"Touch"
by: Mochaije
Rating: PG 13
Summary: An accidental run-in with Max leaves Logan dead and gone... And one year later, her life is about to get very, very different. M/A (sorta)
A/N: M/L bores the piss out of me and this will be the end of it. (Sorry.) I don't want loads of reviews or anything but if I don't get *some* I will not update... And yeah, it jumps time frames a bit next chapter but it's explained. :) So review! And about the title of the story... There's running away from emotions, from White, and from each other, so I thought it fit nicely.
The musty bar air filled Alec's nostrils as Sketchy, Cindy, Max, and himself concentrated on the television, yelling out and taking a gulp of beer whenever the eleven o'clock news reporter blamed something on the country's diminished state.
"And world leaders are saying today that, because of the world's fading economical status--" the quartet gave a shout and slurped loudly on their beers, Max downing more than any of them. He asked her if she was okay, but she shrugged his comment off, eyes glued on the run-down TV. It flickered and the old red, white, and blue that was Eyes Only's signature appeared. The entire bar groaned together, except for the brunette to Alec's right, her gaze unwavering.
"This is an Eyes Only streaming freedom bulletin, and it will last sixty seconds," the crowd chanted along with the intro. "It cannot be traced, it cannot be stopped, and it is the only free voice left in this city." Several tables picked up their beers and chugged, as if Eyes Only had a drinking game all his own. As his main message started, everyone went back to their own business, no longer caring about the injustice of the world.
"Max," Alec whispered softly. She hadn't blinked since the cable hack had started, but her name snapped her out the daze.
"What?" she demanded, flustered. "I'm just... Not feeling that great." Her roommate laughed from across the booth and then quickly bit her tongue, remembering she was the only person there-- besides Max-- who knew Eyes Only's identity. Max shot her a look as Eyes Only signed off and the news came back on.
"--Partly caused by the Pulse--" The Jam Pony employees rudely interrupted the broadcast once again with their enthusiastic yelling, downing the rest of their beers. Alec felt Max try to get up and leave from beside him, so he quickly hopped out of his seat.
"Going somewhere?" His tone was a bare gurgle and she laughed drunkenly, smiling.
"Maybe I am." Winking, she staggered over to the exit, but he caught her arm and she whirled. They looked at each other for a minute, the moment taking away their intoxicated states for a brief second as they stood, his arm on her forearm in the middle of the Crash.
A burp erupted from his throat. "You..." Another burp came, and Max grinned sheepishly. "Lied to me." Damn, she's hot...
The grin turned into a smile. "Oh? What about? Do inform me, drunk one." Futilely, Max waved her arm back and forth in an attempt to get him to let go of it, then she got right in his face, their bodies not even an inch apart. "Come on then, let me have it."
But before he could tell her, he passed out clumsily into drunken arms that couldn't support his weight.
-----
The first thing Alec noticed was that he was not in a bed, and definitely not in his vintage-feel home. The couch he was on was stiff as hell. His eyes opened slightly and saw Max and Logan standing about ten feet away from, her head in her hands as if in pain. He handed something to her... A bottle of pills? ...in a soft throwing motion to avoid touching her, and she smiled softly before downing a few of whatever was in there and handing it back to him.
Even from two metres away and going through a hangover, Alec could see her fingers graze his and the horror on both their faces as he bolted for the bathroom. Max looked especially pained as she followed, their voices dim as they panicked together about whether or not Logan had succumbed to the virus again. He couldn't make out the words, only the worried tones that flowed from their mouths.
His head started to clear and he could at last decipher what they were saying. "Logan!" Max called frantically but not loudly, about a foot from the bathroom door. "Are... Are you okay?" Her voice broke as she leaned against the corner wall at the end of the hallway, right next to the washroom, hands gently clasping the darkly-painted drywall.
"Max," Alec called softly, sitting up despite the instant nausea it caused him. Her head flitted towards him at the sound, the heartbreak on her face even clearer when she looked at him. He could also tell that she was shaking now. "Um, are you okay?"
She walked over, hands visibly vibrating, and sat down beside him. "I-I'm fine," she tried to smile and failed, looking away. "It's a neurological condition."
"Seizures, huh?" He belched and her smile finally came, as did his. They stared at each other again for a moment until Logan walked back into the room, face falling when he remembered Max wasn't well and the man beside her was still a bit drunk. Alec saw him look at his hands again from the corner of his eye, but didn't take notice.
Who cared if Logan was dying? Max was actually happy to be around him for once, even if she was starting to seize. He didn't want her affection necessarily; but he didn't want her absence either. It was nice to have someone happy, even if just for a split second. Then the moment was gone and Max jumped up from her seat to help the man she loved. Alec watched, not hearing anything, not feeling anything except an incredible need to vomit from being hungover.
Her eyes almost sprung with tears when Logan broke the news, but she was too stubborn to let more than a single tear drop. Everything slowed as she seemingly whirled her head around, hair flying, telling Alec to drive them to the damned hospital. It was too late though... His eyes glazed over and rolled back as he blacked out again.
-----
Eleven hours later, Max sat on the swing next to his, babbling incoherently about nothing until Alec started listening. "...He's going to die." The park around them seemed too cheery, with kids and their parents running around and the sun shining. The sun didn't deserve to shine, not then. The tough, bendy swing underneath him hurt his hipbones slightly, his frame too big for a child's swing, the metallic frame creaking if they swung together. Alec looked at Max, and she looked away.
"And I'm going to say that it's all my fault. Then I'm going to blame him. Then Manticore. It's like a three-step process that I go through every time something bad like this happens. Why are we on the swings?" She looked back at him on the final sentence and he just shrugged.
"It's just... Bad. When you guys left... After Gossamer... I found him in a Cadillac convertible." Her gaze returned to the play structures ahead. "He said that he sat on his couch for days after I'd been gone. It hurt too much to move."
Alec smirked. "Aww. It took you guys that long to get that crap out in the open?" Sighing, she shook her head and continued.
"That's why I don't like you," Max explained with a huff. "I'm trying to be serious about something... And you make fun of it. You're such an asshole." There wasn't any menace because she monotoned the whole thing, but that made all the more impact.
"Look..." And so she did, squinting slightly because the sun was right behind him. "I don't think not being able to touch should change everything like that... It sounds pretty stupid," Alec lamented.
"It is," Max admitted sorrowfully. "Every time I was around him last year, I just felt... Alive. Then we couldn't touch and it was out the window. Just for that twelve hours, we could touch and it all came flooding back again. It's cruel to have something like that happen and now- and now this. I barely even grazed his finger and now he's going to..."
Her voice cracked. "I'm gonna go talk to him. I'm sure they're done the examination by now, right?" Alec nodded, trying to be a bit more sensitive. She got up to leave and turned, beckoning him to follow.
-----
Max closed the glass door behind her, taking in the sight of it all as her head panged again. Goddamned seizures, she almost moaned. Logan's room had once been a quarantine, spick n' span in an effort to keep out bacteria... And to keep the ones inside from spreading to other patients. Now it was merely a run-down glass room in a block of twenty like it, and in a poor dissarray. The once-laminated linoleum peeled from it's concrete and wood base, and the pink-painted walls-- something people pre-Pulse thought could calm down patients-- were stripping as well. Flowery room-separators covered the large glass window that were standard issue in every room, but they were decorated in old vomit and blood stains from years past.
She hadn't even looked at Logan yet, but the sight of him almost brought up anything she'd eaten that day. His diseased body was spotted with lesions, his usually perfect face marred by infected cuts and other things that had popped up from the virus. Small plastic tubing ran in his nose and behind his ears, the kind of thing everyone in the hospital seemed to wear. The regular-issue gown they'd given him caught the blood and pus that the lesions were oozing, and he just looked like a big, virus-infected mess.
Sitting down in the visitor's chair beside Logan, Max rested her arms and head on the metal bars that lined his bed; the kind of thing each hospital bed was outfitted with to keep people from rolling onto the cracked floor. Her eyes welled up and she allowed herself to cry for the first time in too long.
"Logan," she whispered. "I'm so... I'm so, so, so sorry." His eyes flew open at the sound and he looked at her shaking form, draped on the side of his bed.
His voice hoarse, he barely even got a few words out. "Max," her name was barely even audible. "It's okay. We'll get... Through... This..." Max sat up a little to see his face, trying so desperately to smile or be hopeful. It was past the twelve-hour mark, he was screwed. They both knew that, neither of them wanting to outright admit to it.
"Yeah," she choked, a stubborn smile tugging at her full lips. "We will." There seemed to be something she wasn't quite saying, as if she couldn't form the words. After a moment, she managed at last... But it hadn't been just a moment, it'd been since their twelve-hour virus cure, since she'd come back, since she'd died in his arms, even before then. She'd been trying to say it forever, and every single time she tried, she was interrupted either by herself or by something out of her control... Or he just didn't hear it.
"I love you, Logan."