your hands have been

He glanced over again and Guerin was still there. Isobel seemed to have vanished somewhere, but Guerin was still watching with that rapt expression that had Alex's heart pounding in his chest. And Alex was singing to him again and it seemed like almost no time until the song was over.

Forrest stopped him before he had a chance to make his way to Guerin and Alex felt obliged to stop. It was because of him that he was even here. And if Guerin hadn't come in, things might have been different. But there was something in his eyes that said that something had changed for him, too. That it wasn't just Alex.

"Well, damn. How do you feel?"

And Alex was already smiling. "Like I sang a song about a guy in front of a bunch of cowboys, and I don't care."

"Oh, lucky guy, with a song like that." And Alex could see the conversation that Forrest wanted. Alex would admit that it was something from his past and they would kiss and Alex would move on. But he couldn't help but glance over and Guerin was still there, watching him.

"Yeah, maybe. I don't know, yet." Forrest followed Alex's eyes and, when Alex looked back at him, he could see a flash of disappointment on Forrest's face and he knew that at some point, he'd feel bad about that. But today, he was riding the high of playing his song and seeing that rapt expression on Guerin's face. "I'll see you later?"

Forrest nodded and then Alex was making a beeline for Guerin. He felt a bit breathless and he sounded that way when they were finally face to face. Hope, that was what he was feeling. A sort of frenetic hope that maybe both of them were ready for something more.

"I didn't know you'd be here," he said when he was finally in front of Guerin. And then, before there could be any misunderstandings, he added, "But I'm glad you were." There'd been too many misunderstandings between them. Too many things unsaid. He was starting to see a future where he could leave his mistakes behind him and he didn't want to start whatever might happen in the next few minutes with another regret.

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Things with Alex were always and forever complicated. Part of Michael had resigned himself to just acknowledging that they were different people, in different places. . His heart still hurt from Maria, and from that brief moment when he'd almost felt like he could have them both but deep down known it was a moment, not reality. He wanted to make someone happier, to have someone do that for him. To be GOOD for someone for once. But that hadn't really been what he and Maria ended up being, and he didn't know if he and Alex ever could be.

So he'd just leave space, let Alex find his own way. In the back of his mind he saw the pretty guy with a dumbass tree name who had hearts in his eyes when he looked at Alex, and who would probably be a lot simpler for Alex. No baggage, no history of hammers and hurt, no alien blood and drama. He didn't want it, he didn't like it. But he thought that if were a good person, if he were Max or hell, Valenti, that's what he'd let happen.

But he hadn't figured on walking in on Alex, mid-stage and mid-song, looking impossibly beautiful and singing his damn heart out. To Michael. About Michael. There was nothing subtle about it, it was about him - about them. He swallowed, and he had that thought again. That the timing was wrong, that he should leave space and step back, give Alex something simpler. Tree guy was even standing there, rapt and a second away from throwing his underwear.

Michael's still selfish though, because he stayed rooted to the spot as Isobel squeezed his arm and slipped away, leaving him with a beer in his hand and his heart in his throat.

Any opportunity to leave vanished when Alex came down, and came to him. He stopped for the tree guy, but not for long, and his eyes never really left Michael. But Michael wasn't a big enough liar to try to tell himself he wanted to go anyway. "I didn't know you'd be here," he said, awkward. He licked his lips and then said quietly. "Glad I was too, though. When did you write that?"

"I think a part of me has been writing it since that afternoon, when you told me everything and I panicked because you wanted to leave." Which was the real reason he'd panicked, not because of what he'd found out about Guerin. By that point, he'd pretty much known because of the things he'd found out from his father, anyway.

"The words have been circling in my head since then, but mostly I've been actually working on it as a song for the last month or two." He wasn't sure what had started it, exactly. But things had definitely changed after he slept with Guerin and Maria. He'd felt a certain sense of closure. And maybe he was reopening wounds that were just starting to scab over.

But he felt like a weight had been lifted and if he didn't take this chance, he was going to regret it. And he was done with regrets.

"I meant it. Every word."

Michael huffed a soft laugh. "Alex ... I've wanted to leave this planet my whole life. Even Max and Isobel, I knew they wouldn't go, and I was ready to take off anyway. Except for you. Leaving you was always the thing I couldn't do, no matter how pissed off at you I was." He'd daydream about it, think about it, picture it. But Michael knew himself well enough to admit he'd never have pulled that trigger.

A month or two, while everything went crazy around them. While Michael and Maria fell apart, Alex was putting his heart in a song. Michael couldn't even manage to get a sentence out and have it sound the way he wanted to.

Michael shifted against the bar where he leaned, looking at Alex, eyes softer than he knew. "I always meant it," he said. "That was never our problem, was it?"

"All I saw was that we were getting close again, that we were finally being honest with each other, and then there was a ship you were actively trying to put together in order to get away. I should have said something, but instead, I did what I always do. I panicked and ran."

A breath and felt something tight squeeze his chest. "I'm tired of running away from the things I want. I only end up regretting the things I leave behind. ...the people I leave behind."

And he was talking about Guerin, of course he was. But he was also thinking about all the other things he'd left behind in service of his father's plans for him. Like the reason he was here in the first place: music. Once upon a time, he'd dreamed of making a career of his music in some way. But then he gave into his father's wishes and he hadn't written anything in too long.

But mostly he was thinking of Guerin and how he'd had this amazing second chance when he got here and ruined it. Now Guerin had Maria and he couldn't even begrudge them, either of them. Both of them deserved someone who could make them happy.

But he could still wish.

"You run, and I avoid. We're a pair, Manes," Michael said. But the bitterness of the words was undercut by the soft way Michael said it, and the look on his face.

He tilted his head, eyes on Alex's. "So you don't want to run, and I don't want to just go be a delinquent. So where does that leave us?"

He lifted a hand, fingers reaching to toy with the buttons on Alex's shirt, pointless save for the excuse to almost touch. "You've got options, Alex." Michael's eyes flicked toward where Forrest was pointedly not watching. "And you know all the dirt under my rugs, and the alien skeletons in my closet. I can try not to work to piss you off, but I can't promise keep the mess off your doorstep if you stay in my orbit."

He dropped his hand back to his side. "So what do you want, Alex?" Michael could still hear the song in his head, the sound of Alex's voice, see the look on his face. But he could still hear Maria letting him go too, still had the sting of his and Alex's past failures and clashes sitting on his shoulders. He wanted to take the next step, to try again - but he needed to hear the words, not just the song.

"Do I?" Alex said, equally soft. "Because even letting go, I can't seem to actually let you go." He'd thought after that night with Maria and Guerin that he'd have a chance to move on. Of course, with his father, he should have known that it wouldn't be quite as simple as that. Still, even when he'd been getting closer to Forrest, there was a part of his mind, his heart, that was still focused on Guerin.

"And you know where my bodies are buried. Literally, as it turns out." Because apparently murder - cold-blooded murder and not the hot-blooded killing that happened during war - seemed to run in his family.

He took a breath, glancing down at Guerin's hands before giving him a serious look.

"Be careful what you ask," he said. And before Guerin's heart could do anything more than skip a single beat with the possible meanings of that statement, Alex cupped his face in both hands and kissed him.

Michael laughed, that same too-soft, breathy sort of quality to his voice. "How hard did you try?" Michael ... never really had. He'd said that he had, but in the back of his mind, in the little tucked away corners of his heart, he'd always held on to Alex, even when he shouldn't have.

He huffed another soft laugh. "Just the one, and it was a surprise for both of us," he said wryly. Alex knew about Michael's bodies too. Maybe it was enough that most people would take it as a reason to stay the hell away from each other.

His mouth quirked up at one corner. Because careful wasn't really something Michael was that often, not when it came to himself, and Alex knew that. But he didn't have time to answer before Alex's mouth was against his. And answering seemed unimportant compared to kissing back.

The significance of it - kissing in full view of a bar full of assholes and the guy who'd been crushing on Alex - didn't really hit Michael because whenever he kissed Alex, pretty much everything else BUT Alex fell right out of his head. He didn't pull away when the kiss ended, just rubbed his cheek against Alex's. "Sticking around then, Manes?" he asked quietly.

Reality hit him, then, and his smile turned a little sad. "You asked me what I wanted, not what I could have." And this time, it wasn't because of his father or the military or anything Guerin had or hadn't done to push him away. It was just a fact. As Guerin himself had so adamantly asserted all those months back.

"You're with Maria, remember?" And probably Guerin had just gotten caught up in the them, just like Alex had. But the last thing that Alex wanted to do was hurt Maria. Alex hadn't had any real claim on Guerin when the two of them had slept together. And maybe Alex had tried for something later, but Guerin had made his choice.

But Guerin and Maria were definitely together now and that was a line that Alex wouldn't cross. His friends were everything to him, especially since family had been more on the side of causing pain than helping him bear it.

He pressed their foreheads together for an all-too brief moment and then stepped back.

Michael shook his head, forehead still against Alex's before Alex stepped away, fingers flexing where they'd curled into Alex's shirt before he reluctantly let go.

"She cut me loose," Michael said. She wanted to chase after her alien side, and didn't want him watching, afraid of it and trying to hide it. He knew. And she knew about him and Alex, and thought they weren't done with each other. She wasn't wrong, Michael knew. That night with the three of them had proven that too, when Michael had gotten lost in both of them and been blindingly lucky for a night, until reality came back.

And this proved it too, because Alex sang and kissed him and Michael was just there, despite everything, heart in his hands. In the end, he was just as damn hopeless as Max when it came to one specific person.

"She wants to see who she is, what her new abilities can do. And she thinks maybe I'd be happier with someone else, in the end," Michael offered. "I wasn't sure about that, we've never been good at making each other happy for long. But I never let you go either, Alex."

Alex sucked in a breath. That wasn't something he'd expected, although maybe he should have. Especially given everything they'd found out about Maria. Those flashes of intuition that really were something more. She would have still seen this coming. Because neither of them could really quit each other. It hurt a little because he knew she really cared about Guerin, but at the same time, he felt a bit of relief.

His eyes darted across Guerin's face. Searching for something, maybe. Or maybe just looking. Because this made things different. He wouldn't have suggested that Guerin cheat, but this wasn't him cheating. It was maybe awkward timing, but that was something he could live with.

And so he stepped back in and kissed Guerin again, no hesitation and no intention to pull away until Guerin did. Because he was ready. He had been ready and there was a part of his heart that had broken when Guerin hadn't shown up that morning. But now he was here. Now they both were.

And he didn't care who saw.

Michael just let Alex look, and waited. It was complicated and messy, and bad timing - but when the hell wasn't it with them? Maybe that meant he should have turned and walked out and tried to wait for some mythical better moment. But how often had one of them nearly died at this point? They might never get a better moment than a song on a stage and being newly single.

When the second kiss came, Michael laughed, soft and sweet, and kissed back, hand slipping from where it'd curled in Alex's shirt to wrap his arm loosely around his waist.

They were in a bar full of rednecks and there were probably at least a couple of them sneering, but Michael didn't really care. His attention was all on the man in his arms.

When the kiss ended, Michael just smiled, nose brushing Alex's cheek. "Maybe we should try things a little different, this time," he said. "Like say, a date?"

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Letting Go of Past Mistakes

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