A/N: This is a response to a challenge posed by Dazedizzy.
Said challenge: "Alec sees Sam and Max together, and realizes that despite being outwardly identical, he'd recognize which one was Max in a heartbeat...why? Because, there's only one...I know, cute and fluffy, but I can't help it. Logan didn't know the difference between the two...but Alec would. Right?"
This is v.1 … because obviously, I decided to do another. Reviews welcome!
Only One
"Great view huh?" Alec remarked, leaning against the doorway.
The brunette turned and cocked an unimpressed eyebrow at him.
Alec rolled his eyes. Typical.
"Is it something in your genes? Makes you both automatically assume the worst in me?" he asked light-heartedly, stepping out onto the Space Needle.
She turned to face him with a wry look in her eyes. Eyes that looked so familiar and yet so different.
"What makes you think I'm not her?"
Alec glanced at his feet with a chuckle.
"What makes you think I'm not Ben?"
That drew a dismissive "pffft," from her. Just like she would, Alec noted silently, grinning inwardly. And yet he had no doubt. He was resolute. He was Alec. He was never wrong.
"He was never nearly as hot," came the reply in case it was needed.
"And don't you forget it," Alec shot back with a mischievous sparkle in his eyes.
She laughed. But it didn't reach her deep brown eyes. Those brown eyes that lacked fiery passion and that were not fathomless to him. Eyes he could read.
"Seriously," Sam said, the jovial expression disappearing so fast Alec wouldn't have believed she had found his quip amusing if he hadn't seen it for himself.
He cocked an eyebrow curiously, considering her.
"Jealous that they liked her less?"
Sam turned her gaze back over to the Seattle skyline.
"She's an ass. But she's a person. I'm still just a soldier."
Alec turned his head slightly, contemplating that for a moment. Then he shrugged.
"Got it in one," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets like he always did when he was having a serious moment. He wondered if Ben did the same.
Sam looked at him with a frown.
"She's got you by the balls," she commented blandly.
Alec's head shot up, his gaze startled.
"What?" he yelped
It was Sam's turn to chuckle.
"Gotta hand it to her, big sis sure knows how to bag 'em."
"For your information, nobody has my balls but me," Alec stated with a defiant frown but his features relaxed into a hapless shrug, "except maybe Lola that one time…"
Sam rolled her eyes as the momentary glazed expression he assumed told her he was reliving past glories.
"See, I would be holding my arm, injured, at this point, if you were Max," Alec told her emphatically.
"So, I don't indulge your masochistic fantasies therefore…I'm, not 452," Sam said slowly, shooting him a deliberately strange look.
"No, you let my lewd behaviour slide therefore you're not Max," Alec corrected, looking at her as if that explained the matter. Her blank look told him it didn't.
"I don't know where Manticore went right but Max just doesn't take yes for an answer."
"Huh?" was the confused reply.
Alec smiled, staring out into the night sky. For a post-Pulse city Seattle really was doing well for out shining the stars.
"You and me, we made solo and deep ops because we accepted our orders without question. They knew they could send us out into the field and we'd come marching back with a grin on our faces if they told us to smile about it. We see the mission. We see targets. When it's over we see the next mission."
Alec stopped, images of all those marks he had taken out without a second's thought, flashing across his mind's eye. Only now, he learned to feel a keen sense of pain at the loss of his innocence, remorse for his lack of emotion, and guilt for lives he had needlessly ended.
"Max sees something better. When you're left without nothing, Max sees something better. Because she won't take it lying down. She doesn't believe that all you are is everything you are because she honestly thinks you can be better."
Sam watched Alec as he spoke and noted with some strange swell of pride that Alec had become more than she could ever be.
"She's gonna get herself killed one day because of it but she would rather die for something she believes in than live for something she doesn't and that's what sets her apart. I look at you and I see me – look out for number one, do whatever it takes to survive, sell your soul if it gets you out of a tight spot," Alec said, shaking his head
with a wry smile.
"Yes isn't good enough because that's it. End game. Being one of Lydecker's you can't really expect more than for her to choose any excuse for an argument over the easy option. Because no means you question, you challenge but obviously most importantly, you defy. You don't accept what you're offered, what you're told."
"You're right, she's gonna get herself killed," Sam agreed nonchalantly.
Alec threw a sideways glance at her.
"She'll get you killed too, but you'll gladly take the bullet for her," he pointed out.
The dismissive "pffft," came once more.
"Stick around," Alec challenged.
At that Sam threw out a short laugh.
"You always were a good liar," Sam commented with the smallest of smiles. And for
the first time, her eyes were no longer blank and masked. In all the time he had known her from the days in the same Unit, Alec finally saw a glimmer of life in her deep brown eyes.
"She don't got you by the balls, she's got you by the heart."