Author: DocPaul DocPaul_Inbox@aol.com
Spoilers: Up to Viva Las Vegas.
Distribution: Exclusive to "Cause we know..." & Mud.
“Now my vacation can finally begin.” Michael walked past.
Maria watched as Max left the hotel room and Michael raced off to the bedroom firmly shutting the door behind him. With a frown she looked at the two-closed door, and it seemed to symbolize exactly where the two young men stood right now, closed off and apart. Sighing heavily she walked over to the phone to call for supplies. These aliens were more trouble than they were worth at times. Normally they would have went out, got drunk, had a fight, and things would have finally came right. But no, no, aliens can’t drink, and they can’t open up and just find a way through the maze of crap that cluttered their lives.
Maria was worried that the breach was too wide to connect, that they would let it widen till there was no hope of finding a bridge, a common ground. The trip to Las Vegas was more to Michael than just a trip for fun, a letting off steam. It was a chance, a need to find a connection to Max that he had lost over the last year and a half. Michael was feeling his human side more than his alien, and he was feeling his alien family slipping away. The fears and uncertainties of being an alien, of being a killer, or failing to protect those closest to him were choking him. He couldn’t heal or find resolution within himself so he looked for it in the only person who had always been strong for him, always been there, Max. But somehow, somewhere along the road, they had lost something. They had lost the ability to communicate.
Maria felt the weight of her own heart. This was her fault. She didn’t really think or look at why Michael was coming here, to Vegas. Why he was feeling the need to let go of everything and just be free with Max. All of them had felt the need to cut loose, to lose them selves from the daily burden they carried, and the troubles of the past few months. But for Michael it was more somehow, more essential. He was lost and floundering in doubt and angst and he had no guide, no anchor to bring him back to a stable place. Holding Dupree blood money in his hands, all he could see was betrayal, the betrayal that it represents, and the lies.
Maria moved to open the door to the suite when the knocked pulled her from her own thoughts. Tipping the young man and thanking him, she quickly closed the door and headed to the bedroom. Michael was more than likely watching television since she could hear the voices from behind the door. Opening the door, she quickly went in and ignoring him, went to her bags and his and started pulling out stuff she needed. Feeling Michael’s eyes following her movements she continued to ignore him and went into the bathroom. The bath was nice and large and the towel rack was heated. Nice place to visit. Reaching down, Maria began to fill the bath and moved around the room lighting candles. Taking off her clothes, she found the courtesy robes and quickly put one on before laying out the supplies she needed on the countertop.
Finally ready, she took a cleansing breath and went to stand in the doorway between the bedroom and the bath. Maria stood silently watching him as he lay on the bed watching Braveheart for the umpteenth time. She knew he was purposely ignoring her. It was clear in the tension in his body and the way he held himself that he was the end of his endurance, and the last thing he wanted was to have to fight it out with her. Leaving the door she slowly approach the bed and sat down on the edge beside him watching him, until finally he looked her way. Reaching over and taking the remote from his hand she turned off the movie. Putting the remote down on the bedside table, Maria reached up and gentle looked at the cut above his right eye.
“Umm, this looks deep.” Maria ignored his eyes and kept looking at the cut and the other slight bruises on his face. The fact that Max hadn’t healed the cut, and Michael didn’t ask was another testament to how far they had drifted.
“It’s okay.” Michael was almost holding his breath waiting for her to ask him about Max and jail, but she didn’t.
“Some cuts are deep and take a long time to heal, and even when they looked better on the surface, they are still bleeding deep inside.” Maria finally met his eyes, and her voice suddenly softens and took on the tone he associated with her taking care of him. “I got some stuff to fix it.”
“It’s okay…” Michael paused as she stood up and reached down to take his hand. Pulling him off the bed he followed her into the bathroom, one of his favorite rooms. Pushing him down on the closet toilet seat, Maria took some linen with disinfectant and started to clean the cut. Michael swallowed the retort from the stinging of the disinfectant, but instead kept his eyes fastened on Maria’s face as she took care of him.
“I am going to have to steri-strip this closed. God, baby, it really is deep. Under normal circumstances I would take you to the doctor for maybe a stitch or two. Can you fix this?” Maria directed her gaze at him.
“No, I doubt it. I am too um, emotional right now. My powers never work well when I am out of control.”
Knowing what admitting that cost him, Maria just nodded her head. “Should I see if I could find Isabel or Tess?”
“No. Leave it. I don’t mind if you fix it.” Maria smiled at him.
“You might end up with a small scar. Something to remind you of me.” Maria moved in closer and kissed him lightly on the lips and then the forehead and then leaning down, she whispered in his ear. “It will make you devilishly handsome in a rugged way, bad boy.” Michael had to smile at that. Letting Maria take care of him was becoming a guilty pleasure of his. She had a special touch and that voice. It calmed him in its lovely soft melodic tone, soothing him.
Maria discretely watched Michael watching her. It was going to take some time before he came clean to what was bothering him, what was causing him to bleed inside. The thing with Michael was that you could pound at him endless and he would not yield, but if you yielded and bided your time, he usually would find the words and way to tell what was wrong. There was nothing like passive aggressive strategy when dealing with a Spaceboy.
Putting away the supplies after she cleaned the wound and closed it, Maria took his large hand in her smaller one. “Come on.” Pulling him from his perch, she stood him beside the bath and slowly removed his clothes. Avoiding his eyes she kept up her task trying to appear nonchalantly at his body, but if she made eye contact, she knew she would lose it. Michael had a way of putting a twinkle in his eye and moved that one brow upward that just set her off in a peal of laughter. He had that come-hither look, with a devil may care I dare you. It gave her an attack of the giggles every time.
“You are managing me again.”
“Don’t worry, I think your manhood can handle it.” Maria dramatically looked down his body and whistled under her breath.
“Dammit, Maria.” Michael couldn’t believe how easily she was able to reduce him to a blushing schoolboy, and they were very familiar with each other’s bodies. But somehow, with just a look, he felt all his years, or the lack of them intensely. They had come a long way, but still they held back a few degrees of intimacy. He knew why, but he wondered it Maria did.
“Shush, and get in the bath. Move forward I want the back.” Michael did what she asked and literally groaned out loud at the hot water. Damn she loved hot water and this was almost scalding. Looking up he enjoyed he favorite thing about bathing with Maria, watching her remove her robe and for a second in time standing completely nude if front of him. God she was the most beautiful thing he ever seen. It was hard to imagine that anyone person could be so tiny, so sexy, and so beautiful all in one, but there she was, a goddess.
Michael felt her climb in behind him and pull him back to rest against her, her small breast pressing into his back and her beautiful long legs coming around him holding him tight. Reaching down, he ran his hand over her legs where they rested around him. Maria’s legs were the source of numerous fantasies. He classified her legs as the best damn legs in Roswell. They were long and lean, and seemed like miles of endless road that could wrap around a man twice. Since Tucson when they became more intimate he was finding ways to make some of those fantasies come true.
Maria was washing his hair and making that low humming sound, almost singing under her breath. “Your hair is getting so long. Remind me to trim it for you when we get home.” Michael just closed his eyes and rested against her as she moved water over his body. Michael was startled when in a time too short for his own comfort Maria pushed him off her body and got out of the water, toweled off and put the short courtesy robe back on.
“Maria? Where are you going?”
“Nowhere. Just lean back and relax.” Michael moved back in the bath to take the place she had vacated, but kept an eye on her. When she filled a basin with hot water from the vanity and came back with a hot towel and soap and a razor, he sat up straighter in the bath.
“Maria?”
“Don’t worry.” Maria moved the lathered shaving soap across his face and took the razor in hand.
“Have you ever done this before?” Michael was curious and a little apprehensive.
“Nope, unless you count my legs and arms.” Maria smiled at his discomfort. “Come on, I let you shave my legs last week.” Moving the straight blade towards his face she paused. “Up or down?”
“Down. Always follow the grain.” He watched her closely as she shaved him. Her face was absolutely adorable in its concentration, holding her mouth open when she shaved under his nose mimicking him, and her tongue making appearances in and out of her mouth. After she finished she rinsed the straight razor in the basin and put it aside as she rinse his face, and finally handed him the warm towel.
“How did I do? Is it close enough?” Michael reached up and felt his own face.
“You tell me.” Maria moved in and rubbed her soft cheek against his, and slowly moved back leaving them a hair’s breath apart.
“Feels real close.” Her darken eyes seemed to hold him capture.
“Yes, it does. Real close.” Maria moved back in and kissed him deeply, her hand coming up to stroke his newly shaven face.
“If you get out, I will give you a back rub.” Maria stood up and smiled at him on her way out of the bath. It took only mere seconds for Michael to find himself out of the bath and in the bedroom lying on the bed on his stomach with his head resting on folded arms with Maria sitting on his legs rubbing his back slowly moving up until she was sitting across his hips.
“I can’t believe you are still so tense, even after a hot bath.” Resting, and sighing deeply he let her work her magic. Sometimes it seemed like Maria was the only person in the world that could make things right, and other times he just knew that it was true. Strangely enough she hadn’t asked him anymore about Max, their fight, or even what happened in the jail. She just worked on his tense muscles of his shoulder and back.
He held out for a few more moments before he told her. “I’ve been having nightmares.” She didn’t even pause. “Since Tucson?”
“Yeah, every night.”
“Bad?”
“Yeah, bad enough.” Michael went silent again waiting for her to ask, but she didn’t. She just kept on rubbing his back sitting astride his hips. Finally he gave up and told her about the dreams, about running for his life, about him and Max losing Isabel already, and finally him losing a cold emotionless Max just before he was shot to death by unknown assailants while holding the Dupree money.
Maria was silent while she listened. No wonder he wanted the Dupree money away from him, and no wonder he was struggling to keep Max. It was hard to realize how much the whole Destiny thing cost Michael, but basically it cost him Isabel. Before last year he really thought of Max and Isabel as family, and Isabel as his sister. When she stopped being that, and became something else, something that neither of them believed in, she became Max’s sister, and associated with him only through Max and their alien backgrounds. She had been lost to him for a long time, and recently his connection to Max was fading too.
Michael was always the more alien of the original three podsters. But Tucson, Charles Dupree, and Laurie changed that. Suddenly he had a claim to the Good Earth, he wasn’t just a visitor. And once he added in his growing connection with Maria, he found his lifetime of alien ties stretched to the limits. It seemed like both Isabel and Max were moving away from him without even noticing he was gone. It was almost like when he was separated from them when they emerged from the pods. He was one of them, but never that close, and always just on the periphery looking in on their lives given token scraps, but never really belonging or important.
The Dupree money was a bribe to forsake and betray his human ties. Holding it in his hands he could feel his human holds pulled to the strain along with his fast disappearing alien ones. Michael was running scared that one day he would wake up with out a single tie to either world, but inside he desperately want both. They were what made him what he was. He spent a lifetime denying the human side for the alien, but recently he was finding his human side had more to do with him then he ever imagined, that he owed more to it and to humans. Lonnie was right. He was different from Rath, and if Rath was his alien side with only a small amount of human DNA, and he was the human side with a small amount of alien essences, then he preferred the human side. From what he saw of Rath and the dupes, Nasedo, and the skins, the alien side didn’t have much to offer but a life without emotion, love, honor, morals and humanity.
“The money is a curse.” Maria said in a rush of understanding.
“Yeah. I want no part of it.” Maria nodded her head understanding where he was coming from. Sure it could make his life easier, but at what cost to his soul? The cold hard Max of his dreams was a foreshadowing of what he would become, what Max was becoming. He planned this trip to reconnect to Max, to find that connection they once had since emerging from the pods. The failure was a hard one to reconcile and now Max was gone, so in a sense his nightmare came true.
Reaching down and lying along his back, moving her hand up his front to rest on his healed bullet wound she kissed his shoulder blade. “Does it still pain you?”
“Sometimes.”
“The wound has healed Michael. The wound that is bleeding is a different one now.” Michael slowly turned over letting Maria come to rest on the bed next to him. Looking at her, he saw she was serious.
“What do you mean?”
Leaning towards him and running her hand over his face and gently tracing his features. “They aren’t leaving you behind again, Michael. They aren’t deserting you. Their own lives are suddenly so much larger right now, like yours is. It is hard to keep it all balanced. There has been so much this past year. Give them time. Just be strong and supportive, and they will come back to find you. They won’t leave you. You are family.”
“Maria, I don’t know how…” She moved in and kissed his softly letting his breath warm her lips. “What if I am not strong enough? What if I fail?”
“The only failure is not trying. It’s like a prayer. You can ask, but sometimes the answer is no.”
“I don’t know if I can afford to fail.”
“You won’t. You said it yourself to Laurie. You might have faults, but one thing is true is that you are loyal, and you will not turn your back on them. There is nothing more anyone can ask, but that. You just need to pick your loyalties and stay true to them.”
Michael propped his head up on his bent arm and looked down at her. Taking her hand in his, he brought her fingers up to his mouth and brushed them over his lips, nibbling on the sensitive pads. “I would never turn my back on you either Maria.”
Moving her other hand through his drying hair that was soft and clean she smiled at him. “You didn’t have to tell me that. I already knew it.”
“But you don’t always? You’ve have reason to doubt.” Maria looked away from his eyes.
“Yes. But that has more to do with me than you.” Michael watched her take the blame for her lack of trust in him at times. She trusted him implicitly with her life, but with her heart? That was a different matter. He had given her many reasons to doubt him, to live in uncertainty. The last year had been hard on all of their relationships with each other, whether it was his with Maria, Maria’s with Liz, or his with Max and Isabel, and Alex’s with Isabel. All of them were suffering in some form. But he knew Maria, he knew her better sometimes than he knew himself, and he knew where her insecurities were. And over the last year he had pushed her hard, and one thing remained true, she remained loyal. She never turned her back on him or let him down. In so many ways they were the same.
“I can’t promise that sometimes my life won’t be so strange and out of control that I won’t push you away, and I can’t promise that I won’t give you reason to doubt, but I can promise that I do think of you, and I do have your best interest at heart, and I would never willfully do anything to hurt you.” Michael felt compelled to let her know in some way that she wasn’t alone in this relationship, and for once, lying in this bed with her, he could admit that they did have a relationship.
“I know you do and I know you won’t, no more than you can help.” Maria smiled at him and decided to lighten the topic before he started pulling back from the emotionally intense discussion. “So what are you thinking about me right now? Or dare I ask?”
“Well,” Michael scratched above his left eye. “I was hoping you would perform your strip audition seeing how I sort of missed it the first time.” Michael smirked at the look of outrage that crossed Maria’s face.
Sitting up she quickly grabbed a pillow. “Oh!” Hitting him and trying to smother the life out of him, Michael couldn’t stop laughing.
“I would have hired you.” Michael said adding more fuel to the fire.
“Oh!” Michael grabbed the outraged Maria and they rolled around on their bed laughing. As Michael blew raspberries on Maria’s neck and tried to avoid getting a knee to his groin, it occurred to him that he was finally starting to feel better, healed. Somehow he had looked at Max for that, but all alone it was Maria that he really needed. He could wait for Max to come around as long as he had Maria.
The End.