Boys Will Be Boys
by Inzane
Disclaimer: I lay no claim to Dark Angel or its characters. My interpretation of the briefly seen character Dalton, and my original character Oscar, come from my own warped imagination. I am not seeking nor receiving any financial gain from this story. Just thought I'd let the boys have a little fun.
Summary: Just how much trouble can two genetically engineered teenage boys get into? Just a little story about my favorite X-6's from The Friggin' Cure universe, Dalton and Oscar…
A/N: …because dammit, I can't let them go. This story takes place about four months after the end of The Friggin' Cure (Which is finished by the way, in case you didn't know. The site played hide and seek with the last chapter for a while, but it's playing nice now.) Anyway, this story is not really a sequel. More like an alongside. If you haven't read TFC, you will not understand some stuff in this story. And if you really want to get a grasp on Dalton and Oscar, go read it first. (Again with the shameless plugs!)
Warning: Spoilers for The Friggin' Cure, obviously. Bad language, crude behavior, sexual innuendo… well, duh, cuz teenage boys, hello?
Chapter 1: Bright Ideas
Dalton walked with purpose through the streets of Terminal City, a man (at least in his own mind, anyway) on a mission.
There was just a little strut to his walk, just a hint of swagger in his step, as he passed the residents of TC who were out and about. Life was good. There hadn't been an organized protest outside the gates all month, and it looked like they finally might have a member of the Senate that was actually on their side for once. He was the assistant--official now--to the Second in Command of Terminal City, which gave him a lot of clout with the other X-6's. He had just finished going through a growth spurt in the past couple of months, and had shot up about four inches. His physique had filled out a bit too, hinting more at the man he would become than the boy he still was. And best of all, he was fifteen.
He hadn't really known when it had happened, not for sure. He never knew the exact date of his birth. None of them did. The people back at Manticore sure hadn't bothered to tell them. To them, it was just a statistic on a sheet indicating the freshness of a product. He had a general idea of how old he was, and since he had grown four inches, and it was a perfect day--so beautiful and clear, with just the right amount of a breeze--Dalton decided that today would be the day that he turned fifteen.
There was something about fifteen that excited him. Sixteen was too cliché, too all-American-happy-family, too…normal. And since he'd known how to drive--much less take apart and clean an assault rifle blindfolded--long before he could reach the pedals of a car, sixteen never really seemed that important to him. But fifteen… he couldn't really explain why fifteen felt so great. It just did.
Maybe it was the fact that he had never expected to see fifteen. He thought he would have been long dead by now--killed on foreign soil, taken out by Familiars, lynched by an angry mob of ordinaries, or executed by of one of the very people that had, in a really warped sense, raised him. It wasn't really a celebration of turning fifteen--it was a celebration of life.
Dalton was currently full of life. The hormones that had started trickling through his system since he had hit his teens had suddenly become a raging current. He had noticed the girls around TC before, but recently it was like he couldn't not notice them. And as transgenics were all designed to be attractive, there was definitely plenty to notice.
Two weeks ago, a large group of refugees had been smuggled in. Even with the improved relations with the ordinaries, they didn't like advertising how large their numbers were, so they still brought people in on the down low. It was standard operating procedure for newbies to meet the command staff, and Dalton's status as Alec's assistant meant he got to participate in all the command stuff, which was completely kick ass in his opinion. He was the youngest on staff, and loved making the other X-6's jealous.
So they'd had a meet and greet with the new blood--three transhumans, and X-3 and an X-4, two X-5's, six X-8's, and four X-6's, including one scorching hot, raven-haired X-6 girl. She was a tiny thing, about four or five inches shorter than he was, but she had curves in all the right places. Her silky black hair fell to just below her shoulders, with bangs cut in a strait line at her eyebrows. She had high cheekbones in a heart-shaped face, and her eyes were a startling amber brown, the color of good whiskey.Something primal in Dalton reacted at the sight of her.
They'd taken the new group on a little tour, and at the end Max had been showing them around the Command Center.
"So this is Command. All of our main operating systems are here, including Communications, Surveillance, and IT. Command staff offices are on the second level. Alec and I are available if you need to speak to us, but we've got a hell of a workload, so you'll need to see Dalton to arrange something…."
Dalton tried to look casually cool as all eyes turned to him, but he was really having a hard time, because, damn, that new chick was hot!
At this point, Max shot Alec a glare, who just raised his eyebrows at her, all innocence. "…he's Alec's assistant." Max paused, then a look of extreme annoyance directed at Alec came across her face as she put her hands on her hips. "Though I still don't know why you have an assistant and I don't."
Alec shrugged and tried to keep a straight face. "Not my fault you don't play well with others." He paused a moment, then the smirk finally broke free. "'Sides, you know I'm all the assistance you need, Maxie. I'll show you just how good I am at assisting later tonight." On the last word, he gave her a lascivious wink.
Max rolled her eyes and threw up her hands at Alec's behavior, an exasperated here-we-go-again look on her face.
Dalton had been expecting some sort of comment like that from Alec. Never fail, whenever they had a new group of transgenics come in, Alec always found a way to let any incoming males know right off the bat that Max was taken. Max always acted like it irritated her, but Dalton suspected she secretly was pleased that Alec was laying claim to her.
Max continued on with the tour, but Dalton tuned her out. The raven-haired hottie was taking up all his attention. Damn, he wished he had caught her name. He had showed up a bit late for the meet and greet, so he'd missed the intros.
He didn't even realize that he had locked on and was openly staring at the girl until a sudden smack on the back of the head startled him out of his trance. He whipped his head around to find Alec shaking his head, a disappointed look on his face.
"Don't be so obvious, moron," Alec said in a low, chastising tone.
Dalton blushed at this, and risked a quick glance at the girl to see if she had noticed him staring. If she had, she was playing it very cool.
Alec leaned in and conspiratorially spoke to Dalton out of the side of his mouth, pretending he was still paying attention to Max's orientation speech. "You're in way over your head there, tiger."
The X-6 turned to look at Alec, annoyed that his friend thought he was not up to the challenge this girl presented.
Alec fought the laugh that threatened to burst out at the look on Dalton's face. "I'm just sayin'. You oughtta know what you're gettin' into. Specialty's explosives, heavy ordinance, and demolition. Her and Mole should get along like two peas in a pod. She's a bit excitable, too. Sounds like a handful."
Dalton gave a small, ironic laugh at the last statement. "Like you've got room to talk in that department."
Alec had to nod his head at this observation, and he looked fondly at Max. His face softened a bit as he said, "Too true." After a minute, he leaned back over to Dalton. "Her name's Kazi."
"Kazi…" Dalton repeated, letting the word flow over his tongue.
Alec clapped a hand on his should at this point. "Yeah, as in 'kamikaze.' I hear the name fits, too. Good luck on that, kid." Alec gave his shoulder a squeeze and a little shake before letting go, then threw back his head and laughed as he continued on after the group.
Dalton wrinkled his brow as he stared after Kazi's retreating form as she followed the group. He thought about Max and Alec, and their volatile relationship, and mentally cringed. Then he glanced back at Kazi, and the sway of perfectly shaped ass as she walked away.
"Oh, what the hell," he muttered, then continued after the group. It's not like he was looking for a steady relationship. He was still a virgin, for fuck's sake! Hmmm… Maybe the too fine Kazi would like to help him out with that little issue. If not, well, there were plenty of other completely delectable honeys out there. He was thinking it was about time he started sampling.
But, damn, that Kazi chick was hot!
Dalton stepped out of the sunlight and into the low building that held the mess hall, his eyes immediately adjusting to the change of light. He paused, transgenic sight quickly scanning the faces around the room, pausing briefly in appreciation every time he came across a girl. He only paused for a moment, because there was a specific face he was looking for, and unfortunately, it didn't belong to a girl.
The room was noisy and full of commotion. The mess hall was TC's daytime socialization center. The transgenic metabolism required a lot of fuel, so food was a very serious matter, especially back in the early days of TC when any meal might have been their last. There, somewhat off to one the side of the mess hall away from the main group, was his target.
Bingo.
His quarry was bent forward a bit over his food, and his straight brown hair--short in back but a bit long in the front--hung over his eyes, partly shielding them from view. He appeared to be concentrating on eating his food, but when Dalton looked closer, he could tell the guy's attention was on something else. As he followed his target's gaze, he smiled when it came to land on the finely shaped backside of a cute little X-6. Oh, that was just perfect! Dalton's smile turned feral as he closed in on his mark.
"Oscar!" he said loudly at the same time he smoothly grabbed a chair and spun it around, then straddled it, resting his crossed arms over the back. When Oscar jerked and looked up at him, clearly startled, Dalton couldn't help but laugh. "Shit, dude, you have got the be the jumpiest transgenic I ever met. How is it even remotely possible that I could sneak up on you?"
Oscar blushed, clearly flustered. Part of it was because he feared that he had been caught ogling Shelly's ass. But mostly it was because he had always been a bit intimidated by Dalton. Part of it was that Dalton was a alpha, and he was not. But Dalton was also part of the Command staff, a personal friend of the SIC, and hell, he had even fought a Familiar and lived to tell about it!
Dalton had a very bold personality. Oscar was the opposite of bold. He was pretty much the opposite of Dalton. They knew each other well, because they were both in Alec's advanced martial arts classes, but they weren't what you could call close friends. Mostly it was because they moved in different circles. If they had been ordinaries, Dalton would have been part of the popular "in crowd," and he would have been the shy guy on the outer rim that usually escaped notice. Oscar looked back down at his food, letting his hair fall forward again to help hide his reddened cheeks. "I was just, um... well, I wasn't paying attention."
Dalton's smile turned smug at this. He glanced over at Shelly's backside to let Oscar know without a doubt that he had been busted. "Yeah, I could see that."
Oscar lifted his head quickly at this, eyes wide as his stared at the other X-6, afraid that Dalton might do something to embarrass him in front of Shelly. There was actually a high probability of it since, like teenage boys everywhere, embarrassing another guy in front of his friends or, even worse, a girl, was almost considered a sporting event.
"Dalton..." he said, his eyes pleading as much as his voice.
Dalton looked back at Oscar, and saw the silent plea in his eyes. Heh. It would be too fun to openly call him out on his peeping activities, because it would be highly entertaining to see Shelly smack Oscar around (most transgenic girls did not let you ogle the merchandise without paying a price), but that would mess up his plan. Still, that didn't mean he couldn't mess with the guy. He drew his eyebrows down and rested his chin on his hand as if in deep thought, letting Oscar sweat a little. When Oscar looked almost about to burst, Dalton relaxed his face and reached over to pluck a slightly dried out carrot stick off Oscar's plate and pop it in his mouth.
"I gotta talk to you, man," Dalton said around a mouthful of carrot, mentally cursing the pathetic food the government had so kindly condescended to supply them as part of interspecies relations, as they called it. Assholes. Still, food was food.
Oscar relaxed only a fraction at this, expecting that Dalton might be delaying his attack. Still, he was kind of shocked that the other boy wanted to speak to him.
"Me?" His voiced cracked a bit when the word came out. He cleared his throat, face reddening even further. "You want to talk to me?"
Dalton finished chewing and swallowed before continuing. "Yes, Oscar, I want to talk to you. Am I not speaking English here?" He clearly enunciated each of the words, as if he were speaking to someone with questionable intelligence or poor language skills.
Oscar frowned. He couldn't figure out what the other X-6 was up to. He had to be up to something, right? Why else would Dalton be speaking to him outside of work or class? What Oscar never realized, is that every time Dalton had tried to start up a conversation with him, Oscar had always found some excuse to bail. Deep down, he figured a guy like Dalton would never want to be friends with a guy like him, so why even bother? Oscar's personality was unusual for a transgenic, and he knew it. He mostly kept to himself in the hopes that maybe the others wouldn't notice it as well. His ability to stay under the radar had probably been the only thing that kept him from getting euthanized back in the day. Sometimes he still had a hard time adjusting to the fact that they were no longer at Manticore.
"Uhhh..." Oscar replied, his mind a blank.
Dalton stood suddenly, one hand grabbing the chair and spinning it out of his way. He was getting impatient with the other boy, mostly due to excitement over his big plan. "Come on. We can't talk here." He grabbed Oscar by the upper arm and pulled him from his chair. He knew that Oscar would come along, just as Oscar knew that he would allow himself to be pulled away. Every once in a while, though, Oscar would gather up enough courage to fight his submissive personality.
"Hey!" he protested, pulling his arm back a bit, but still allowing himself to be led out of the mess hall and into the alley behind it.
Once in the alley, Dalton looked around to see if anyone else was about. When he verified that no one would be listening in, he gave Oscar a shove, causing the other boy to smack lightly into the brick wall of the building. Dalton crossed his arms, bouncing up and down on his toes as he was no longer able to contain his excitement. He might have thought of himself as a man now, but as he bobbed up and down, the look of pure excited joy on his face made him seem like a little kid on Christmas morning.
"I've got a plan, Oscar, and I'm gonna let you in on it." He punctuated the you by poking Oscar in the chest.
Oscar cringed at the word plan. He instinctively sensed that mixing plan and Dalton could be big trouble, and the word trouble was not in Oscar's vocabulary. At least, not if he could help it.
Dalton continued on excitedly, ignoring Oscar's hesitance. "In case you haven't noticed--but I can see by the way that you were checking out Shelly's ass in there that you have--we are surrounded by a city full of a whole lot of fine looking females."
Oscar felt he had to protest, even though what Dalton said was true. "I was not checking out her ass. I just happened to be..."
Dalton held up a hand to stop the other transgenic. "Please," he interrupted, "you could have been taking schematics, hard as you were lookin'. Now, why don't we save time here and we'll say that you admit that you are one horny sonofabitch, and then I will confess that I too have been taking an extreme interest in celestial bodies of the female variety of late, and we can continue on. Copy?"
Oscar sighed. This must be what it felt like to be run over by a steamroller. "Copy," he replied sullenly.
Dalton rubbed his hands together. "Excellent! Okay, so I imagine you haven't popped your cherry yet, right?"
Oscar's face turned as red as a cherry at this question. "What?!" he squeaked.
The look on Oscar's face was all the answer that Dalton needed. "Right. Thought so. No need to feel weird about it, man. I haven't either."
Oscar couldn't take any more. He let his knees buckle and he slid down the wall to sit down hard on his butt. Dalton squatted down in front of him, forearms resting on knees. As he continued to speak, his hands waved about.
"I don't know if you realize how big of a problem this is, Oscar. I mean, you've seen the girls around here, right? They're all engineered to be good looking, and some were engineered as downright smoking hot. You check out that new chick Kazi, by the way? Man, she is fine. Sure has me stackin' some serious wood of late, if you know what I mean." Oscar let his head fall into his hands at this comment, shaking it, but Dalton didn't notice or chose to ignore it and continued to rattle on. "Alec heard she's a handful. I'll tell ya, I'm sure I wouldn't mind gettin' a handful of that. I'm callin' dibs, by the way."
Dalton shook his head to clear the distracting thoughts of sexy little Kazi. "But, anyway, back on track here. All the girls here are totally hot, and worse off, they know it. Combine that with transgenic attitude, and what you've got is one hell of a challenge. You really wanna fumble around with a trannie girl your first time without having a bit of experience under your belt? You know how girls talk around here, man. I, for one, do not want to be the laughing stock of TC, and I don't think you do either."
Even though it was completely crude and embarrassing, Dalton did have a point. "What the hell are you suggesting?" Oscar asked.
Dalton reached over to smack Oscar on the shoulder. "That we get some experience, brother!"
Oscar was taken aback at this. The prospect was scary, and at the same time exciting, but he had no fucking idea how Dalton planned to accomplish it.
"If you're talking blow-up dolls, Dalton, I swear..." Oscar would only go so far. This comment; however, earned him a hard smack upside the head. He cringed, shoulders coming up almost to his ears.
"No, you dumb shit!" Dalton said angrily. "I'm talking ordinaries! On the outside, man!"
Oscar's mouth fell open and his eyes shot wide at this. He immediately began to shake his head. "No, no, no, no. We are not sneaking out of TC. No way. You saw how much trouble you and Alec got into the last time you snuck out. No fuckin' way!"
Dalton's face fell a bit at the reminder of that horrible time, but he quickly covered it with a smirk. He had learned a lot from hanging around Alec. "As you well know, that was not the last time we snuck out. That was the time before last. The last time, there was no trouble at all. White's in hiding or something, man. We just play it casual and we'll have it made."
Oscar was still shaking his head. Breaking the rules went against every fiber of his being. Dalton, however, had been hanging around Alec for far too long, and therefore breaking the rules was what he lived for.
Dalton threw up his hands in exasperation. "When was the last time you got out of TC, huh? A year ago? Aren't you going stir crazy? Come on, Oscar! We're fifteen now! Don't you think it's time we got to live a little?"
"Fifteen?" Oscar asked, puzzled. "What do you mean, we're fifteen? How would you know?"
"Because I decided that today I turn fifteen, so that means you're fifteen, too. We come from the same batch, man, probably the same damn tech mixing up our genes. Our designations are so close, we could practically be twins." Dalton's designation was 818, and Oscar's was 821. Dalton's logic was somewhat flawed, as he was completely ignorant of Manticore's barcoding system, but it sounded good, so it worked for him. "It's our birthday! We need to celebrate! And what better way to celebrate than watching scantily clad women remove what little clothing they have and flaunt what they've got right in your face?"
Oscar's brain was so awhirl with conflicting thoughts, it was starting to hurt. Part of him was overwhelmed by Dalton's gesture of friendship and brotherhood. The thought of sharing a birthday with Dalton, of even having a birthday, brought up a whole set of emotions that he really had no experience with. Another part of him kept screaming NO, NO, NO at the thought of breaking the rules. But a small, tiny, secret part of him that he normally kept so tightly locked down that it never saw the light of day thrilled at the thought of seeing the outside world again. But there was something he needed to know before he even considered going along with whatever crazy plan Dalton had cooked up.
Oscar raised his head and stared into the other boy's blue eyes. "Why?"
Dalton raised one finger in the air, his face completely serious. "Dude, one word. Lapdance."
Oscar's gaze turned faraway as he momentarily paused to ponder the possibilities in the word lapdance. He quickly remembered his purpose, and gave his head a quick shake.
"No. I mean, why me?" Oscar suddenly seemed fragile, as if the wrong word might cause him to crack. "There are any number of guys that would go with you, hell, that would jump at the chance. So why me?"
"Because, Oscar, my friend, you are Border Patrol. Zev has the border zipped up so tight, I'll never be able to get out without an inside man."
Dalton saw Oscar's face fall at this, and the other boy nodded, as if expecting that there had to be an ulterior motive. Dalton smirked at what he knew was a typical Oscar reaction; he was so predictable. He offered a hand to the other X-6 to help him up.
"And besides," Dalton continued, "contrary to what you may think, I happen to like your uptight, introverted, self-esteem challenged ass." He continued to hold his hand out to the other boy, eyebrows raised as he waited for a response.
Oscar looked up at Dalton hovering over him, trying to gage what he had just said. He saw nothing but pure honesty in the other boy's face. It was the face of somebody that could be a friend, and Oscar didn't really have any of those. He'd always kept himself apart so that he didn't make any friends. He had lost too many of them at too early an age back at Manticore, and at some point, he had shut himself off from other people. That way it didn't hurt so much when they disappeared or were shot in the head right in front of you. But that was then, and this was now. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to have a friend.
Oscar reached up and grasped Dalton's forearm, and the other boy helped lever him up. He didn't let go right away. He had to look up slightly at Dalton, since Dalton's recent growth spurt put him about two and a half inches taller than Oscar.
"Okay," Oscar said, giving Dalton's arm a shake before letting go, nodding not only in acknowledgment of Dalton's big plan, but his offer of friendship.
Dalton's smile showed every single one of his perfect teeth. "I knew you'd see things my way." He clapped Oscar on the shoulder, and they started to walk down the alleyway. "All right, now here's the plan."
The two teenagers walked the back streets of Terminal City, plotting a night of debauchery as seriously and efficiently as four-star generals plotting troop movements for a major offensive. Genetically engineered or not, to adolescent boys with raging hormones, gettin' their freak on was very serious business indeed.
A/N: In case you haven't noticed, this story is not about Max and Alec. They will be making appearances, but it is really all about Dalton and Oscar. I hope to throw enough Max and Alec in to keep you M/A fans satisfied. Stay tuned.
