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remix_reduxTitle: Can't Get Too Close (The Just Can't Push You Away Remix)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
magelette
Summary: Their future is bleak, but he can't push her out of her life to save her from it.
Fandom: Roswell
Pairing: Michael/Maria
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Never owned them, will never own them, even if they own me.
Original story: The Closer You Get bybantha_fodder
Notes:
***
She's flipping through the damned magazine again--Cosmo, from the look of it. At least it's not Seventeen. He's still scarred by all the quizzes and crap Izzy made him and Maxwell take when they were kids. Like he really needed to know what flower scent his personality was.
At least she's not yapping anymore. Not at him. He's tuned out the psycho-babble about the boring dress, and the ugly dress, and how Britney really shouldn't wear pink with that red. This coming from someone with Christina Aguilera's greatest hits sitting in her CD player (a voice he could actually name, thanks to Iz).
"Could you not…do that?" he snapped, shooting her a quick glare. "Some of us are trying to drive." This stretch of 285 South required as much attention as geometry class, after all.
"Aliens don't need to concentrate," she shoots back. "Why can't you just do some magic alien genie thing and beam us there or something? Honestly." At least she's silent this time, the quick flip of pages filling the small car.
He squirms in his seat, trying to find a spot that isn't digging into his ass. The Jetta had obviously seen better days. Kinda like a lot of his stuff. He knows, like they all know, that it's pure luck that the DeLucas don't live on the same side of the tracks as he does. If there wasn't a market for tacky alien crap, Mrs. DeLuca'd probably be sunk. Just like Hank.
Sounds of soft breathing fill the car. He looks toward her, but all he can see is smooth skin where her little shirt-thing's rucked up. She's leaning against the window, drooling on the glass. Asleep.
The skin, golden and warm, taunts him. He wants to touch it, to feel the fire and sunshine that he knows boils under that fragile skin. But he can't.
Even if she is warm.
And like him.
***
The quiet doesn't last. It can't. It's inconsistent with all of Maxwell's laws of time and space that Maria DeLuca can't stop the vacuum of silence from being filled. If he didn't know better, he'd think she was an alien, with that lung capacity. But she got him out of a speeding ticket, even if she did make him blow up her car. Which was her own damned fault.
Aladdin's nookie motel is also completely her fault. And maybe he doesn't exactly blame her for not sharing the bed, especially after all that baring of their souls crap. Sharing the bed would mean getting too close, and none of them could afford to get close, especially after Max's brilliant Superman move… Even if he could see the light in her, burning almost too bright to be contained, like some kind of supernova. And he was the moth, trying to resist burning brightly like that Tyger.
He can hear her tossing and turning. No sleep for kidnapped, after all. It was cold--desert at night and all that crap--neither of them really wanted to sleep under the covers, considering what kinda motel it was. Or she could be thinking--if there were any thoughts in her empty head. Maybe she's thinking of her mom, stupid enough to probably think she's spending the night at Liz Parker's. Or maybe she's thinking of some boyfriend or something, even though he knows that Maria hasn't dated anyone since that asshole Doug Sohn. Maybe she was thinking of Whitman. Or maybe--
At least neither of them snore.
There's more thrashing around, until he finally hears the bedsprings protest as she sits up. She gets up off the bed and moves in the darkened room toward the tv, which, of course, doesn't work.
"Maria." His voice is sharp, curt. Because it can't be anything else with her. Because she's almost human now to him. And she can't be that way. "Come back to bed."
Even in the dim light of the room, he can see the arched eyebrow. "Come back to bed? Implying that I was sleeping with you in the first place?" She laughs that forced laugh of hers. "Dream on, spaceboy. Do you even sleep? I know you sleep in class, but I thought that was just because you were bored out of your Martian mind."
He rolls his eyes and waits for her to stop talking. There's no point in trying to shut her up, because her inhuman powers of speech always manage to resist the known laws of the universe. Liz Parker tried to prove that once, at their fourth grade science fair.
"Come back to bed," he repeats, squelching the urge to grab her by the wrist and pull her. They'd be warmer together, skin against skin. "It's warmer in bed." When she crosses her arms and give him that infamous DeLuca glare, he sighs. "Please. The sooner we fall asleep, the sooner it's light out, and the sooner we can leave." To go wherever they'd go from here.
To his surprise, she comes back to bed quietly. She curls up in a little ball, stirring up all kinds of longings inside him to curl up around her, warming up her small body with his breath and calloused hands.
He doesn't know if she sleeps. He thinks he does. He's never been given to visions or dreamwalking or invading people's heads like Izzy was, but he thinks he dreams. Of soft skin, warm against his. Of night after lonely night of shitty hotel rooms and highways longer than 285. Of one crappy rental car after another and takeout meals that Maria complains bitterly about, even though she never gains an ounce. Of flying. Of hiding. Of the intimacies of packing their underwear in the same battered bag and knowing that his socks fit perfectly in the worn cups of her bras.
Skin against skin or something. Living inside her and outside her and completely surrounding her. There was a franticness to the vision, a panic, as if it was just the two of them against the world. As if the others were so far away that they were on a different planet. As if they were different people, forced into hiding. He'd always known their make-believe life in Roswell wasn't going to last, would crumple around them someday. He'd never wanted to believe in that happily ever after crap before now, before--
The door flings open, light floods the room and Maria shrieks. They've been found, and he has to hide… Maria's body's pressed against his, and she's feverishly warm and so--
"Maria!" Liz's voice.
Maria panics, pushes herself off him. "What…what are you guys doing here?" He hears the fake casualness in her voice, the relief, and maybe even…regret?
Liz blinks her eyes like she always does, looking confused. "Um, we thought you were in trouble, but…" He can feel Liz's gaze rake over his body, studying him. "But, yeah… I guess we're…wrong."
Maria's mouth drops open. "No. No! You don't think--I mean, that's like…so unreal! I mean, come on." She gestures toward him. When he doesn't say anything, she crosses her arms over her chest. "Come on. Would you tell them?"
He's not sure why, but he puts his arm around her, squeezing her tight. He doesn't nuzzle her neck to see what it would taste like, but he might as well have. "C'mon, honey. We don't have to lie."
And the smirk isn't forced, because he knows the irony of the situation. About how, on the day when the Feds find out about everyone there in that room, it would be him and Maria and the long highway, fighting and running and fucking sparking from the electricity inside them both--all the other has.
They argue, they shout, they finally agree to move on to Marathon in the morning. Michael can't help but feel like they're taking some irrevocable first step on a path that looks lonely and hard and unforgiving, something he wouldn't wish on anyone. Not even Maria DeLuca. If he wasn't so selfish, so lonely, he'd push her away. But he doesn't. Because he knows that she'll be his, and all he'll ever have.
She's damaged and flaky and bat-shit crazy, but she burns so bright with belief and support and love. When she puts her small hand on his at the dome, telling him to try and have a vision again, the strength of her belief almost blinding him, he wants to wrap her in his arms and hold her close forever.
There would be danger and loss and pain--more than even he could imagine right now, humming with the electricity of the power within him. But he couldn't stop the future. He wouldn't tell anyone about it, but he wouldn't do anything to stop it.
Just so that he could have that one person to hold close.
Author:
mageletteSummary: Their future is bleak, but he can't push her out of her life to save her from it.
Fandom: Roswell
Pairing: Michael/Maria
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Never owned them, will never own them, even if they own me.
Original story: The Closer You Get by
bantha_fodder Notes:
***
She's flipping through the damned magazine again--Cosmo, from the look of it. At least it's not Seventeen. He's still scarred by all the quizzes and crap Izzy made him and Maxwell take when they were kids. Like he really needed to know what flower scent his personality was.
At least she's not yapping anymore. Not at him. He's tuned out the psycho-babble about the boring dress, and the ugly dress, and how Britney really shouldn't wear pink with that red. This coming from someone with Christina Aguilera's greatest hits sitting in her CD player (a voice he could actually name, thanks to Iz).
"Could you not…do that?" he snapped, shooting her a quick glare. "Some of us are trying to drive." This stretch of 285 South required as much attention as geometry class, after all.
"Aliens don't need to concentrate," she shoots back. "Why can't you just do some magic alien genie thing and beam us there or something? Honestly." At least she's silent this time, the quick flip of pages filling the small car.
He squirms in his seat, trying to find a spot that isn't digging into his ass. The Jetta had obviously seen better days. Kinda like a lot of his stuff. He knows, like they all know, that it's pure luck that the DeLucas don't live on the same side of the tracks as he does. If there wasn't a market for tacky alien crap, Mrs. DeLuca'd probably be sunk. Just like Hank.
Sounds of soft breathing fill the car. He looks toward her, but all he can see is smooth skin where her little shirt-thing's rucked up. She's leaning against the window, drooling on the glass. Asleep.
The skin, golden and warm, taunts him. He wants to touch it, to feel the fire and sunshine that he knows boils under that fragile skin. But he can't.
Even if she is warm.
And like him.
***
The quiet doesn't last. It can't. It's inconsistent with all of Maxwell's laws of time and space that Maria DeLuca can't stop the vacuum of silence from being filled. If he didn't know better, he'd think she was an alien, with that lung capacity. But she got him out of a speeding ticket, even if she did make him blow up her car. Which was her own damned fault.
Aladdin's nookie motel is also completely her fault. And maybe he doesn't exactly blame her for not sharing the bed, especially after all that baring of their souls crap. Sharing the bed would mean getting too close, and none of them could afford to get close, especially after Max's brilliant Superman move… Even if he could see the light in her, burning almost too bright to be contained, like some kind of supernova. And he was the moth, trying to resist burning brightly like that Tyger.
He can hear her tossing and turning. No sleep for kidnapped, after all. It was cold--desert at night and all that crap--neither of them really wanted to sleep under the covers, considering what kinda motel it was. Or she could be thinking--if there were any thoughts in her empty head. Maybe she's thinking of her mom, stupid enough to probably think she's spending the night at Liz Parker's. Or maybe she's thinking of some boyfriend or something, even though he knows that Maria hasn't dated anyone since that asshole Doug Sohn. Maybe she was thinking of Whitman. Or maybe--
At least neither of them snore.
There's more thrashing around, until he finally hears the bedsprings protest as she sits up. She gets up off the bed and moves in the darkened room toward the tv, which, of course, doesn't work.
"Maria." His voice is sharp, curt. Because it can't be anything else with her. Because she's almost human now to him. And she can't be that way. "Come back to bed."
Even in the dim light of the room, he can see the arched eyebrow. "Come back to bed? Implying that I was sleeping with you in the first place?" She laughs that forced laugh of hers. "Dream on, spaceboy. Do you even sleep? I know you sleep in class, but I thought that was just because you were bored out of your Martian mind."
He rolls his eyes and waits for her to stop talking. There's no point in trying to shut her up, because her inhuman powers of speech always manage to resist the known laws of the universe. Liz Parker tried to prove that once, at their fourth grade science fair.
"Come back to bed," he repeats, squelching the urge to grab her by the wrist and pull her. They'd be warmer together, skin against skin. "It's warmer in bed." When she crosses her arms and give him that infamous DeLuca glare, he sighs. "Please. The sooner we fall asleep, the sooner it's light out, and the sooner we can leave." To go wherever they'd go from here.
To his surprise, she comes back to bed quietly. She curls up in a little ball, stirring up all kinds of longings inside him to curl up around her, warming up her small body with his breath and calloused hands.
He doesn't know if she sleeps. He thinks he does. He's never been given to visions or dreamwalking or invading people's heads like Izzy was, but he thinks he dreams. Of soft skin, warm against his. Of night after lonely night of shitty hotel rooms and highways longer than 285. Of one crappy rental car after another and takeout meals that Maria complains bitterly about, even though she never gains an ounce. Of flying. Of hiding. Of the intimacies of packing their underwear in the same battered bag and knowing that his socks fit perfectly in the worn cups of her bras.
Skin against skin or something. Living inside her and outside her and completely surrounding her. There was a franticness to the vision, a panic, as if it was just the two of them against the world. As if the others were so far away that they were on a different planet. As if they were different people, forced into hiding. He'd always known their make-believe life in Roswell wasn't going to last, would crumple around them someday. He'd never wanted to believe in that happily ever after crap before now, before--
The door flings open, light floods the room and Maria shrieks. They've been found, and he has to hide… Maria's body's pressed against his, and she's feverishly warm and so--
"Maria!" Liz's voice.
Maria panics, pushes herself off him. "What…what are you guys doing here?" He hears the fake casualness in her voice, the relief, and maybe even…regret?
Liz blinks her eyes like she always does, looking confused. "Um, we thought you were in trouble, but…" He can feel Liz's gaze rake over his body, studying him. "But, yeah… I guess we're…wrong."
Maria's mouth drops open. "No. No! You don't think--I mean, that's like…so unreal! I mean, come on." She gestures toward him. When he doesn't say anything, she crosses her arms over her chest. "Come on. Would you tell them?"
He's not sure why, but he puts his arm around her, squeezing her tight. He doesn't nuzzle her neck to see what it would taste like, but he might as well have. "C'mon, honey. We don't have to lie."
And the smirk isn't forced, because he knows the irony of the situation. About how, on the day when the Feds find out about everyone there in that room, it would be him and Maria and the long highway, fighting and running and fucking sparking from the electricity inside them both--all the other has.
They argue, they shout, they finally agree to move on to Marathon in the morning. Michael can't help but feel like they're taking some irrevocable first step on a path that looks lonely and hard and unforgiving, something he wouldn't wish on anyone. Not even Maria DeLuca. If he wasn't so selfish, so lonely, he'd push her away. But he doesn't. Because he knows that she'll be his, and all he'll ever have.
She's damaged and flaky and bat-shit crazy, but she burns so bright with belief and support and love. When she puts her small hand on his at the dome, telling him to try and have a vision again, the strength of her belief almost blinding him, he wants to wrap her in his arms and hold her close forever.
There would be danger and loss and pain--more than even he could imagine right now, humming with the electricity of the power within him. But he couldn't stop the future. He wouldn't tell anyone about it, but he wouldn't do anything to stop it.
Just so that he could have that one person to hold close.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-22 10:29 pm (UTC)the vision of the future is such a nice touch.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-30 08:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-23 05:32 am (UTC)This is lovely, and you have Michael down so perfect. This is AWESOME.
Thank you so much for this!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-30 08:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-27 01:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-30 08:47 am (UTC)