Title: Opposite End of the Spectrum, 1/1

Author: Liz (CAGirl0042@aol.com)

Category: Logan/Max

Summary: Dark angsty-ness. A sort of alternate ending for BBWW. Max POV.

Disclaimer: I like to fantasize about Logan. If I owned him, he would have better things to do than act.

Note: Feedback, if you feel like it. It would be greatly appreciated. If not, no biggie. Just hope you enjoy, either way.





My love for you has faded from the feiry red of its youth to a more subdued, mournful grey, and I wonder how long it will be before the flame will flicker last.

At one point in time, I loved you like the God I swore that you were, perfect and holy in your humble spinning-machine, perfect and *whole*. You never saw it, and I never told you, because I loved my freedom just a little bit more than I loved that image of you. You had a sick mockery of a pet-name for me, a 'genetically-enhanced superhuman', that you used much to often for my taste. I didn't like to be reminded, but you never knew that either, because every time I came around I found a way to ask.

"Anything new?"

When I finally kissed you, I tasted your astonishment, and it almost made me drunk. I'd wanted you so hard for so long that when the moment finally came, I fell too far too fast and stayed much too long. I left myself there with you, in that car, and I know that Zach saw it the moment that I walked through the door.

He loved me, I know. I could see it in him like I saw it in myself, and it made me sick. It was twisted and wrong and more trouble than it was worth, and I wanted to hate him for screwing things up even more than before.

I hated myself.

I felt your pain, that night, as I lay there quietly. It was quick and fast and sharp, but it ran deep, and I knew right away just how bad things would get. All of them.

He didn't want to let me go to you. It was partly because of his damn sentiment and partly for my safety, but mostly a big emotional mixture of the two, and it made me angry. I didn't want to see him anymore, and I didn't want him to love me like he did.

He was so full of himself and of my adoration for him that it oozed from his eyeballs, and maybe it had run just a little too deep into his veins. It was what he later called a moment of weakness, and a dangerous one that would end up separating us forever.

Maybe someday I'll cry for all that I caused Zach.

It was relatively easy to find you, and I never once doubted that you would live. You were, after all, my muted superman, my beloved conjugate in half-sized proportion. You would always be there, needing me as much as I needed you. You would always be there for me to throw around, to love and then not to love, to kiss and hold and push away.
I was your saving grace and I knew it, told myself so.

You were very pale.

The room was unbearably white, and the starkness of it hurt my eyes. The sheets were pulled up to your chin, and your glasses were neatly folded on the bedside table, next to the wedding ring that I'd never seen you wear before. It almost made me cry.

You still loved her, didn't you? After everything? I tried to tell myself that the need in your kiss, in your frequent cries for help, in that damned wheelchair was love....but everything that ring held told me the opposite. It was there, shining, and repeating itself more times than I could bear.

You never really needed me, did you?

One of your legs twitched, a little, and I nearly vomited all over that sparkling white floor. What was going to happen to me now?

I felt like an orphan again.

Bling was sleeping in a chair, int he corner of the room. There was a warm-looking white blanket pulled over his lap, and his hands were clutching at the cheap fake-satin edging. His cheeks looked glazed-over, and I wondered if he had known, before drifting off, just what your fate held for you.

You were never a weakling.

In my wake, you felt useless. You had no legs, and mine were infinately strong.

In your wake, I feel bland. I feel dull and dim and lifeless, and I wonder suddenly what falling feels like. I crave the view from the Space Needle, and the cold wind that makes the giant wonder sway, almost imperceptably, late at night. Everyone will be sleeping.

You are perfectly still, now, and I walk over silently and replace your glasses. I wonder, thoughtlessly, if anyone will ever discover your fantastic secret. I wonder if there will be a funeral, and if the entire world will mourn you as they should.

I imagine your headstone, grey and smooth and polished. I don't know what they will write, or even what I would write, given the choice.

What could I say?

Never enough. I never did, did I? Maybe our friendship could have been a little better. Or maybe it was just right.

12/14/00