Disclaimer: Believe me, if I owned Dark Angel, I would be doing some very naughty things to Alec instead of writing this.
A/N: This is my first DA fic, and the first thing that I have really written in more than three years. Thus, it has not been betaed. You can thank a broken bike chain for inspiring me to write something at last. I'm actually begging for reviews, as they may determine whether or not I continue to write. Constructive criticism is encouraged.
Grease
Three weeks.
Max went exactly three weeks before she snapped. Three weeks of nonstop work as the self-appointed leader of an oppressed mutant community. Three weeks of fruitless peace talks and fighting just to survive. For twenty-one days she shut off her emotions, running on the soldier mode that times of crisis required. On day twenty-two, though, she reached the end of her metaphorical rope. Already consumed with thoughts of the deplorable housing situation and the food shortage, a young X-6 had run up to her, dutifully relaying the news that the medical unit was running dangerously low on tryptophan.
And Max realized that she'd had it.
She needed to get away, needed some sort of a release, if only for a few hours. When she felt like this, she thought as she unceremoniously shoved the confused X-6 out of the way, there was only one thing to do.
Most people have a specific way of relieving their inner turmoil. Some clean compulsively, some exercise, some gorge on food. Max Guevera was no exception: when the going got tough, she got to work on her Ninja. And considering the monsoon of emotion constantly raging within her, Max's bike was damn near perfect in every way. She spent hour after hour tinkering here and there, adding new parts to make it go faster, turn sharper, ride smoother. From the inside out, it personified superiority. It was the goddamn transgenic of motorcycles.
Max loved her bike, only in part because of the release it provided. In truth, she loved the bike itself. The Ninja was an extension of her soul, and she yearned for it with the animalism that had been installed in her genes. It awoke the parts of herself that she kept locked deep inside most of the day, the parts she both loved and feared. She could never decide whether to pity Ordinaries for never getting to experience such wild delight or to pity herself for being so fundamentally separated from the human race. All she knew with certainty was that she couldn't function without those moments where the lights of a broken city blurred until they were as formless and numerous as the stars and, for a few stolen moments, Max couldn't be sure if she was touching the ground at all.
And that's why Max found herself in a storage unit on the edge of the city that the transgenics had been using as a garage. Max had had her Ninja smuggled in not long after the siege began, but she hadn't had the chance to tend to it since. The last time she'd gone this lone without working on her bike, she'd been at Manticore. The thought made her shiver. Though it was filled with Manticore alumni, Max was determined not to let Terminal City become anything like her former home. Short of giving out flowers and frolicking with puppies, she was willing to do just about anything to make it the anti-Manticore.
Max spent only a few moments slinking between the various vehicles the community had acquired (most through less-than-honest means) before she spotted what she was looking for. In the corner of the unit, in all its dark glory, was her Ninja. Max barely suppressed the urge to throw her arms around the bike in greeting. For a moment she circled the bike, a predator cornering its prey, breathing deep in anticipation. She brushed her fingertips lightly against the Ninja's flawless black surface and gazed at her convoluted reflection in its obsidian depths. Strapped to the bike was a sizable satchel that contained Max's tools. Reverently, she grabbed the bag and unloaded it, lining its contents on the floor near the bike. She moved as if in slow motion, savoring every moment. She didn't know when she would get a chance to do this again.
As luck would have it, Max found a serious problem with her bike almost immediately. There was a sizable crack in her gas tank, and the puddle underneath the bike let her know that she was dealing with a leak. In another time, such damage might have sent Max into a rage. But today it simply made her smile. It would take a good chunk of time to patch this up, and that was exactly what she wanted.
Hours later Max finally crawled out from underneath the Ninja. Breathing deeply, she smelled the oil and gas and grease of the garage, letting the scents wash over her. It was her aromatherapy. Sensing the odor emanating from her person, Max suddenly remembered the consequences of her work. For with the sweet release of her bike came the grease. It coated the Ninja's gears and parts; it was its blood. There was no one without the other, and Max simply could not seek refuge in her baby's inner workings without getting covered in the stuff. She didn't mind it really. It had become a sort of second skin and, truth be told, a part of her loved the feel of its sticky warmth encasing her.
Tonight, though, something was wrong. As she surveyed her work, Max felt no rush, no release of her tensions. It felt as though all she had accomplished was to push all of her problems into a small corner of her being, so that they strained mercilessly against the faltering dam she had erected. With a glance at the aluminum walls encasing her, she realized that there would be no speeding through the streets of Seattle to test her work. Those walls seemed to be moving closer to her, caging her in; she was trapped.
In an instant Max had blurred outside of the shed, leaning against its side as she tried to calm her suddenly erratic breathing. It was twilight now, and the last splashes of orange and red were giving way to darkness on the horizon. She let the cool evening air caress her skin. But somehow it was no comfort. Looking down, Max saw the reason—the grease. Her hands were completely covered in it, as if she was wearing a pair of black gloves, and irregular streaks coated her arms. Max breathing became more frantic as she fruitlessly wiped her hands on her jeans. It did no good. The same substance that so often comforted her suddenly felt like her own personal jail. As Max abandoned her attempts to wipe the blackness away, one thought burned in her mind; she had to get it off.
The tricky thing about grease, though, is that, once it's on, it doesn't come off without a fight. The patches that streaked Max's face and arms stained like a pigment, but with aggressive scrubbing they would disappear. The real trouble came with cleaning her hands. Try as she might, Max could never completely eradicate it from the fissures and creases, and she often sported black lines for days at a time. Sometimes she wondered if it ever really came off, or if she carried around microscopic bits of it with her as she interacted with hands that were grease-free.
No. Max would not accept that. Filled with this resolution, she blurred away from the shed, heading towards the heart of Terminal City. As she ran she did not hesitate in shoving the few roaming transgenics she met out of her way. Nor did she prevent herself from grabbing at railings and buildings as she turned, propelling herself forward with urgency. She didn't worry about staining the city with grease—it was filthy all on its own.
In only a few short minutes Max reached her pathetic excuse for an apartment. It was in a shabby building a few blocks from Command, and was one of the first places to get running water. Blurring into her bathroom, Max grabbed the dingy soap and blasted the water in the sink. The scrubbing began.
Max was only vaguely aware of her actions. Her thoughts began to stray, and she found herself remembering the first time Logan had seen her like this. She'd been installing an upgraded part in her bike when Logan called with urgent Eyes Only business. It seemed quite important, and Max was growing more and more comfortable with Logan, so she hopped on her newly improved Ninja and rode away without bothering to wash up.
"Good, you're here," he'd said as she entered his apartment. His eyes never left his computer screen. "Eyes Only needs someone to investigate a ring of drugs smugglers down at the—whoa!"
She remembered the look on his face when he caught sight of her. At first he seemed a bit taken aback by her appearance. Then, a slow smile spread across his face, the kind Max felt he would give a small child who'd been playing a bit too rambunctiously with finger-paint. Suddenly Max was acutely aware and self-conscious of her appearance. Having spent hours mingling her skin with the grease, followed by the numbing ride over, she'd forgotten just how filthy she really was. In fact, she'd become somewhat comfortable in her grimy second skin. Now she just wanted desperately to get rid of every trace of it.
Logan had directed Max towards his bathroom, carefully opening and shutting the door for her so she wouldn't have to touch the knob. She looked around at the pristine marble sink, the glistening gold faucet, the unbelievable spotlessness of it all.
No place should be this clean, she though bitterly, but she did not want to be the one to dirty it. She eyed the fluffy white towels, which, from the first time she had encountered one in the home of a kind stranger, she had always associated with untouchable perfection. Max had never felt so completely out of place at Logan's as she did in that moment. With the lightest touch possible, she turned on the faucet and began the impossible task of separating the grease from herself.
Truth be told, she had never really finished washing. Even now, in a dilapidated apartment in the city she had created, she was still scrubbing her tainted skin fruitlessly. She watched the water turn black and swirl in the sink, staining the cracked porcelain. For some reason, this made anger flail up inside her. The grease had claimed something else, something that was hers. She'd be damned if she let it claim her too. Fuming, she scrubbed that much harder as she allowed herself to return to her memories.
After that first experience at Logan's, Max had always tried to wash the grease away before visiting him. But of course, she could never completely eradicate it. It remained, black and blatant in the cracks of her hands, a part of her. She and Logan developed and unspoken agreement to ignore the grimy streaks, but from time to time she would catch the way his eyes flicked to her hands, or to a spot near her hairline she'd missed in the shower. Logan usually smiled lightly, as if he found the grease endearing, or as if it somehow affirmed his own bohemian image of himself. Max usually scowled, getting the distinct impression of condescension, however unintentional it may have been.
Max had never wanted to touch Logan's things, afraid that she would soil his possessions. Later, after the virus, she still hadn't wanted to touch anything of his, fearing that she'd leave behind some piece of herself that would pounce on him with the animal instinct infused in her cells. In more ways than one, the secret pieces of Max had always kept the two apart.
Max's hands were growing red and raw under the constant siege of soap, but she didn't lessen her efforts. She could see where the grease rested in the lines of her knuckles and the bends of her fingertips. It was locked into her prints like Manticore's recipe for a killer was locked into her DNA. It was in her very identity.
At some point Max's hands had gone numb under the frigid water, but she couldn't bring herself to stop. The rhythmic movements of lathering and rinsing, scrubbing and scraping filled her. Vaguely she knew that she was teetering on the edge of something, and as long as she kept washing, she couldn't fall.
Distracted as she was, even Max's transgenic senses didn't recognize the intruder's approach. It wasn't until she heard an anger-tinged voice that she realized she was no longer alone.
"Max, there you are! Where the hell have you been? You missed the staff meeting that, by the way, you called! You know, the meeting that you said if I was late for you'd kick my—Max?"
Max had nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of his voice, and was now staring at him, open-mouthed. Alec stood in the doorway of her bathroom, filled with righteous resentment that he was waiting for her to explain away. The problem was that she couldn't think of a single thing to say. All her energy was consumed with trying to keep herself from plummeting off the edge. She couldn't lose it, not in front of Alec. Alec, who was her smart-ass ex-breeding partner, who had screwed her life to hell in so many ways. Alec, who had become her co-worker, her partner-in-crime, her friend. Alec, who had somehow convinced the residents of TC to look past Max's '09er status and give her a chance to earn their respect. Alec, who had blue towels.
And suddenly Max was falling.
"It—it won't come off!" she choked out in a half-sob, raising her soiled hands for Alec to see. Immediately, his posture shifted, the anger draining from him as concern blossomed. His eyes questioned her as he stepped into the bathroom, taking her icy hands in his.
They both noticed that her skin was vibrant red and starting to break open. Max almost wished that the cracks on her hands would open completely—maybe her "super blood" would be enough to free her from the black lines. Or maybe the grease would simply mingle with her blood, etching itself in her DNA forever.
Alec sighed, suddenly realizing what the problem was. "Been sneaking off to see your bike, I see," he said lightly, though his voice was devoid of any real humor. "Yeah, grease can be a bitch."
Max didn't know whether to laugh or to hit him. She tried to give him her best withering stare instead. The tears pooling in her eyes, though, lessoned the effect dramatically, and Alec could to see right through her crumbled mask
"Hey, it's okay," Alec said gently, taking in her distress. He didn't ask why she was having such an inappropriate reaction to a little grease, and for that Max was grateful. He simply rubbed her hands with his, donating some of his warmth to ease her pain.
Max didn't know how long they stood like that, him caressing her hands gently while they both gazed anywhere but at each other. They were still transgenics, and vulnerability made them endlessly uncomfortable. Finally, when her skin had dried from the air and the contact, Alec released her. Max let her gaze fall to her hands, if only to avoid his eyes. What she saw made her freeze once more.
Though she could still make out the lines of grease imbedded in her skin, Max was astounded to find them faded, gray instead of brutal black. They were broken in places, seeming more like weak patches than the prison bars they had been. Without thinking, Max grabbed Alec's hands, bringing his palms almost to her face.
"Hey! What are you doing?" he asked, realizing even as she spoke that he would not get an answer. For whatever reason, Max needed to examine his hands without interruption.
Max stared at his fingertips, slightly disbelieving. His gentle rubbing did what her harsh scrubbing could not; as if magnetically drawn to the oils of his skin, some of the grease had lifted from her fingers to his. He too sported the faded gray patches she bore. Max dropped his hands just as suddenly as she had seized them, her shoulders sagging. All the pressure, all the panic she had felt since she'd worked on her bike flowed out of her. She felt light, finally experiencing the release that had evaded her. A smile lit her face as she came to a beautiful realization.
The grease didn't obscure her, as she knew Logan had always believed. It wasn't a barrier like the gloves she was forced to wear to work and in his presence. Now, Max knew that it did just the opposite—it had stripped her of her false pretenses, allowing the world to see more of her than it ever had before. She wasn't the normal, average girl she aspired to be for so long. In all her efforts to live a normal life, she had been a ignoring a vital part of herself. It was primal and it wasn't always pretty, but Max was beginning to realize that it was still her. She looked briefly around her bathroom in her apartment in her city before raising her chocolate eyes to meet Alec's hazel ones. It was still them.
"You alright, Maxie?" Alec questioned cautiously, unsure of what change had just occurred in his fearless leader. Despite herself, her grim broadened at the use of the nickname, and she simply nodded her head to let him know she was okay.
"Good," he said, relaxing back into his usual, joking self. Max didn't miss the glimmer that returned to his hazel eyes, or the smirk that began to appear on his face. "'Cause y'a know, Maxie," he continued, playfully slinging his arm around her shoulder, "it's okay to be a little dirty."
Without missing a beat, Max threw his arm off of her and smacked him lightly in the back of his head. "You're such an ass," she replied with a smirk of her own, unable to muster any genuine anger.
"Oh, so when I say 'dirty,' you immediately think of my ass. You know, a therapist would have a field day with your word associations."
Max simply walked past him, hoping he didn't see the smile she was unable to contain. "C'mon!" she called over her shoulder. "We've got a meeting to get to!"
They walked out of the apartment together, right past the table that Max's black gloves rested on. She didn't even look in their direction, determined to face the world without them for the first time. True, the grease was still a part of her. And the tryptopan shortage and housing crisis and doubting transgenics still waited for her. But something was different now. Somehow, she realized as she felt Alec's hand on the small of her back, guiding her gently, it didn't seem quite so overwhelming.
Hope you liked it! Please review and let me know.