A/N: I haven't written in a logn while, and I couldn't wrap myself around this prompt. I just really needed to get past 'brick'. I didn't know what else to write about. Sorry. Hope you still like this.
Disclaimer: Dark Angel, not mine.
BRICK
"Well?" A pair of brilliant green eyes moved from one stiff figure to another. Jade pursed her lips in expectation, but her question was greeted with stony silence from both parties. She sighed heavily. This was going to take a while.
She looked at Max first. Dark gold-brown eyes only stared coldly back at her. Max's full lips pulled from a pout into a thin line, a clear indication that she wasn't going to be the first one to talk. Everything about Max screamed defensiveness: arms crossed tightly over her chest, shoulders stiff and straight, legs crossed, with one foot tapping impatiently against the leg of the coffee table in front of her.
Jade suppressed another long-suffering sigh.
She transferred her gaze towards Alec. His expression was more relaxed, but no more open than Max's was. His hazel-green eyes were carefully blank, his face a mask of tolerant boredom. He was slouched in his chair, both arms on the armrests, fingers tapping a silent song only he could hear. His long legs stretched in front of him and under the coffee table. Everything about him spoke of disinterest.
"How am I supposed to help you if neither of you want to cooperate?"
"Who said we even needed help?" huffed Max, an edge of irritation at her voice. She looked at Jade disdainfully. The red-haired transgenic only returned her gaze levelly, not backing down from the staring contest. Max twisted her full lips into a grimace.
This morning, she and Alec had walked into HQ and were immediately surrounded by Joshua, Mole, Dix, Wolf and Chase. They had not-so-politely requested that she and Alec see Jade. For counseling.
She had balked at first. But then Chase had called it "couple's therapy," and she had agreed just so he would shut up.
"I can't believe I actually showed up to this little session. This is all your fault." She glared at Alec beside her.
Alec grimaced. "My fault?" he scoffed. He pulled himself up a little straighter and took a deep breath. "How is it my fault that we're in couple's therapy?"
"Let's not call this that!" she snapped. "And I'm talking about last night's heist."
Alec rolled his eyes at her. "Oh, so it's my fault that you dropped the package?"
Max narrowed her eyes at him. "I did not drop the package, I had to release the cargo hold because you didn't secure the perimeter!"
"The perimeter was impossible to secure!" Alec sighed. "I may be a genetically engineered piece of awesomeness, but one of me cannot have secured the entire cryogenics lab. But you know, if you had allowed the X6's to come with us, we might have had more manpower to do the job."
"They are not ready!"
"And the other X5's?" he drawled.
"They were all needed here in TC!" snapped Max.
"And all the other transgenics?"
She narrowed her eyes at him and bared her teeth.
He grinned at her reaction. "I get it, Maxie," he said, leaning back into his seat. "You have trust issues."
Max couldn't help the small growl that escaped her lips. "I have trust issues?" she bit out. "I'm not the one who's tomcattin' all over TC."
Alec threw her an incredulous look. "What are you talking about?" He threw a pleading look at Jade, "This is not part of this session, right? Tell her this is not a conversation we are having."
Jade sighed heavily at both of them. "Max, Alec is right—"
"See? I'm right." Alec interjected, for which he received a swift kick on the shin from Jade. "Ow!"
"Do not interrupt me while I'm speaking."
Alec pouted. "Aw, c'mon, Jade, I was reinforcing your statement."
"Oh, Alec, just shut up!" Max reached over and slapped him over the side of the head. Then she turned impatient eyes towards Jade and stood up. "Are we done here?"
Jade pursed full pink lips at the two transgenics. "That's enough! Sit down, Max!"
Max fell back into her seat, startled by the tone in her voice.
"Look, both of you are here not just because the last supply run went sideways. You're here because in the last five missions you two have been on, something has gone wrong."
Alec leaned his head against the back of the couch. "Not my fault."
Max frowned, but ignored Alec's automatic comment. Come to think of it, Jade was right. Something had gone sideways on the last few missions. Correction: the last few missions where she and Alec were the point men. She sagged into her seat and bit her lower lip. She couldn't figure out why, though. They were both transgenics, highly-trained, street smart, faster, stronger, and better than any other technology out there. Why would they screw up?
"Because you're also human," whispered Jade, her green eyes shining intently as she peered into Max's dark, troubled eyes.
Alec scoffed audibly. "Thanks for the newsflash, Jade," he bit out sarcastically.
"You're part-human, which makes you susceptible to the human condition."
They both stared blankly at her. She sighed. "You know, like…feelings?"
"What!"
"No!"
Jade cocked an interested eyebrow at the both of them. Max was sitting even straighter, more defensive than before. Alec was now looking away, not meeting her eyes.
"We're actually here to talk about…feelings?" Max said, disdain dripping from her tone. "Well, you know what, I feel like this is a waste of time." Then she plastered a falsely bright smile on her face.
Jade threw Max a warning look, "Listen, both of you, the guys requested that you two see me, right? Do you know what I can do?"
Jade literally saw Alec's eyes shutter so that he seemed to be staring intently at something, yet seeing absolutely nothing. "Psy Ops," he murmured coldly, his voice a whisper of ice. His glazed hazel eyes bore into hers. "You were in Psy Ops, 594."
Jade set her jaw tightly. She got this often. She understood that as a Psy Ops operative, all the transgenics would always look at her with cold suspicion. Most of the time, everyone treated her with light camaraderie. But when it really came down to how they felt about her, Jade knew she and her fellow Psy Ops transgenics would always be a smaller class within a class.
"That's right," she confirmed unflinchingly. "Do you know what I specialize in?"
"Asking stupid questions?" drawled Max, her beautiful face also dark and stony.
"Psychometry," continued Jade, ignoring Max. "This means I can figure out what's going on with a single touch."
Max set her lips into a straight line. She remembered Psy Ops. It was her home for almost three months after her recapture; it was where she was reindoctrinated. She remembered the torture. She remembered how they tried to make her forget her identity so that only her designation and the orders of Manticore remained. She had hated Psy Ops and everything it represented: an invasion into her identity. An invasion into her being. Unwelcome. Unwanted. Just plain Evil.
She looked over towards Alec. His handsome face was a stone mask. His profile was tense, his lips pressed so tightly together they were a bloodless white line. He had a tick in his jaw that told her he was grinding his teeth together. "No." he stated coldly.
Jade's flashing green eyes were unsympathetic. "Alec, I understand that you were sent to Psy Ops countless times—"
"Twelve."
"What?"
Icy hazel eyes were turned on Jade. "Don't lie, Jade. You know I was sent there twelve times. Each time worse than the last."
Max gasped. Her experiences with Psy Ops had been the worst. What had kept her alive was the knowledge that they could never take the time she had spent outside of Manticore away from her. She had always believed that Manticore would be destroyed.
What had kept Alec sane all those times?
"Surprised, Maxie?" he drawled coldly. "Didn't think I had what it took?"
Max had never seen Alec look so awful. Oh, he was still the handsome super soldier designed by Manticore's finest geneticists, but it wasn't his features that were terrifying. His hazel eyes were completely lifeless. It was like looking into the eyes of a soldier who'd died in battle. Max never noticed how his face was all about the geometric perfection of angles and planes: his cheekbones stood stark as he clenched his teeth, his jaw was straight and strong, completely unyielding. The hard lines of his brow were completely smoothed of expression. His face had lost all the softness of the charming smiles he threw around carelessly. The eyes had lost the twinkle of a joke he always kept to himself. The lips weren't shaped into a smirk. This was not the Alec that Max knew.
This Alec was as hard and unyielding as a brick wall.
It must have taken years for him to build that wall. Each brick laid just right to protect him from the horrors of Psy Ops. Maybe to protect him from everything that Manticore made him do. Maybe to protect the person that he was inside.
Nobody was getting in through that brick wall. Least of all Jade.
Max's expression softened. "That's not what—" Max pursed her lips, knowing that if she tried to even explain what was running through her mind right now, she'd just mess it all up. Maybe they'd end up fighting like they always did.
And then it dawned on Max. They fought because well, they were both brick walls. Neither one of them would ever let the other through. They fought because at some point or another, something became personal…and when it came to personal, no one got in.
Max looked away quickly from Alec, a small lump in her throat.
She knew why things got personal for her. She had known for a while now.
The twinkle in his eye, the soft smirk on his lips, the way he smiled. They were personal to her. The short barks of laughter, the way he grinned in amusement, the small almost-dimple on his cheek. They got to her. Especially when he would accidentally brush his hand against hers, and an instant electrical jolt would run through her system. Or when she would recognize the scent of him anywhere, and could feel the heat from his long lean body as he stood next to her.
He was personal to her. And well, that made her defensive. It made her put up the perimeter walls. It was all too personal. He was too close to breaking down the walls.
And so she fought him. She had to make things less nice. Because nice was breaking down her walls. She closed her eyes and counted backwards from ten. She needed to get a grip. The way things were going, her walls were turning into mush. If Jade asked more questions, she would figure out.
Max gritted her teeth and steeled herself. Feelings were weakness. They made it hurt when the people you loved left or died. It made it hurt when you were always the one left behind. So, no…there would be no more talk about feelings.
She took a deep breath and looked at Jade with an inscrutable expression. "I think I'm gonna go. We all know that you wouldn't dare threaten us with Psy Ops tactics. Like you said, Jade, we're human, too. And as a human, it pretty much is my prerogative to walk outta here." With that, she got out of her seat and started to make her way across the room to the door.
She could feel their eyes on her trying to bore through her, as if they could somehow read the answers written on the back of her head.
She turned around and looked directly at Alec. His expression was a flat mask of polite confusion. She was sure hers mirrored the flatness and politeness, too. "I promise to play nice," she stated. "If you do."
He narrowed his eyes suspiciously at her, but nodded slowly. "Sure."
Max looked at Jade, her head tilted almost arrogantly. "K, problem solved. Happy now?"
But she didn't wait for an answer. She turned on her heel and left the room as quickly as she could, each step of the way slowly rebuilding the walls that had slowly broken down in the small room.
Jade stared after Max's rapidly retreating back for a moment before turning to look at Alec. He was wearing a slight smirk on his face. There was no sign of the angry young soldier on his face at all. "Now you see what I have to put up with?" he grinned. "All that pent-up anger."
Jade stared at him searchingly. Alec blinked, pretending a speck of dust had gotten into his eye. He hated those searching looks, like there was something more he should be saying, some kind of answer tattooed on his head.
"I think we're all angry, Alec," sighed Jade. "The question is, what are we angry about?"
He cocked an eyebrow at her. "That's real deep, Doc," he drawled sarcastically.
She leaned forward towards him and gave him another one of those damned searching looks. "Are you angry that she won't let you in? Or are you angrier that you don't know how to let her in, too?"
Alec narrowed his eyes in warning. "You have no idea what you're talking about," he scoffed. "I'm sure that if you keep throwing crazy ideas out there, you'll eventually find the right one. I'm just not sticking around for any more of them."
He got up and smiled at her. She stood up, too and took a step towards him.
Then she tripped.
Without thinking he automatically reached over and caught her effortlessly in his arms. Her hand grabbed on to his bicep, as if to steady herself.
Then he froze. He almost dropped her onto the ground. Instead he put her on her feet and pushed her so hard that she fell back against her seat with a thud. "That was a dirty trick, 594," he growled. He was furious, but he knew it was futile. He was sure she had caught a glimpse of that last thought. He had thrown up a wall as fast as he could…but he knew it was too late.
Jade smiled at him. "You know, 494, loving her isn't such a bad thing."
Alec stared at her, his expression both angry and sad at the same time. "Do you remember the last time I loved a girl, Jade? You were there weren't you?"
Jade looked away, suddenly ashamed. "I'm sorry, Alec…I…almost forgot."
"I will never forget. That's why she will never know. Do you understand?"
"Don't worry. I can keep secrets, too."
Alec sighed heavily. "I need her to not know," he said softly, his eyes haunted and scared. He was so still yet his eyes looked like they were watching—reliving a memory. He stopped breathing for a moment.
Jade peered into his face, "Alec, are you all right?"
And just like that a mask slipped onto his handsome face, he breathed in deeply once, then looked at her. A twinkle in his eye, a smirk on his lips, "I'm always alright, Jade," he grinned. Then with a wink, he turned around and walked out the door.