Tearing the Sky
by intodust

Disclaimer: Dark Angel belongs to 20th Century Fox and Cameron/Eglee Productions. Title and summary are from ASH's "Music for Elevators."
Rating: Light R for fade-to-black sex, caffeine, and a soundtrack which the record store classifies as rock n' roll.
Spoilers: Through and mostly Haven. Departs from canon post-ep.

Apologies for the out-of-the-blue-ness of this story; I needed a break from "Soul One" and The Wonderful World of NCIS.

One man's rain means another man's famine, or, man is what he believes.

The day after he becomes a killer and in doing so loses a strange sort of blood virginity, Logan wakes to find Max reading his newspaper and drinking his coffee, and the act is so personal that he feels a stab of more than annoyance, something like genuine hatred. He understands that it is not directed at her, that she is simply a physical representation of undefinable changes, and he does his best to ignore the emotion, to smile and nod and reach past her for the half-empty press and the ink-smeared front page of the newspaper.

"Morning," she says, and he wonders if she has anywhere else to be, if this is a last resort or if it is the equivalent of retrieving breakfast on the morning after. Which it is, he thinks. Death in the heat of the moment is passion, and that passion is the only thing that's separating it from plain and simple murder. Civilization went up in a fire that smelt of gasoline and he was fighting for his life, for all of their lives, the alpha male defending the weaker members of the family. Primal, really, animalistic, and he decides he's not going to bring it up.

"Morning," he says, and if his face is lined and his eyes are harsh with nightmares, she does not tell him. She looks back down at the page in her hand and he does the same, glancing at the bylines out of habit and not actual interest. These people do not relate to him; they are no longer of the same world. He reads the same paragraph four times before realizing that he is not retaining any knowledge of the words and he folds the page with one sharp crease, sets it down the table in front of him. The masthead stares accusingly at him and the headlines speak of corruption and disease.

Max is still reading her section. Her hair falls in front of her face, dividing him from her. She's close enough for him to reach out and brush it aside, but he won't. He takes a sip of coffee, feels the heat searing down his throat, and resists the urge to look at the clock. Checking will not make the day pass more quickly; it never does. The sky is the indeterminate shade of gray that has come to define these days for him, the slow iron ticking of time. It is the slate gray of tombstones and the pale gray of ash. It is the rain that falls in all shades in between. It is the illusion of negative space and sometimes he loves it, but right now, the concept of eternity is one that he dares not fathom.

She sets the paper aside, crumpling the edges, and hastily straightens them as if she thinks the disarray has offended him. "You want breakfast?" she asks, looking at him over the rim of her coffee mug. Her eyes are warm in the morning gloom, a curious phrase which seems to imply that this sense of futility will fade at noon.

"Not hungry," he says, and it's mostly true.

She acknowledges him with a hummed syllable, a brief, wordless intrusion, and crosses her arms, leans forward as if sharing a confidence. "So I was thinking maybe today we could swing by the wharf and since it's supposed to rain tonight, you could make . . . something with fish, and then I could kick your ass at chess." As if rain were an occasion, something to celebrate. With fish. Like Lent.

He does his best to look regretful, and since it's sincere, it's not that difficult. "I think I'm gonna stay in today," he says, and if she is disappointed, he tries not to notice. He's taken a vacation and look where that has gotten him. Capital punishment is not an area in which he wishes to gain experience. The idea of self-defense, no matter how accurate, doesn't make him feel any better; nor does the idea of repentance. He does not need excuses, because he had reasons, but that doesn't change the fact that men are dead, people have died, they won't be getting a second chance, won't have the opportunity to make amends. "Lot to catch up on."

"Fresh air would do you good," she says, as if trying to cajole a sullen child. She seems to realize what she's doing and the cloying tone drops away, replaced by something more natural, more normal, more Max. "Salt water, wind, good for what ails you."

"I think I've gotten enough fresh air lately," he says, and the silence after he speaks is painful. She is searching for something to say, a choice of words that will restore the status quo and take away what has happened, and he's trying not to hear anything at all. She opens her mouth to speak and he thinks, suddenly, that she's going to ask him if he's okay. "But thanks," he adds lamely to avoid the awkwardness of her concern.

She nods. "Anytime. You gotta eat, though." She doesn't look at him when she says this, as if avoiding his eyes will lessen the blow, what seems a calculated attack. If she provokes him with kindness, his reaction will be limited.

"Yeah," he says. "But I've got, what, seven days?" The number is chosen at random and he wonders if there is any truth to it, if he could survive that long on coffee alone.

She raises her eyebrows and he wants to tell her that he wasn't serious, that he was exaggerating for the point of making an example, but that will only draw more attention to his words. "That's extreme," she says.

He shrugs; there's no other option. "Making a point."

"Right." She doesn't sound like she believes him and he wishes she would try harder. Though he is not incapable of creating his own illusions and/or delusions, it generally helps if they are, at least at first, based in reality.

"So," he says, because the intensity of her stare is starting to bother him. "You're not working today?"

"I'm taking a personal day," she says.

"You know," he says, and he's not sure how to finish. She just took a personal day, more than one, and even if she is supplementing her income with a night job as a cat burglar, he knows that there will be a limit; her job is not sacred, her hold not impervious, and her sector pass is vital.

"I know," she prompts.

He goes for it, bites the proverbial bullet. "If you're here because of me . . ."

"Nah, I'm here for the coffee," she says, effectively preempting any protests he could have made; if he continues along this line, he will sound desperate and arrogant, as if he wants her to admit that he is, in fact, the only reason she came by. Which he doesn't.

"The coffee," he says, "is almost gone."

"So I'll make another pot . . ." She frowns at the press, the clean, aesthetic lines of glass and metal that defy the usual words. ". . . thing."

He shrugs, pushes away from the table, feeling a flash of irritation at the frivolousness of the conversation. "Suit yourself."

But she doesn't; she trails him into his office, stands in the doorway and watches him boot the computers, check the answering machine. "Anything interesting?" she asks.

"The usual," he says.

"Good to know some things never change." She retreats to the living room and his eyes follow her despite his best attempts. She flops down onto the couch, her limbs graceful even in that careless motion, and reaches for a pillow, holds it to her chest and looks at him over the mound of fabric. "Let me know if I'm bothering you," she says, because she knows he won't.

"I will," he says. He turns back to the computers and searches fruitlessly for obituaries. Either the men are not missed or the pieces are not online. His fingers tighten on the mouse, a deceptively gentle grip, a constructed effort. It is as if a boundary has been crossed, a test passed; the art of death is no longer one which she alone understands.

He wonders, suddenly, if he still has his wedding ring, tucked away in some pine-scented box like a miniature casket. He doesn't think that he resold it and he knows that he didn't throw it out with the trash; the glint of gold amidst week-old papers and coffee grounds would have bothered him, even if he couldn't say why. Suddenly he fears coming across the band; he would have the audacity to be shocked at the sight, to drop the jewelry as if it burned his fingers, and that would not be fair to Val. He's grown up, he's been married, and he's killed. He cannot deny any of these things.

Death, he thinks, is driving him insane, and he lowers his head onto his hands and laughs.

"I miss the joke?" Max asks, her voice blurred by distance and comfort. She sounds half-asleep, he thinks, but she isn't. It is an act designed to get him to admit to things, to tell her what's wrong, but that thought is fleeting, dismissed immediately as overly paranoid.

"No," he says. "You didn't."

"Good," she says. "Hate to make you repeat it."

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah . . ."

"What I said before," she says, studying her fingernails. She can say this as long as she doesn't look at him, as long as he can write it off as idle conversation, empty words. "It's still true."

"I know," he says, and he really doesn't want to talk about this.

"It is good to know," she says. "Means I can take a personal day here and there without worrying about being missed."

"Oh, that's what this is?" he asks. She has come here to escape reality. Right now, he can't think of a more obvious lie.

She shrugs like she thinks he believes her. "Is that a bad thing?"

There is a whir in the distance, a muffled thump, and then the lights go out. He watches as his work fades, one opal halo shrinking, shrinking, until the screen is completely black. He wants to say something, but none of his words can sum up, can encompass, the incredible mess his life has become. "Damn," he says finally.

"Yeah," she says. "You want me to get the candles?"

"It's light enough," he says. He doesn't mind the dimness, the strange silence that settles over the apartment. It is real silence, not the ambient noise that usually passes. He hears a rustle of movement and then she's next to him, setting an unlit candle on his desk.

"Just in case," she says. Her face is tired and shadowed, but just for an instant, and he wonders what this means to her, what he would lightly term as his Fall From Grace.

"You'd think it's about time something would go right," he says.

She looks at him with surprise. "It has," she says. "Maybe not peace-on-earth-right, but you're alive. I'm alive. The world isn't ending around us. In my book, that's a good thing."

The optimism is startling, her faith in the positivity of survival blinding. "A good thing," he says. There is a crash outside the window; lightning bleaches the room for a millisecond. He realizes that it is dark and it is raining, a thrum against the windows and abandoned asphalt hundreds of feet below.

"Yeah," she says. "Means there's a chance."

"Thought I'm supposed to be the optimist," he says.

"You've been slacking," she says. Her tone is not mock-stern and coy; it is honest, deep and raw.

"Oh."

"It's okay," she says. "You've got time to make up for it."

"I do," he says and he knows, though he doesn't understand why, that he's telling the truth.

"Alive," she repeats, and her hands are warm on his shoulderblades, tracing hieroglyphics through the weave of his sweater, searing the skin beneath. He turns, catches her hands and pulls her down to him, presses her mouth to his as his fingers catch in the strands of her hair. Her eyes are black and liquid as she moves onto him, muscle and bone radiating the forgotten heat of stars, and when she leans back, he smiles, traces the delicate line from mouth to ear, brushes her hair out of her face.

"Alive," he says, seeing a flash of red as he speaks. Blood, the glint of a knife and the ringing post-explosion silence. Death is heavy in the air and she kisses him to dispel the images, the pads of her fingers weaving new words and new stories onto his skin. The future, and the past, and the utterly human aspect of what he has done.

This is, she says. This is being alive.

When they are done, her breath slows with real sleep, calm exhalations that hold more promises than can ever be fulfilled. Light the colour of honey spills through the window and as he closes his eyes, feels the rise and fall of her ribcage beneath his splayed fingers, he thinks that he would kill for this woman. He has, and he would again. There is survival and there is life, and he will learn the difference; she will teach him.

-

The End.