Where's Max?
There are tears and sweat and blood and but they've done it. Nobody but them, the kids everyone said would never amount to anything. They've saved the world's ass and taken down the most corrupt organization of all time.
Suck on that.
He can't help but grin at the sheer insanity of their accomplishment as he stands among the Flock and mutants of their vain little world. They're exhausted to the bone but no one can resist the temptation of raiding the company, they deserve their spoils don't they after beings saviors by way of destruction?
But he knows he can't truly enjoy any of it until he finds Max, it was her plan after all, and it's as much his victory as it is hers. There's a suppressed part of him though that knows that's it's not just that he wishes to congratulate her but also a tiny hope that now that they'll no longer be starving homeless kids, no longer be second best, no longer be staying up through the night just to ensure they survive one more day…
Maybe now she'll finally accept him in a way she refused to before.
That hope is small though because it was crushed long ago (over and over and over again). He is just thrilled that he'll be able to see her smile the way she used so many years ago when they were just Max and Fang, no titles attached.
He sprints and leaps into the air with new vigor no matter how much strain it puts on his burned out muscles and lungs because it cleanses his mind. God, it just feels so damn good to finally be free.
As he glides and soars and flies he suddenly knows exactly where she is. He smiles to himself and shakes his head, he's almost one hundred percent sure she'll be in housing buildings. The new director was someone she had a bone to pick with and wouldn't pass up the glorious opportunity to chew him out.
He is in no hurry, he tells himself. Yet his feet pick up a pace that is too swift to be carefree and he finds himself extremely anxious to be in her company. Max could make anyone feel like they belonged and with the rest of the world celebrating and relaxing while he feels incomplete he needs her even more.
Walk…leap…sprint…fly...faster!
They are two parts of a whole; they learned the hard way that separation is a physical blow. He reads her mind and recognizes her scent and presence far before she even makes her entrance. He follows his instincts because that's how he works, that's why he kisses her and comforts her time after time. Max is special; you don't deny her because that would mean hurting her which is the ultimate taboo. Whatever hurts Max will then be the source of his wrath.
He blows the door nearly off its hinges and already has a goofy smile ready to appear on his face because he knows it will make her happy. The creases and slants of his face don't fit though; fourteen was a difficult time for him and such a long year of pain and suffering. Ever since then no expression seemed to match his charcoal eyes (dead, blank, haunted).
Loneliness is a bitch.
He is blown backwards by the scent that suffocates the room, twisted and sinister and one he's become so awfully familiar with that he dreams about it every single night.
No
He continues to stare, unable to move because it agony to so much as breathe.
NO
They had everything under control, all planned out, nothing could go wrong. She would never lie to him.
Yes
That's when he acts because that voice is not his, he does not have a voice like that in his mind. It is the voice of a marionette, content to watch the world burn while he apologizes and looks from the outside in with fake sympathy and remorse.
He is by her side quicker than a lightning strike; physical strength is all he's been able to give. How ironic, that's what his situation feels like; one in a million…billion…never.
She is leaned against a stainless wall that is supporting her limp form.
'so cold, like the shiny metal tables where they did terrible things to us, to me Max why, why, why?'
He resists the urge to grab his head in light of the torture he' being put through. Everything is so whitewhitewhite, absent of color and it kills him. There's a message and the meaning is close enough to taste yet he struggles. He hates games because he was always the loser.
'you're only pawns in a bigger game, a bigger picture; i've showed Max why can't you come to believe?'
Crossed legs (obedience), back straight and head tall (pride) but her arms…covered in a river of crimson that has stopped flowing, stopped pouring out of her beautiful being.
'like a sandy beach, like pain, like kisses, like jealousy, like enemies, like a lifetime ago that is no more than a fairytale without an ending because fairytales always have happy endings…'
The ebony haired boy trembles all over as he reaches to take her hands which once healed sosooso many people excluding him but that doesn't count because he was an impossible task. She kept the pain at bay for he was too far gone when she realized and sometimes love just isn't enough.
Her wrists are slit, the marks purposefully fatal, spilling her essence onto the floor which though was pure as snow sickens him because he knows that her blood wasn't the first to taint the chamber. The blade lies before her and if he wasn't so hollow he was sure he would be puke because his own tool remains innocently in her hands.
Run, run away, is what his common sense is telling him because his mind is far too fragile for this, she held the cracked fragments in place, careful to not let them drop and shatter.
'stuck together like glue, stuckstuckstuck'
There is a breeze and he catches movement out of the corner of his eye. He jumps for the object and after hesitation gingerly cups his hands. It is a scrap of paper, delicate as silk and greedily he reads.
Are you ready?
The handwriting is not hers.
He remembers though and that's when his eyes begin to sting. Days that had seemed so dreary compared to what once was now seem so precious the memory plays like a record, skipping slightly if only savor it. He can only ever remember the bad.
She is quiet which is unusual because she is the loudest of all, keeping the peace and order. He senses that something is off and approaches her because his instincts tell him it's about their last meeting with Itex.
He doesn't say anything but then again he doesn't need to. They speak in a language that only they understand and she talks just like he knew she would. This is Max, hiding her problems but the silence of her own mind is too much after having a voice that was not hers for so long.
"Are you ready?"
He is not sure what she means so waits because that's what he's good at but she doesn't elaborate.
"For the end of it all?" he asks, referring to their plans to take down Itex in less than a week. After a moment, she nods.
Her whisper is lost to all but his ears, "The end…"
It is his fault she is gone, his fault she left him. That was why their victory had been so easy, without falter or stumble. The hour she'd been cooped up with the director the last time, it was a deal. It was all a part of the game, all they were was pawns. She dies, he wins. She's alive, he loses.
They still lost.
Ignoring the blood, he cradles her in his arms and murmurs in her ears about how she's safe and he loves her and that there's no need to run anymore. The silent boy rocks back and forth, not aware that he is stained with blood that will never rinse, sitting in the center of the tragedy but it doesn't matter because he is with Max and she will make everything better for that is her job.
He said he was ready; he'd as prepared as a student who studies for a test two weeks in advance. Nothing could hurt them; he could take anything they threw at him.
But this time the curveball came from the wrong side of the field.
He sings to the pale, lifeless form that he carries with him as he crosses the carnage of the battlefield both inside and out. The ones with their shiny surfaces and plastic smiles, the ones with grime and blood visible to the world to view, but also the ones where silence condemns him with mockery of how he's nothing but a useless experiment gone wrong.
He marches on.
For hours he flies, he doesn't sleep. Hours turn into days but his rhythm does not slow; he is oblivious to the reality around him.
Time means nothing because reality is merely an illusion and there is nothing to stop him if he wills it. He is in Heaven's kingdom; the sky. He is with Max and always will be because there are awful memories of torture and solitude that haunt him and she would never abandon him to deal with that alone.
They are finally there.
He does not feel anything; the hollowness he first felt has spread and enveloped his entire being for he cannot feel the ground as his boots touch down upon the blackened soil or the weariness he should have after days without sleep and food carrying deadweight.
This is their home.
Nothing remains but ashes yet he sits where the tire swing and old oak tree used to be and gently lays Max down upon the ground. He places a chocolate chip cookie in her left hand takes the (paleicylifeless) right one in his own. This is final. Even though he has not yet left her side it still feels as if someone has ripped off his wings and possibly his heart too.
It's an endless cycle of reminisce, brood, dwell in the past. But she was always there to make the voices and the throbbing wounds go away…why? But he now knows the answer and can almost hear her beside him, smiling at his idiocy. With her raucous laughter that was not the tinkling of bells but instead the noise of stars exploding or the shrieks of happiness after a seemingly impossible accomplishment.
He feels that there should be….more. More rain, more snow, more storms, more fire because that's how the tragedies work, that's how they play. But there's only a gentle whistling of the wind over a desolate land, a content wind but isn't contentedness just a poor substitute for happiness?
But nothing could ever describe Max's absence for she was the very essence of life itself and what is a candle without its flame? The sun bleeds reds and oranges and finally…into darkness.
'like a reality born from criticizing and unhappiness, like selfish hearts, like frustration from forever failing, like unwanted kisses, like a knight with armor in all the wrong places, like a sick, sick fairytale…'
His eyes are throbbing with a foreign heaviness and stinging unpleasantly. In attempt to combat the alien reaction he's experiencing he brings his hand up to rub away the pain but it comes back damp.
Suddenly the damn breaks and the rain pours, oh how that sweet, bitter rain pours. He remembers bedtime stories when he was too withdrawn to read, hugs after nightmares, popsicles in the summer, bandages on wounds, unwanted comfort, smiles that shine on rainy days, and assurance when jealousy brews.
He remembers; it is imperfection, it is weakness, it is depression, it is (nevermeanttobe) love.
"Fang! C'mon, it's almost too dark!" the sky is smoky and the perfect picture of a five year old's drawing with all the colors of a crayon rainbow. He is glad she picked night; shadows aren't as conspicuous in the dark.
He follows her silently because she is so alive and being around her makes him feel peaceful and important in a way that is frightening and new but he welcomes it anyways.
She is sitting hopping from one foot to the other, unable to contain her excitement.
"Look what Jeb made us!" there is a tire roped to a large tree but…it's too far off the ground for even his ten year old feet to reach. He never was one to reach for the stars.
"You go first, here, I'll help you up." She does help him for they are the same height, equal. She is beaming up at him and he feels warm inside because he is the source of her happiness. He forever wants to be the reason she glows with such radiance, if only he knew how to do it.
But his feet cannot touch the ground.
"Are you ready?"
"Yes,"
She pushes him towards the sky.