Wir alle sind aus Sternenstaub
When Alex walked into the Wild Pony on New Year’s Eve, the party was already in full swing. Maria had bought the Pony a few months ago and had decided to host a big New Year’s party. She had begged Alex in multiple emails to come and, much to his surprise, he had actually been able to move his leave around and be in Roswell for New Year’s.
For the occasion, he had even embraced his former teenage self a little and bought new eyeliner. It had felt really weird, but also oddly comforting to put it on for the first time since the day he had left Roswell to join the Air Force.
Aside from the eyeliner, his teenage self would probably be disappointed in his outfit. No black nail polish, no jewelry beyond the dog tags hidden under his shirt. His shirt was black and his jeans on the skinny side, but no one would consider his outfit punk or emo.
He still felt more like himself than he had in a long time, but also slightly alien in his skin as he walked through the bar. He had only visited the Wild Pony as a patron a couple of times while he was on leave, yet it felt incredibly familiar to him. Mimi DeLuca had sometimes let him, Maria, Rosa and Liz visit her there when the bar had been closed.
He spotted Maria behind the bar and walked over to greet her, absentmindedly checking what familiar faces he saw around the bar.
Maria squealed when she spotted him reaching over the bar for a somewhat awkward, but very tight and enthusiastic hug.
“Alex, you made it!” She looked him over once she released him. “And you’re wearing eyeliner! What a throwback. I love it, you look amazing.”
Alex laughed. “Thank you, you look amazing too. The Wild Pony suits you. Congrats on buying it, by the way.”
“Let me do my job then, what do you want to drink?” Maria asked with a grin, “best friends who I haven’t seen in way too long drink for free tonight.”
“Well, I’m not sure how good of a business decision that is, but I’ll start with a beer,” Alex said with a laugh. “On the topic of long lost best friends, did you manage to persuade Liz to come?”
Maria’s smile dimmed a little and she shook her head.
“No, when I invited her she said something about a work thing that sounded a lot like she’d just made it up. I get it though, there are too many memories of Rosa and her mom here.” She handed him a beer. “Have you heard from her lately?”
Alex sighed and took a sip, “I don’t really hear from anyone. The internet is never great, not all of our private communications are as private as I would like them to be and it’s not exactly easy to engage in smalltalk doing what I do. You’re pretty much the only one I hear from semi-regularly.”
Well, for a while, on and off, he’d heard from someone else, but he pushed that thought down as far as he could.
Maria nodded, but before she could answer, one of the other bartenders called her name.
“Sorry, I have to go check on that, we’ll catch up more later, okay? Enjoy the party!”
Alex raised his beer to her as Maria hurried off to take care of whatever had come up.
Turning a little to rest his elbow on the bar, Alex looked around. He’d seen some familiar faces earlier, but no one he knew well enough to be interested in catching up. That would probably only lead to someone awkwardly thanking him for his service and then a lot of tense small talk because they wouldn’t know what to ask and Alex wouldn’t really be able to tell them anything about his job anyway.
It wasn’t as if he had a personal life worth discussing and most of the people here would still remember him as the kid who was rumored to be gay. Neither the military nor his sexuality were topics he wanted to discuss with almost strangers.
To his surprise, he spotted Isobel Evans not too far from him at a table. He definitely hadn’t expected to see her here, unless something changed since the last time he’d been in town, Isobel and Maria couldn’t stand each other. Of course, where Isobel Evans was, Max Evans was never far. Alex spotted him carrying drinks over to the table Isobel sat at.
After spotting the Evans twins, Alex decided to stop looking for familiar faces, in fear (or hope) of finding one in particular. Instead he focused back on his beer and waited for Maria to come back over.
His strategy didn’t work, only a few minutes later he heard a laugh he could recognize anywhere. Whipping his head around, he spotted a painfully familiar head of curls sitting with the Evans twins now.
You can find the amazing gifs made by @manesalex to go along with the fic here.
Written for the Roswell, New Mexico Big Bang 2022 @rnmbb
