We Always Don't See True
Disclaimer: I'd like to disclaim that I claim to own nothing. Unfortunately these characters belong to a couple of old, out-of-touch men who have relegated them to the back of a dusty cupboard. Shame on you! If I knew how I would put a hex on your ass!
Summery: Max needs Alec's help to save those closest to her. Is Max finally strong enough to face the reality of her crumbling relationship and move on? M/A eventually...
Rating: M – cause I have a potty mouth ;D
Spoilers: Set at the end of the second season right after Max reinfects Logan and does us all a favour and dumps his whiny, manipulative ass. No siege at Jam Pony. No T.C.
Basically I've always thought that the writers of DA got it wrong. Max and Logan were never soul mates - theirs was a relationship solely of convenience and circumstance. I believe that true love could only ever have been found between Max and Alec - and maybe Mole and Logan, if only Logan would stop bitching about the damn cigar smoke getting into the fibres of the carpet!
Okay, so I suppose that technically this was the first story that I ever started writing, and it has been sitting on my hard drive for… well, forever now. And I thought, why not go back and try and make it postable – seeing as though when I abandoned it I'd already written approximately 40,000 words.
I do want warn you though that there are aspects of it that I felt were a bit whimsical and less realistic than I would have liked, which was why I think I abandoned it originally. But I am going to go through it and try and improve it – it won't be a complete rewrite though, because now I look back on it a little fondly. It's really just a bit of light hearted, fluffy, naive M/A fun – something that is not meant to be taken too seriously.
Chapter One
As she stuffed her belongings into her bag in a hurried manner, Max took one last sweeping look around the room before heading out the door. As she ducked under the chain on the door of her building and out into the greyness that greeted the citizens of Seattle most days, she looked at her watch. She gave a scowl as she realised that she was going to be late for work - again.
She swung her leg over her bike and coasted down the street. It wasn't the chastising from Normal that she would receive on arrival that annoyed Max, but the fact that she had genuinely tried to be on time today. Lately work was becoming her sanctuary, and a welcome reprieve from reality. There at least she only had to concentrate on delivering packages and tolerating Normal's bitching and moaning.
Max's problems had multiplied exponentially in the last couple of months as a result of the dismantlement of Manticore. Okay, so technically dismantlement probably wasn't exactly the right word for what she had done to her birth place, but she figured it was close enough. She'd honestly assumed that once that place ceased to exist then so would a lot of her problems, but things hadn't exactly worked out that way so far.
Lately Max felt like she couldn't catch a break. Not only did she have her own boatload of problems to contend with, but she now had to look out for every transgenic she had released into the world. She was always saving someone from something - be it ordinary's from misguided transgenics, misguided transgenics from themselves, or transgenics from White and the authorities - one in particular more than any other, she thought ruefully with a shake of her head and a small smile.
For as long as Max could remember all she had ever wanted was to be normal – and it wasn't until recently that she had begun to realise that the definition of the word might not be as simplistic as she had first thought. For starters she couldn't even have a normal relationship with the man she loved. And to tell the truth she honestly didn't know where she stood with Logan anymore. They had been through so much together, and he had always been there for her whenever she had needed someone, but lately she had begun to wonder if they weren't both delusional. Were they clinging to each other because neither of them had anyone else?
Sometimes she thought they might be soul mates, destined to find each other the night she tried to rip-off his place; but that theory kinda relied on believing in that destiny stuff - and Max still wasn't sure she did.
For a long time there it felt like she had finally found what she had been looking for all her life - someone who knew who and what she was, and loved her regardless. But lately Max had this niggling feeling that something was… off. She had found herself staring at Logan, wondering if she really knew him; and more disturbingly, if he really did accept and embrace what she was. He said he did, but...
Every now and again Max thought she saw a flash of dislike or regret at what she was pass behind his eyes when he looked at her. And as her Manticore past ruthlessly hunted her down, grasping and clawing at her, and violating and infecting every corner of her life, it was becoming more and more apparent that he was the one most desperate for her to be normal.
Max shook her head in an attempt to physically banish those unpleasant thoughts from her mind and focus on the road ahead. She forced herself to remember that she had taken care of that forever now. She had pushed him away and deliberately hurt him in order to save him from herself, and the danger that pursued her ceaselessly. She had never been one to believe in fate, but lately she had begun to get this overpowering feeling that she was being drawn away from him and towards something or some conclusion that was predetermined. Plus, she couldn't bear to see Logan hurt as a result of his love and loyalty for her. She knew that what she was doing really was the smart thing to do, as Alec would say. But that knowledge didn't stop the pain that her actions still caused her.
As she swung her bike into the entrance of Jam Pony, Max was once again thankful to be at work, just so she could stop thinking about Logan and her messy life. As she stepped off her bike and rested it against the wall she was greeted by Normal's whiny voice.
"What a surprise. You're late again Missy-Miss. Though I suppose I should be congratulating you on only being twenty minutes late, rather than your customary mid-afternoon arrival. Everyone give Max a round of applause for making it in before lunch." Normal clapped his hands whilst encouraging the other messengers to join in.
"Well, I'm quiet happy to come back in a couple of hours, if that's more convenient?" Max deadpanned, wondering whether she really was prepared to put up with Normal's shit today. "Y'know Normal, maybe if you made it a little more pleasurable for your staff to come to work, they might actually come to work," she quipped, looking at him challengingly and arching a perfectly sculptured eyebrow. She then spun on her heel and breezed past him and over to her locker and Original Cindy. Normal yelled something to her back but Max paid no notice.
"Is Normal givin' ya grief, Suga?" Cindy enquired, looking up from inspecting one of her fingernails.
"Nah, just the regular ass-chewing over being tardy," Max responded, as she opened her locker.
Cindy inspected her friend carefully out of the corner of her eye. "Are you okay, Suga? You look a little blue."
"Nothin' out of the ordinary. Just my everyday problems - rogue transgenics and anomalies, a secret government agency and breeding cult intent on the extermination of me and my people, and hostile relations with my employer." Max replied sassily, not looking up as she banged around in her locker.
"I think you forgot one boo," Cindy said kindly, with her all-knowing look.
"Nope, don't think I did," Max said briskly.
"Logan?"
"Nope. I told you, I'm not gonna risk killing the guy again. I broke it off for good. Besides, he's better off without me and my screwed up life."
"Yeah right. I give it a week before you're dropping everythin' to scamper off an' answer the man's pages."
"He's not gonna be paging me anymore," Max said resolutely.
"Whatever. Tha' boy is as stubborn as you are, he ain't gonna give yor pretty ass up that easy," Cindy stated as she closed her locker with a clank.
Max remained silent, refusing to look at O.C.
Cindy didn't miss Max's evasiveness. "What aren't you telling? Come on, spill to Original Cindy."
Max looked up with a pained and guilty expression. "The thing is… I kinda told him I was seeing someone."
"Ohh…" Cindy blinked in surprise, arching her eyebrows. "So who's this new mystery man?"
"Lady's. Beautiful weather we're having isn't it?" Alec greeted with a twinkle in his eye, as he suddenly appeared in front of his locker. Max looked at Alec and then at Original Cindy pointedly, and began to walk off.
"Does he know he's your new squeeze?" Cindy whispered in disbelief as she caught up to her friend.
"Hell no!"
"Are you gonna tell him?"
"Not if I can help it," Max replied in a wistful tone, knowing full well that was unlikely. Her luck sucked too hard for that to happen.
Just then a commotion broke out at the entrance of Jam Pony. Suddenly Normal was brandishing a gun and yelling at Sky threateningly.
In a flash Max had outmanoeuvred him, twisting his arm, and making him relinquish the gun. "What the hell do you think you're doing!?" she snapped, whilst emptying the contents of the gun onto the floor.
"He's one of them. He's one of those mutants," Normal spat with disgust. He stormed over to Sky, roughly pulling down his collar to inspect his neck where a barcode should have been.
"Well he could have been one. Let that be a lesson to all of you. Vigilance." Normal lectured, only slightly embarrassed by his foe par.
"Crash tonight everyone? I'm buying." Alec broadcast to the room, trying to defuse the situation. Like Max, he had been quick to see the gun, and he knew he needed to distract everyone from her little wrestling display.
As Max strode out of Jam Pony she threw the gun at Normal. She had to get out of there before people started to ask too many questions, or she gave in to the temptation to slap Normal silly.
oOoOoOoOo
It was just shy of two weeks since Max had told Logan that 'they' were over, and as she walked into Crash she wasn't feeling any better for the passing of that time. She had managed so far to avoid both Logan and his pages – for the most part. He had been very persistent, paging incessantly, but she had remained resolute and ignored them. But for some reason whenever she walked into Crash she half expected to see him here, and she didn't know whether the unsettled feeling she had was excitement or dread.
Max spotted Original Cindy and Sketchy sitting at a table near the back, and made her way towards them.
"Hey ya boo, what's happenin'?"
"Ah, nothing new since the s'mornin'. You?" Max asked, as she gracefully slid onto a stool between the two of them. She noticed idly that Alec wasn't here yet.
"Nup, sista's still trying to make a buck in a broken and immoral world," Cindy replied in a depressed tone, as she stared into her beer.
"What's the matter girl? Why are you so down on the world this evenin'? Female troubles?" Max asked in a teasing tone.
"I haven't hooked up with a fine sista in at least a week," Cindy exclaimed dejectedly. "But that's not what's got Original Cindy bummed out. Ya know, I delivered packages all day and made no tips – not one. It's just not right! A girl ain't suppose ta work her fingers to da bone for no reward. And to top my day off… some skeezy dude grabbed my ass!"
"I hope you carefully and succinctly explained to him that sexual harassment is a deplorable act. That even in this decrepit and twisted world we now find ourselves in, it is not a valid form of courtship, and is degrading to women as a sex," Sketchy replied gravely, whilst nursing his beer and trying to hold his head up with his elbow propped on the table.
"Damn straight! Original Cindy was real succinct. And for the next couple of weeks he'll have no choice but to think with his upstairs brain, cause Original Cindy put the other one outta business for at least a week. Should give him plenty of time to contemplate the ramifications of sexual harassment!!" she said hotly.
"That's my girl. Highlighting the injustices of our corrupt and morally bankrupt society through the medium of violence!" Max said teasingly with a lopsided smile.
"You taught me well boo," O.C. countered with affection, as she clanked glasses with Max.
Okay people, be kind enough to hit the little blue button, please :D