Rights; I don't have any because I don't own anything.
Warnings; Some mentioning of some explicit things going on off screen, as it were.
Rating; Probably R because of the things being mentioned.
Motel Mortification
"Why? Why are the four of us always in a room and the two of them get one all to themselves?" Kyle Valenti, once upon a time football star and assistant mechanic, asked while gesturing to the wall emphatically. He was laying on the floor, since their current digs provided only two beds, and his status as single gentleman was low man on the totem pole.
Maria, clad in a camisole and a pair of Micheal's boxers, looked down at him from her sprawled position on one of the beds which she was sharing with Michael, pausing her assiduous nail filing . "You really need to ask that?"
"Maxwell is the King." Micheal's words came with just enough sour that his past bitterness was not entirely forgotten, but the entire phrase was laden with acceptance of the hypocrisy. He didn't part much of his attention from the road maps spread on the bed, some of which were stacked on Maria's back.
"It's grossly unfair. We don't even need to save money with that presto-changeo bill trick. All or none. Sleeping in the bath-tub never hurt anyone." Kyle rolled into a sitting position and continued his staring contest with the wallpaper.
Isabel had hardly been paying attention, as she had a complicated toilette that involved dozens of bottles of feminine smelling stuff. She padded in, slippers, robe and pajamas matching."They just need to blow off steam. Give them some peace." She cast of the robe and shoes, the slid into the unoccupied bed. She tucked two wads of cotton in her ears and slid a sleeping mask over her face. It had cartoonish eye lashes painted on it. She settled in.
For a moment no one said anything, as Isabel's melancholy was pervasive.
"He isn't wrong, Michael." Maria finally said. "Maybe we could get a room alone, for once."
"What are they even doing in there?" Kyle shambled to the wall. He wasn't tired.
"Having sex, duh." Maria rolled her eyes. Then wrinkled her nose and looked at Michael "It's so weird, hearing my best friend having sex. Firsthand. I mean, as the best friend I'm supposed to hear about it, but like, filtered. At a distance. When she tells me over the phone."
Kyle snorted. "Seeing it in Technicolor a bit much for you?"
"God no. With Dreamweaver playing in the background? Pass."
"Could we maybe not talk about this?" Michael suggests. "They got a separate room so we would be out of their business. It sucks. Deal with it." He collected up his maps and piles them onto the bedside table. Scrunching low into the bed, he tossed an arm over his eyes, rest for the weary navigator. Kyle raises a brow and Maria just rolls her eyes.
A low masculine sound issued through the wall. Then a crack of flesh.
The three freeze.
"...What was that?" Maria stared openly at the wall, primed to go on alert for a potential attack.
Michael rolled to look at the wall, then her. Then he lay back down, no sign of alarm. It was enough to rouse Maria's suspicions.
"Michael!" she said.
"What? I am trying to sleep here."
Maria was not to be deterred. She kicks him. "Tell me!"
"Dude...are they spanking each other?" Kyle moves back over to the motel-thin walls. They wait in silence until there comes another crack.
"They are!" Kyle is both fascinated and disgusted. He eyes the wall speculatively. Maria clamors over Michael to where the bed is flush against faded wallpaper. She hesitated before pushing an ear against it.
"Oh, Oh, Nice guys, intrusive much?" Micheal grumbles.
"I'm a forcibly celibate teenage guy on the never ending road trip from hell with my ex-girlfriend and her epic, epic love with her alien husband who cooked my genes into superhero-government-hunted-specialness. Got to get my kicks somewhere."
Maria jabs Michael again. Harder.
"Ouch! What the hell?"
"Tell me Michael, or your adult privileges will be severely limited for like, the next year!"
"That reminds me, you guys have got to stop doing in the back of the van. That's where we put our groceries, it's unsanitary." Kyle isn't looking at them, his gaze unfocussed. He's listening.
Michael jerks the blankets. "Okay, okay, look, I may have seen her purchase something involving adult type punishment back in Reno, but it's not any of our business." he surrenders. It wasn't that he couldn't keep a secret; it was just that it wasn't that much of a secret when it could be heard through the walls.
"Really?" Maria cracked a smile. "Liz and Max? Kinky. I didn't know they had it in them."
Kyle had his ear pressed against the wall, and he held up a finger up to quiet them as he tried to make out the muffled sounds. There came another crack and he doubled over, slapping his hands over his mouth. He hopped a circle and moved right back to the wall to listen, eyes alight. He beckoned the other two over.
Maria presses her head to the wall. Michael just looks at them.
"What are we listening for?" Maria whispered.
"Wait, wait, just wait," Kyle breathed back.
They strained and when silent they could hear the soft russet of Liz's voice, pitched low.
"… you know it drives me crazy when you do that, Max. Why aren't you a good boy? Don't you want to be a good boy for me?"
"Y-Yes, I-" The snap of a paddle connecting with flesh has Maria and Kyle lunging away from the wall, cramming their fists in their mouths to contain the glee. There was some stumbling and tripping over the bed clothes. Michael catches Maria as she dives and sends the bed bouncing.
"It's Max-! Oh shit, shit, Its MAX!" Kyle says in a harsh whisper. He was torn between hilarity and disgust. In effort to quell her mirth, Maria snorts into Micheal's arm.
"Whaddya mean it's Max?" Michael frowns at his girlfriend who is pink in the cheeks. The wheels turn. "You mean..it's Max?" His voice is thick with incredulity and when Maria and Kyle press their ears against the wall again, he takes a listen too.
"I thought it was for her, you know?" Michael hisses.
"They do seem waaay white bread- I can't imagine Liz…" Maria let that thought trail off. Liz had been finding her voice the last few years. Who knew it was also the voice of a dominatrix who spanked her boyfriend?
"As if Max could ever hit her," Kyle added. "Guess they got tired of missionary."
"I love you like that, your ass turned up, waiting. It's all red and hot. It must hurt. Even so...look how hard you are. So swollen..." Liz said consolingly, voice spiked with the double meaning. "I think you might like this, don't you?"
Max moans, unwilling or unable to answer.
The paddle sounded again through the wall.
"Someone's been a naughty, naughty boy," Kyle said in a breathy mimic, forcing Maria to whack him in the arm a few times.
"Don't you Max?" WHACK "Say it."
"I can't listen to this!" Michael said, though he didn't seem to be vacating the premises. "I won't be able to look him in the eye tomorrow. How am I supposed to take him seriously?"
"Shh!" His girlfriend admonished.
"God, yes! Liz, Liz I love it when you do this...Please- I need-"
"What did you call me?"
The paddle smacked again in rapid succession, sending the eavesdroppers squirming in another hale of silent giggles. It took effort. In order to avoid knocking the wall and alerting Max and Liz to their rapt audience, Kyle threw himself to the side onto the bed with Michael and Maria.
Maria let out an hysterical giggle "This is so messed up, this is so messed up!" And disturbing, and intrusive. Not to mention weird.
Michael clamped a hand over her mouth to keep the sound from bothering the two on the other side. He tucked her tight to him, and she turned to bury her face in his chest to muffle the sound.
Kyle scrambled upright. "What does he call have to call her!" he demanded.
"What?"
"He can't call her Liz, so what can he call her? Mistress? Madam? What?" Kyles voice was high and quick, and again they all lined up, and waited with baited breath, having missed whatever title, but hoping it would be said again.
"-Please!" They only caught the tail of Max's request.
Liz cooed. "I guess you've earned it,"
"Thank you, My Queen," Both excitement and relief saturated his voice.
For a second time chaos exploded and Michael clamped a hand over Maria's mouth to keep her from cackling outright. He himself felt tears of mirth spill over his cheek in a controlled effort to keep a lid on it. Kyle shoved his face into the bedspread and slammed a fist into the mattress.
Maria bit Micheal's fingers when he deprived her of oxygen too long. She checked on Kyle, who was fuschia.
"Breathe, Kyle, breathe!" She said pursing her lips to try to quell her own laughter.
The plain sounds of copulation thudded through the walls, and they caught their breath until another shot from the paddle and the accompanying yelp followed, then they were overtaken with another spell of stifled laughter. Max and Liz were making a small effort to keep the grunting down to a minimum, but it wasn't enough. Occasional adulation to his Queen kept the hilarity ongoing.
At the crescendo the lights lightly flickered as Max's power escaped him when he gave a final long cry. Liz followed, have relegated to merely calling for Max. Then silence followed.
Breathless and still the trio of voyeurs waited for some sound, but nothing came.
"Think...that's it?" Maria whispered.
"How much more could they have in them? I'm exhausted just listening." Kyle said.
Maria couldn't help wondering out loud."How is he going to sit in the van tomorrow?"
The bedside lamp flicked on, and Isabel sat up.
"Please tell me you are not eavesdropping on them." Isabel did not look amused to find three of her fellow fugitives crying with laughter.
"Uh," Kyle glanced around, not eager to come right out and say he was totally listening to his friends having kinky BDSM sex.
"Hey, they are making it the business of the public." Michael owned up to it.
"Give them some privacy, you perverts. How would you like it if they were listening to you?"
Kyle snorted. "Don't think they're nearly as interesting."
Maria dropped her chin, deciding she did not want to contemplate that. The show was over anyway. "Probably we should get some sleep."
Kyle climbed back into his sleeping bag as Maria and Michael clambered into bed, every now and then a rogue giggle escaping, one giggle starting a second, and then some snorting.
"Alright…We have to be quiet!" Maria ordered, using her best voice of authority.
Acting normal was tough. They key to it involved Maria, Michael and Kyle from never meeting each other's gaze when Max and Liz joined them for continental breakfast, and talking non-stop over a repast of froot loops, coffee and stale Otis Spunkmeyer muffins.
Micheal is only too happy to whip out his maps to show Max, and when Max very slowly and very gingerly lowers himself into a chair to see Kyle suffers a coughing fit which prompts him to leave the room to find a water fountain.
They don't linger. If they ever had rules, that was number one, so as soon as the bill is paid and breakfast eaten, they head into weepy weather in the parking lot.
"Ah, Max," Micheal beckons as they pop open the door on the van.
"Yeah?" Max stands beside him, their back to the others.
"Would you mind sitting up front with me and doing the navigation? Just gotta read what I plotted out." Michael hands him the folded map, eyes averted.
"Can't Maria do it?" Max asks, puzzled. Maria often sits shotgun when Micheal is driving.
"Yeah, but she doesn't do as good a job." Micheal lies through his teeth, but Max is already opening up the map and looking.
"You aren't leaving the highway. You don't need me." Max says.
"Maxwell," Micheal throws his arm over Max's shoulder and draws him close to mutter in his ear. He tried the friendly shit, didn't he? "The seat up there is padded."
The tips of Max's ears went red and he stares back at Micheal.
"Just shut up and get in the front seat." Micheal warns.
"Does..." Max's eyes flick over to the others.
"No. Just me." Its another lie, but one deemed neccesary. Max doesn't need to know everyone is on to he and Liz. Even Maria agrees that she won't speak to Liz. It's better for everyone all around it ignorance is pretended, for the common good and the saving of face.
Micheal smiles reassuringly, as he so often does when he is at his least trustworthy moments. Max eyes him, but steps away to get in the front seat.
Micheal rolls his shoulders and nods to the sky. Yup. He is the best second in command EVER.
Maria slides her arm through his and sets her cheek on his shoulder. "So?"
"So far so good." One could only hope Max discussed discretion with Liz, the Queenly Dominatrix.
"I always thought we were the kinky ones." Maria admits.
"Yeah, well I don't have any secret desire to be spanked, paddled, tied up or gagged." Micheal says. "In case you were wondering."
"No, but thanks for bringing it up. Like the pictures I already had weren't enough horror behind my eyeballs." Maria shakes her head, pitching a quick look back. Kyle is putting the last of the luggage into the trunk.
"Time to go."
Piling back into the van is cramped, but familiar. When everyone is in, the doors closed it's very quiet. Awkwardly quiet.
"Who wants music?" Micheal calls as he picks up the zipped case of cassette tapes. It's a VW van, after all. There is a general murmur of assent and Micheal tosses the case to Max while he turns the van over with a throaty thrum.
Max opens it and flicks through the old collection, reading off peeling labels. "Any votes? We've got Bowie, the Carpenters, Metallica..."
"Queen!" Kyle grins.
Author's Note
This came to me after watching the third season of Roswell on DVD. Liz starts to really find a back-bone and take charge and tells Max to suck it, which I liked. Then I saw those pictures of Jason Behr- you know the ones, there he's all shirtless and showing his ass and making hooded 'I am a naughty boy' eyes- and I read a few really fluffy fics about them, and to me, I always felt like Liz and Max were the naughty ones, not Micheal and Maria. Micheal and Maria's relationship was a lot about healing, and about finding a common ground and repairing Micheal's problems with trust, family, belonging and love. They always had way too many issues to enter a D/s kind of relationship, and I think for them, sex would be really vanilla, but emotionally punched.
Max, on the other hand, has so many king/in charge issues, I think it would be a huge relief for him to hand over the control to Liz, who is as strong as he is, and who he really does implicitly trust.
So. Yeah. There it is. I had a lot of fun writing it, especially Kyle, who I just love all over. I wish we had gotten to see him manifest his powers.