Working Title: Hungry Eyes
Author: Kristin, aka KiaraAlexisKlay
Rating: PG (yeah, shocker there!)
Pairing: Max/Alec
A/n: This has been on my computer a long time, I finally finished it, yeah it could be better, but I am so honestly a M/A shipper and this is some angsty/fluff so enjoy! I'd like to dedicate this fic to my buddy Northernmoon, who even though she hasn't updated she isn't forgoten!
Disclaimer: Dark Angel belongs to Fox, James Cameron, and Charles Eglee. The song is copywrited to Bryan Adams and his people.
Hungry Eyes
Crash was as loud as ever and Alec resisted the usual urge to wince as the piercing music irritated his ears, which were more sensitive and fine-tuned than an Ordinaries.
Picking up a mug of beer and a bottle of Scotch –his usual- he made his way through the packed floor toward the back where the wire-cast iron tables and chairs sat, the practical assigned seating for Max and her crew.
The one and only Original Interference was there –aka Original Cindy- and the wiry build of Mr. Calvin Simon Theodore, aka Sketchy. Sketchy was in his normal partial drunk, partial drugged up state, and he was casing the joint for any available females he hadn't already been rejected by.
Alec gave a snort that was unheard over the raucous music. The day Sketchy actually found a hot girl who'd take him was the day that… Max would actually smile at him and mean it.
Speaking of which…where was she? Alec craned his neck around, casting his eyes about for the fiery brunette who almost non-stop was on his case. It wasn't that he didn't deserve it; hell, even he admitted that a lot of what she said was true. It was just that, it was an almost continuous anathema toward him, and he truly wondered why she was so combative toward him.
She didn't seem all that bad with others…it was just him she seemed unable to truly be civil to. And it drove him wild.
"Baby boo, over here! Jest the man I wanted to see! I was getting' thirsty and you don't keep Original Cindy parched!"
Alec had to smile. The African Queen was a force to be reckoned with for an Ordinary, and he considered her one of his closest friends, despite her tough chica attitude.
'She could give Maxie girl a few pointers on being Miss Congeniality' he thought in disdain.
"I live to serve beautiful women just as yourself!" he put his trademark smirk and cockiness on like a cloak. Her Royal Originalness just shook her head, not fooled for a moment.
"You best watch it Baby Boo or Original Cindy going to teach you a thing or two about us all girls batters," she mocked him, grinning to take the sting out of her words.
Alec set the drinks down on the table, shaking his head as Sketchy immediately grabbed the pitcher and set about pouring his umpteenth glass, and sat down on one of two empty seats around the little table.
He poured himself some Scotch, and leaned back, looking the crowd over. There were lots of pretty ladies out tonight, but he wasn't truly looking at them.
"Boo, she ain't here, said she be late again."
"I didn't say anything," Alec defended himself, but the Nubian Queen just raised one dark eyebrow, and her eyes flicked toward the beautiful gal by the pool tables who'd been giving her some major eye contact the past half hour she been there.
"Mmm…she look nice," she commented, and Alec didn't hear, his eyes were focused on the woman stalking through Crash's doors at that moment.
Max Guevara, former genetically engineered supersoldier escapee, X5-452, and the bane and reason for his existence. He didn't know how he got to be on her permanent shit list, and he didn't know how to make it up to her. She was completely out of his experience with women; he didn't know what to make of her. She was most definitely not like other women, or even other female transgenics for that matter. She was an enigma wrapped in a self-depreciating bubble that it seemed no one, not even herself, could break past.
Her long dark hair reached toward her waist, and her clothing seemed to match the darkness that seemed to swirl about and suck her in. Tonight she wore tight leather-esque pants that laced up the side of her legs, baring that caramel colored skin to the world, cut low.
There was a band of skin separating the pants from the ebony colored sleeveless tee that looked like it was made of something stretchier and looser than cotton. It was a-line cut and hugged her to perfection.
She wore one of her favorite leather jackets, the one he'd first seen her in when they got into that fiasco with the X-6s and White, with the zip up sleeves. Her hands and wrists were adorned with the fingerless bikers gloves that he'd often seen her with and had inspired him to buy some of his own.
He had to admit…she was one fine tranny sister, to quote O.C. Alec did nothing but watch as she glided toward them, her walk the ultimate mix of feline grace, dancer's precision, and predator. There was no denying it, and Alec felt his stomach give a funky lurch as she came.
"Hey," her customary greeting rang out, and she threw herself into the spare chair, grabbing an empty mug and the beer pitcher, topping it off.
"Hey," he answered back quietly, earning him an arched brow and cocked head.
"Hey, Max, what took you so long?" Sketchy asked, already almost out of his drink.
"Had to drop by a friends before I came. I'm here now."
The Latino beauty shrugged her shoulders, taking a drag of her beer, and leaning back in her chair with a soft sigh that was almost indiscernible.
"Oh, beer has never tasted so fine," she licked the remaining moisture off her lips, a motion that interested Alec far too much for his liking.
As much as he hated to admit it, but he found himself liking the difficult transgenic the more he hung around to bug her. There were a few times when he swore she liked him-as a friend anyway- or was genuinely amused at one of his jokes. But just as quickly, that flash of humanity vanished, only to be replaced by a wall and security system to do Manticore proud.
He guessed it started the moment he caught sight of her in the courtyard at the Seattle facility, going through re-indoc and the hell for being recaptured by trainers and fellow transgenics alike. Then he was only curious, indifferent toward one of the blasted 09ers that had made his life hell by getting him sent to Psy-Ops…twice. The third time had been his own fault.
"So what's been going on with King Sketchy?" Max asked blandly, one hand tapping away idly on her beer mug.
Alec had never recalled seeing her this relaxed…. except once, when big Brother Zack had made his appearance. According to reports from O.C and Sketch, this was how Max used to be. Before her second trip home to Manticore. Before him.
Alec frowned and downed his Scotch, reaching for the bottle to pour him another one. The action didn't go unnoticed by Max, who merely glanced at the shot and him, then turned back to Sketch all in a matter of seconds.
As Sketchy started in on his day –which Alec had heard and witnessed numerous times- he let his mind wander back through the months, observing Max and O.C interact with Sketch.
When Alec had been summoned to Director Renfro's office, he had been more than a little apprehensive. It had been a while, and the last time he'd been anywhere near this place was before…before he'd FUBARed the Berrisford mission.
Director Renfro was not one of his favorite people. She wasn't even a lust object, which said something of her character and work ethic, and Alec despised her with a passion, knowing that the sentiment was shared by anyone in contact with her. She didn't deserve to be in a position of authority over a project as prestigious or confidential as the Manticore Chimera project.
She literally held the life or death of all the transgenics in the facility in her grasp and she knew it. That made her arrogant and difficult to get along with, as well her colleagues and subordinates and anyone unlucky enough to know her found out.
The bottle blonde director had told Alec that he, X5R-494 had successfully completed the major part of re-indoctrination and was now going to be assigned a special mission based on his incredible genetic compatibility.
Now, Alec was not stupid. He'd been training for missions his entire life, and he'd performed four very successful missions, and had only failed once, on his first long-term mission. So he knew how mission briefings went. This was the first time that he'd heard he was going to be assigned a mission 'based on his incredible genetic compatibility'.
It was then he was informed of the breeding program. Of course, he'd known that two of the 09er escapees had been caught after blowing up the only active and operational cloning facility in the United States, but he had not known that this was going to be the alternative.
'You are still considered a risk for long term field work, 494,' she had informed him coldly and without a shred or mercy or pity. 'And therefore your value as a viable weapon has been diminished. However…great quantities of time, training, and millions of dollars worth of research and development have gone into your creation and it would be a waste to dispose of you just yet. There is one long-term mission so to speak that you are qualified in. You will be paired off to breed with one of the female transgenics, and copulate every night until your partner's successful impregnation. Do you understand this mission?'
And so Alec's first assignment since his failed Berrisford mission was to be a human 'stud'. It had to be cruel irony that his assigned breeding partner was one of the captured escapees: X5-452.
Entering into her cell that night, seeing her stand there, first in shocked hope, then in irritation as he informed her of their mission had forever changed him. She was attractive, he knew, they all were. But her personality –and boy was there ever personality- made her stand out from all other females, and she intrigued him.
Then she had to hurt his ego, and wounded, he'd lashed out at her. That set the tone for their later relationship, and Alec couldn't help but wonder what they would be –friends, lovers even - if he'd only kept that ego of his down and responded differently.
It seemed that ever since then, she'd been permanently pissed off at him, with some brief respites, but pissed off nonetheless.
But despite all this negativity on their relationship-if it could be called that- Alec found himself thinking more and more of the spitfire brunette sitting across from him. It was something that had been growing inside of him; compounded by all the different situations they found themselves in together.
Such as the X6 gig, or stealing the baseball (okay, so he'd been trying to steal it from her, no harm in that), or Gill Girl and that stupid Gossamer or any of the other times he and Max went up against White and his cult buddies and made it to another day.
Even their constant bickering, it was like a something in him strove to have contact with her, even if it was yelling and hitting and arguing, or just plain annoying her. It both frightened and excited Alec, and he didn't know what to do.
This being Max and his life, it was nothing short of Rubix cube complicated. First off, there was the little thing concerning the virus. Now, that wasn't his fault: he hadn't even been told about the virus until right before they sent him to her cell the night she escaped again. He was following orders, and he figured that he'd be bringing her and Eyes Only back to Manticore no problems, virus bitch taken care of. How wrong he was.
How was he to know that little miss 452 had an Ordinary honey who was the country's most sought after cyber terrorist in this post Pulse world and that Manticore wanted him bad? It wasn't like he set about this on purpose for a personal vendetta.
Second thing that whole business when White had captured him after his Monty Cora fight. When he'd been forced to kill other transgenics for their barcodes with a freaking bomb implanted in his skull on a timer. Okay, so he tried to kill Joshua, and then her…but he didn't, couldn't go through with it. Was that something to hold over a guy who's just trying to make up for all the wrong's he committed?
Alec sighed, as he thought of good old reason number three, the big enchilada. Max and Logan, Mr. Eyes Only, were a 'we're not like that not even dating but romantically involved' item. And he would never make a move on another guy's girl. He had more character than that, despite what some believe.
I've been meaning to tell you
I've got this feelin' that won't subside
I look at you and I fantasize
You're mine tonight
Now I've got you in my sights
With these hungry eyes
One look at you and I can't disguise
I've got hungry eyes
I feel the magic between you and I
Max glanced over at Alec from the corner of her eye, discreetly observing him. He looked lost in thought, and if the slight tension at the edge of his eyes or the unconscious clenching of his jaw was any indication, they weren't pleasant. He had that brooding look that she'd seen all too often on both him and Ben so she knew to leave him well enough alone.
She had to admit to herself that she found the male transgenic attractive, on more than one level. It had been a long time coming, but Max had finally sat on the Space Needle as she often did, and thought really long and hard about herself and those around her. She didn't like what she had become within the past year and a half, ever since that day in the woods…when she killed Ben. Since that day, she recognized that something in her had died, or at least been seriously repressed as only a Manticorian could, something vital that had made the world less. Less intimidating, less depressing, less hopeless, less bleak. Just less.
And she missed that. She missed the nights leaping over the rooftops, the adrenaline rush after pulling some heist and the finagling over the price her loot would bring on the black market; she missed challenging and racing anything with wheels that dared think it was better than her baby. Of being able to blow Logan's Eyes Only missions off without too much guilt and having fun, or taking a little 'extra' if she'd found something to fence while on a job. Of dancing on the bar or hanging out with O.C. and Sketchy at the bike ramp or the park.
But most of all, she missed how she had connected with the rest of the world. Yeah, she'd known she was different, but she had reveled in that difference and in doing so was freer than at any other point in her life.
She had also come to terms with the realization that Logan and her, romantic wise, was a joke, a cruel ironic fairy tale whose only ending could lead to heartache, which already had. Max had decided she wasn't going to live like that, living in what could have and should have been, and wanted to return to a simpler time. She wasn't fool enough to believe all her problems would disappear, just…get prioritized.
Alec deserved better than what she had been giving him. She had forgotten what it was like, to be thrust into the outside world, when all you ever knew was Duty, Mission, Objective, Soldier. Alec had adapted so well that at times she forgot it had only been a few short months ago that he had been in Manticore, training, and being tortured for having normal human emotions.
She'd also forgotten what it had been like to have a pair of hazel eyes looking at her so intensely, or those lips twitch up in an oh-so-familiar smirk that had both haunted and comforted her for years.
Simply put, Ben and Alec both vexed her. She admitted it to herself that Ben had always been more than a brother to her, even when they were children. She had opened her innermost heart and consciously acknowledged that he had been the 'sibling' that she had most wanted to find, and when she did, how it hurt her so to have been faced with what she had found.
Why did it have to be Ben, who had held my heart and my body so close, to have had to come to what it did?
In killing Ben she killed an important part of herself. She had grieved for Ben, for the man he had chosen to become, and the boy he no longer was. For the love she had held inside for so long, and the dying of dreams and conceptions.
Then along came Alec. Seeing him come into her cell that day had shaken her far more than she had ever thought possible. She had been hopeful, wary, and fearful– she had after all killed Ben- and the thought this might have been Ben had her holding her breath.
But even before he spoke or did anything other than just stare at her she knew it wasn't Ben. He didn't smell like Ben for one, and for another, that mocking, carefree mask was a look that Ben hadn't worn ever since the night of Jack's death and he had come back from Psy-Ops.
The second death was like a blow and she had lashed out the only way she could: with anger, with coldness, with a bitchy vengeance even as part of her cried out that he would be just as dangerous to her heart as his twin Ben had. And she didn't want that. She didn't want to go through another round of endless nights and heats dreaming of golden tinged hazel eyes and strong, masculine arms holding her, of the musky scent blending cat and man and freshly moist earth after the rain and home.
That was why Alec bothered her so much. That was why she tried to push him away, because she knew, knew, that it would be so easy to care for him. To guide him, support him, to love him. So she flung herself into the whole, not-like-that-non-relationship with Logan and practically ruined that.
Not that there hadn't been other factors in her life that contributed. She did after all, see at least three, maybe four, of her pseudo siblings die, either directly or indirectly thanks to her within weeks of each other, died and underwent major surgery for the heart transplant and the repair of whatever chemical imbalance created the seizures. On top of all that, she underwent extreme emotional, physical, psychological, and drug induced training and re-indoctrination at the one place that she despised the most, which had had an effect on her heat cycle, she hadn't had a heat in several months but she was wary for it just the same. It was coming and when it did it was going to blow up and Max was tired of waiting for it to pop up.
Added on top of all that a foreign virus had been forced into her, with at least three different times it flared up or was in contact with something of Logan's, all that time in his apartment around things of his, had really done a number on her. It was no wonder she was depressed, bitchy, and more anti-social than usual even for her.
But despite everything, Alec wormed his way inside. She'd known he was sensitive and caring under that bad boy exterior – she'd been in love with his twin, some things were similar and clear to her- but she had attacked him there, as if in doing so, she could deny what was true. A futile effort, it just served to nearly alienate him and lose herself in the process.
Soon she saw him not just as Ben's twin, but also as Alec, and when she did, she found herself falling for another set of hazel eyes, and this time it had nothing to do with Ben. Which scared her silly.
But now she was determined not to make the same mistakes, and was willing to rectify previous ones. She wanted to try and make amends, but wasn't sure how she would be received. Max knew it would serve her right if he never wanted to talk to her or told her to shove it where the sun don't shine, but she knew he wouldn't. Because, like his brother, he wasn't a really bad guy. And therein lay his dangerous edge.
I wanna hold you so hear me out
I wanna show you what love's all about
Darlin' tonight
Now I've got you in my sights
With these hungry eyes
One look at you and I can't disguise
I've got hungry eyes
I feel the magic between you and I
I've got hungry eyes
Now I've got you in my sights
With those hungry eyes
Now did I take you by surprise
I need you to see
This love was meant to be
Alec was aware of a tingly feeling along the side facing Max and he wondered. Was Max actually checking him out? She was! He didn't know how to react to that. Any number of smart aleck remarks came to mind, but he quashed them hurriedly. If Max was checking him out, he didn't want to spook her. He wanted to show her he could be someone steady and dependable and he would savor every moment.
"So how was your friend, Max?" Sketch asked, and Alec tuned back into the conversation.
"He's good. A bit of recluse, but that's not really his fault. The world kinda scares him," Max spoke softer than usual and Alec's 'spider sense' was tingling.
As much as he hated to admit it, but he'd become something of a connoisseur of Max's moods, even in the short time that he'd known her, and their co-workers often looked to him for whatever it was they thought he could do with this special insight in the world of Max. He was fascinated with her, had studied her avidly, and could tell at a glance if she was happy, sad, bitchy, or mad. This introspective Max was one he hadn't seen often, only in glimpses on the Space Needle talking of her family, or occasionally whilst interacting with Sketch and O.C.
"The world's a scary place," Alec agreed just as quietly, even though he knew Max would probably jump down his throat for interrupting her.
"Yes, it is," she just gave him a smile in a side-ways glance, and Alec was hooked. Curiosity, cats, and all. He decided to see how far his luck held.
"Especially when you try so hard to deny important parts of yourself from everyone around you."
Max's raised brow told him she got the oblique reference and understood this wasn't just any ordinary conversation. She met his gaze and he found himself stunned as he received one of her rare grins.
"Especially then."
Were her eyes sparkling at him with mischief? His own eyes darkened and he knew by the way her breath hitched that she was responding.
"Sometimes, a person does something, something that scares them so bad that they retreat into a stereotype, into someone else's expectations rather than forging onward in their own mold. It's safer that way," she continued, her voice still soft.
And who's stereotype have you been following? Alec thought, as he found he couldn't tear his eyes away from hers, and turned himself so he was facing her.
I've got hungry eyes
One look at you and I can't disguise
I've got hungry eyes
I feel the magic between you and I
I've got hungry eyes
Now I've got you in my sights
With those hungry eyes
Now did I take you by surprise
With my hungry eyes
I need...
Hungry eyes
Now I've got you in my sights
With my hungry eyes
"The safest way isn't always the right way," Alec was saying and Max felt her heart thump erratically. "Sometimes the safest way does more damage in the long run than if you'd taken the path that was rougher and unknown."
Alec's eyes seemed to glow gold around the edges and Max knew she was being sucked in, but for once, she didn't care.
"But if the safe way isn't always right, and the unknown path is so rough and uncertain…why go at it alone? If there's no one to be beside you through it all, what's the point?" she asked him.
O.C. and Sketch were quiet; even they could sense there was more going on tonight then a simple conversation. Rising slowly, original Cindy motioned for Sketchy to follow, and they left for the foosball table where they could give the two some privacy but still keep an eye on them.
"The neat thing is about life is you don't have to go at it alone," Alec replied, eyes boring into Max's.
"Sometimes you don't have a choice," she fairly whispered, unable to look away, heart in her gaze.
"There's always a choice," he cut her excuse off at the base, somewhat harshly, but oddly gentle at the same time.
"Not always for me," she admitted even as she inched closer.
"Then how about changing that? Take charge, carpe diem, don't go down without a fight."
"I'm so tired of fighting, Alec."
Their mouths hovered in close proximity, and Alec reached a hand to cup her chin, tilting it slightly up. Max's eyes closed at the contact, and she unconsciously nuzzled into the hand holding her.
"Then let me fight for you."
"I'm so scared."
"Of what?"
Closer, ever so closer, the gap was receding, each breathing in the other.
"Letting go. Losing control. Bad things happen when I do."
"Trust me?"
Alec was softly pleading and Max didn't have the strength or will to deny him any longer.
"I do…"
The words were barely spoken before they joined together in a kiss that spoke a thousand words, told a story of survival, and released shared sorrow, pain, joy, and happiness.
-Finis-