Ari stared at the back of Max's head intently. It was difficult to tell what she was doing, the movie theater was dark, and Ari's eyes were a little bit blurry. He left his pain management in the car and it had been almost two hours. He just clenched his jaw and kept trying to burn holes into Max's head. Sam got to spend time with her. She smiled at Sam and talked to him like a normal person. Ari couldn't wait until it was go time. Then she would see. He snorted and Max II looked over at him angrily for distracting her from the onscreen battle.
Max II paused before turning back to the display and looked at Ari's face. His eyebrows were scrunching together, his eyes narrowing, and his lower jaw ground against the top row of teeth. For just a second her frown cleared and she considered patting his shoulder. The second after that she toughened up again and went back to watching. She was going to do the dignified thing and pretend that she had never notice Ari was having what some people like to call, "An Emotion" or something.
That's how they had always worked. Except Max II was never sloppy enough to show that she was feeling anything. Except two weeks ago. When they were outside the house the bird kids were staying in. She had kind of… missed Max. Kind of.
But now she remembered why Max was awful. The way she hurt Ari even without talking to him. Which was unacceptable. If you were gonna make his lip go all wobbly like that, in Max II's opinion, you should at least have the guts to do it to his face. She pulled her leg off her lap and let it drop to kick him in the shin. Just a reminder. She was here, and she hated Max too. But she didn't really care. At all.
Ari winced when her foot came in contact with his leg. But it did what he needed it too, and he was snapped out of his intense gaze. He flicked his eyes back up to the movie and took a few deep breaths as quietly as he could. His eyes were still filling up with tears and it burned in a way he didn't think crying was supposed to, but he didn't remember what it felt like… before. He didn't even remember what before referred to. Before New York? Before Nudge put spray paint in his eye? Before before when he was like a kid. A real one. Like Angel kind of but less freaky, so like Gazzy probably.
But he fake relaxed, practicing the fake it 'til you make it routine that had gotten Max so far all the time. He grinned as the soldiers on screenshot at each other, having already picked a favorite side, even though he knew they were going to lose. The dudes who looked like him always lost in these movies. And he liked the way it felt when he smiled. That he could recall. Even though it hurt, every time he smiled it felt a little like a dream come true. He remembered being three and trying to growl like one of the month old eraser tests and being disappointed in how smooth and small his teeth were. But now they were long and sharp and made him feel like the Big Bad Wolf, and that was a strong feeling. Fun to play imagination with.
Slow motion scene after slow motion scene, followed by some strangely unrealistic fight in the rain unfolded in front of him. And he actually snorted ICEE through his nose when the main dude started making out with the girl who was like on screen for twelve seconds at a time just to get in trouble so the dude had to kiss it better. She was like, the Fang to the main dudes Max. The whole gang had laughed for like 30 minutes when Max decided to make out with his dying corpse on the beach for no reason besides…. Maybe motivating him not to die? Who knows, Max is weird.
Ari watched the final fight sequence uneasily, accidentally assigning roles. The taller, blonder American, whatever his name really was became Sam. And the dude he was fighting, slightly shorter but buffer and browner, became… well he wasn't Ari. But he wasn't not Ari either. Ari was suddenly way to aware of what was happening in the movie and his chest tightened up painfully. His head was spinning and he felt sweaty now.
He mumbled something unintelligible to Max II as he threw himself over the next row of seats and bolted down the stairs and out into the hallway.
"Frick, frick, frick, frick." Ari muttered to himself, his hands shaking as he pulled in heavy breaths and looked for the bathroom. But everything around him was going all wavy and blurry, he couldn't find the sign and all the lights hurt his eyes.
Was he expiring? Was he dying?
He stumbled forward until he found a door with a handle on it and a sign he thought meant a bathroom but also might have been an employees only sign and pulled it open. For a second after the door shut when he walked in, it was dark, and momentarily calming. Of course then the sensors found him and the lights kicked on, reminding him of what was happening to his body. He caught sight of what he imagined a Pakistani zombie would look like in the mirror. Paling brown skin that was overly scarred and pulled in the wrong directions over a mouth that was too big for his face. Circles under his eyes that seemed to take up half his face and his face was like, glitching in places but maybe that was his eyes.
He pressed his back against the half tiled walls and sliding down it slowly as he let out high whines. He wanted to go home, he wanted his pain management, and he wanted it to be quieter the hum of the fluorescent lights was killing him. Was it killing him? He kind of hoped so. This was too much he pressed his eyes shut and just sat in the corner shivering for who knows how long.
Only a minute after Ari had left, after taking just enough time to tap another surveillance plant in for them, Max II ran down the stairs after him and burst into the lobby to find him. Once she was in the light she wiped the concern off her face, even though none of these people knew her. The only sign that anything was wrong with her was that she had a slight wrinkle in between her thick eyebrows. The rest of her face was unemotional, completely flat. She walked around calmly, checking both bathrooms as best she could. The ladies bathroom by leaning down to check for his feet in the stalls and on the seemingly empty ones, checking the crack on the side just to make sure. In the guy's bathroom she walked straight in, looked for his haircut, and walked straight out. She wondered around to the end of the main hall of theaters until she found the family bathroom.
A little nervously, Max II leaned forward and pressed an ear against the door. She could hear the quiet echoing, wheezy sob that she recognized from through the vents at the school. Turning the handle slowly she sighed as it was unlocked. She slipped in through the smallest crack possible and popped the lock shut behind her.
His half sister stole a look at the mirror first, she looked more relieved than she wanted to. She had been scared for him. She was still scared for him. He wasn't supposed to be seen like this. Either he wasn't supposed to look this old, and that why it was so hard to see him look so small, or he wasn't supposed to look this small and that's why it was obvious that he wasn't actually this old. But still she sat across from him and folded her legs. A small smile crossed her face as she remembered a smaller Ari telling her it was called criss-cross applesauce. She tentatively reached out and put a hand on his knee, the light brown standing out brightly against the black suit.
Ari flinched violently. It was just too much, the suit was scratchy, the hand was heavy, who's hand was it, he couldn't see them. It was immediately pulled away and he heard a soft mumble before the person in front of him that he could only barely make out through the slits he'd made his eyes into started shifting around. Another moment and the cooler hands were prying his apart from where they were linked around his knees and shaking something into his hands. The rattle ripped his brain in two, and he gagged as a something came up in his throat.
Max II shushed him softly and pulled his jaw open, taking the pills she had just put into his hands and putting them on his tongue herself, before slamming it shut. Stealing backups for Ari was the best decision she ever made.
Ari swallowed on instinct. A bad instinct he realized a second later, but what was the worst that could happen. And he also finally realized that it was Max II sitting across from him and that she was actually capable of being… gentle?
Max II waited quietly, putting her head on the door and scrolling through her phone quietly to pretend she doesn't care. She's not actually scrolling through everything, but she doesn't want to embarrass Ari. And after a few minutes, Ari's eyes finally opened all the way.
Partly out of relief, and partly because she was ready to make fun of him again she cocked an eyebrow and pushed her entire cocky grin to one side.
"Is it really this hard for you to go fifteen minutes without dying dude?" She asked, her cold mocking look warming up just a little as he gave a little smile in response.
Ari leaned his face against the other side of the corner finally feeling a little bit of relief washing over him, and taking the slightest pleasure in how cool the tile was. He mumbled something in response, but he didn't know what he meant, and Max II couldn't hear it well enough to respond. So she checked her watch instead.
"We're gonna have to move soon. The movie's almost over and we have to follow those losers." She stated blankly. Ari nodded.
"Two more minutes. I promise." He whispered, wiping some sweat off his forehead, and trying to slick his now damp hair back into it's usual dense curly pattern. She nodded and stood up to lean against the sink.
And two minutes later, Ari did allow Max II pretend to help him up, even though she weighed half as much as he did if you subtracted their wings, and they both stepped out of the bathroom with their grins that they'd carefully practiced to match the smug villains in any spy movie ever. They looked so cool in Ari's head. Ari winced a second later and quickly went to put on his sunglasses to protect himself from the brightness.
Max II shook her head and refrained from making a joke about him wearing sunglasses at night, because she remembered seeing Fang post something like that on his blog, and making a joke that Fang had made was probably a cardinal sin for clones. Instead she took off running with her arms straight out behind her down the long hallway to the exit. Ari rolled his eyes and walked like a decent human being.
Ari wanted to shout across the parking lot at Max II as he watched her try and climb into the driver's seat. The only reason he didn't was because he could see Max and Sam's outlines a little way away starting to walk to the ice cream shop. However, the idea of Max II driving Ari anywhere was enough to make him jog the rest of the way to the van. And, despite the way she pulled against him trying to shut the door, he managed to yank it open. The pair wrestled each other to try and keep the other's hand away from the seatbelt, but Ari won that two and managed to push Max into the passenger seat.
"Do you mind?" He growled. "Trying not to die for fifteen minutes."
Max snorted and propped her legs up on the dashboard. "It wouldn't take me fifteen minutes to kill you."
"I'm sure." Ari replied, pulling the car through the parking lot, and starting on the route they'd planned out carefully. There was no way Max would see them like this.
"All I'm saying is it would be really freakin' funny if I just popped up in like a mirror or something and mimicked Max at first but then like I started doing like horror movie shi- stuff." Max II wasn't quite rambling, but plotting while they parked across the street from the next part of Max's date. "Bit- Girl would totally flip out. It would be hilarious." Ari nodded vacantly. Max II was right. It would be funny, but Ari still felt kind of sick. Not for any reason physically, he was just embarrassed. Max II shouldn't have to take care of him. He was a grown up.
Max II on the other hand just wanted to talk to him. Not about what happened. She doubted either of them would ever want to talk about that little experience. But she missed him in a way that just didn't make sense, considering he was sitting right next to her.
Max was just being annoying on her date, giggling like the weird creature she'd decided she was the second Sam started holding her hand. Or maybe she was talking. Either way it was going to give Max II a headache if she had actually had to witness it.
"So did it hurt?" Max II thought she had ghosted around this topic for long enough for Ari to know what she was talking about.
She was, of course, wrong. "Did what hurt?" Ari answered with a question of his own before laughing to himself. "When I fell from Heaven? I always knew I was the one true angel."
"No dummy. When they brought you back? Did it hurt?" Max II was prodding at a sensitive topic, but she'd always wanted to know. "I think if I died I would want them to just leave me alone you know."
Ari shrugged. "I don't know. I don't remember it. But of course you're ready to die, you're like a billion. I'm seven and a half. I'm glad they saved me." He lied. But it was only half a lie, because Ari didn't even know how he felt about it. On the one hand, he was really scared when he heard that weird crack, that kind of vibrated through his whole body, and that he can still feel if he's in that half asleep place where every wake up is like a jump scare. On the other, everything hurt. All the time now. Even happy stuff hurt. He leaned back in his seat.
"You wanna do something fun?" Ari asked a few minutes later, straightening up and snapping his head over to grin at his friend. She immediately brightened up, even though her face was just as passive as it always was, Ari could see her excitement. "It's gotta be small, we all know Sam's a snitch."
Max II nodded. She already knew exactly what she wanted to do. "You know, it's gonna be way less fun when she knows for sure I exist."