Pieces Want To Be Together

Chapter 1. Gone

So this mad crossover has its roots in re-watching Pacific Rim, Alex going missing in season 4 and a scene that got stuck in my head.

In world one, Alex goes off in season three to clean up Project Shepard after Jesse Manes's death. I'm keeping his relationship with Forrest casual, with a lot more interest on poor Forrest's side than Alex's. I'm Malex all the way I'm afraid. :) I'm pretending something else came up with his Dad's files and not Michael claiming he wasn't ready as the reason Alex and him didn't just restart.

Here, Alex's personality is very season 3, where he's had therapy, thrown off his Dad's chains, and really found himself. He wants a lifetime with Michael and he's ready to fight for it. Ready to really love Guerin and be loved in return, in public, out and proud.

In the other world, things are different. I'm thinking Alex is a lot more Season 1 in personality. He's a Jaeger pilot and not long ago lost his leg.

So, tell me if you hate it, like it!

=====================------------------------------

A broken sigh of longing and grief, rose into the heat of the day and drifted unheard across the expanse of desert.  A teardrop in counterpoint gently trails down a sun kissed cheek, to splash unseen on the chipped paint of a pickup truck bed.

Michael props his half-empty bourbon bottle on the truck tailgate beside him and laughs a little to himself. The sound was hoarse and hurting, as another tear joined the first, this time falling to the worn denim fabric of his jeans.

A little drunk and sadly not for long with his metabolism, Michael wiped his eyes and tipped his head back to face the skies that had lured and rejected him a thousand times for every day he had lived on this planet.

The aching worry he had kept hidden, pressed into the folds of his scarred heart had slowly transformed. Peculated into something jagged and hot, something like terror and the bitter, horrible promise of a reality he didn't want to face.

Alex Manes had left. Gone like a whisper of smoke.

The words, the thought of them had him swallowing cut glass, tears spilling over to blur his vision entirely. This was the type of heavy, ripping grief that he had felt only once before when his mother was consumed in flames. Somehow this was worse.

Falling back so he was fully lying down, Michael closed his eyes, wishing not for the hundredth time, that things were different.

He had lost his heart, his soul and gave his body - all of himself - only a few inches back from where he was now sitting, knees on either side of Alex's hips, the night sky above them and only the desert to hear their ecstasy.

And he didn't regret it.

Here was where he had learned all of Alex's tells, memorized with urgency the exact shape of his mouth when he's let go, when climax rips through him like a sandstorm. Here was where he learned what it was like to curl into someone's side, their embrace your haven from the world. Here was where he learned what the price was, when you hand someone your heart, when you hope, when you love.

He'd told Michael he had enlisted right here too, his skin bruised, his eyes holding a universe of hurt. A flinch of fear and pain etched into his features. In return, Michael had nearly told him he loved him a handful of times, the words burning on his tongue, the fear of rejection chaining them to his throat. Nearly told him he was an alien too, another dozen times.

It was tragic to think that memories of Alex were probably as written for Michael into the metal of this truck, beloved and scarred just like its owner. Having to drive around , not only with it in his head, but being surrounded by the physical reminder? Brutal. And his only salvation at times.