A/N: Yours truly was crying a river of happy tears with a side dish of rainbows and unicorns – which only happens at the viewing of Alek hotness or Chalek action – after she checked her inbox after just 5 hours of posting this story on the 26th. Then she wore this very goofy grin on her face for these past few days thanks to all of the reviews and alerts. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I had no idea someone would actually like this story.
[SPOILER FOR EPISODE 7] OMG, THE KISS. –squeals like the teen she used to be- I DIED THERE. (and so did my Tumblr and Livejournal after I flooded them with Chalek goodness) And then came back to life to post this. God, absolutely FLAWLESS episode. Amazing plot with a very nice twist, some good action, character development and fan service. Though it was hard to watch Alek getting his ass kicked. I winced a couple of times.
I hope you enjoy this much longer chapter. My treat for not updating sooner. I can have serious writer's block from time to time. And tend to write a whole chapter in small parts at a time.
Not Enough
Chapter 2
Chloe and Alek finished their breakfast in silence. Once done, they cleaned their plates and looked at each other awkwardly.
"So…" Chloe started, hoping her Mai protector had any idea of where to go from there. Alek simply crossed his arms, waiting on her. "You're really going to stay with me all day?"
"Yes."
"And are you sure you won't get bored?"
"I've told you: I'm here by choice… meaning, I know how boring you are and what I'm getting into."
"I'm not boring!" Chloe objected, slapping him on the arm. Smirking, Alek strutted from the kitchen to the living room falling gracefully into the couch just like he had weeks ago on her bed… before her mother caught him laying there.
"We can watch a movie, maybe. So I won't be so bored by you."
"Very funny Alek. DVDs are under the TV; choose whichever you like. I'll get the ice cream."
Looking up from his spot on the couch, he saw the young girl opening the freezer. Moving towards the TV he started to browse the DVD collection.
"Ice cream with a movie? Isn't that for depressed girls with broken hearts?" Not hearing an answer, the blond looked up and saw Chloe glaring at him, hands on her hips. "My bad, my bad. I'll try to find a happy movie just for you."
In the end, they ended up watching some romantic comedy that Alek had never seen – because he would never get caught watching a chick movie – and sharing the ice cream tub Chloe had picked up. They had started the movie sitting apart – one on each end of the couch – but somehow Chloe had gravitated to Alek's side and seemed to lean towards his right shoulder a bit. He was sure five more minutes and she was resting her head on him.
And she did.
One movie became two, three and four. Around lunch time and after their second movie, Alek surprised Chloe once more by cooking lunch. Trying not to think about why he would even trouble himself like he was, the blonde girl accepted her plate with a smile and had to contain a moan of satisfaction. All because seeing her protector's smirk grow bigger wasn't exactly the best idea; she wouldn't want to be the cause of his death by inflated ego. No sir.
After lunch came movie three and four, one of them being a more action type so Alek would stop his moaning about not being able to endure more chick flicks.
"Chloe?" Alek's British accent called from somewhere close to Chloe. She mumbled, nuzzling her face into one of his legs. Somehow, and neither of them knew how exactly, the girl had ended up using her protector's lap as a pillow for her head. Not that he minded; he knew she just couldn't help herself.
The blond male Mai rolled his eyes and pulled his protégé's hair a little too hard causing her to wake up from her catnap on his lap and yelp, not amused.
"Couldn't you just wake me up?"
"I called you, you didn't answer. This was easier." The boy smirked, easily masking the disappointment in not having Chloe so close to him anymore. "You're supposed to go to work in… ten minutes."
"Crap!" Chloe cursed, getting up from her seat on the couch, turning off the DVD player and running upstairs as quickly as possible to get dressed for work. Finding a decent outfit to wear, she was about to change when she noticed Alek had followed her. "Would you stop with the stalkerish moves? I'm really not amused by them."
"Oh, you know you love me, King."
"You wish, Petrov." There was a staring match between the two until Chloe realized she was wasting precious time. "Just get out. I need to change or I'll arrive late. Again."
Smirking, the blond protector left the bedroom, closing the door. Rolling her eyes at his cockish behavior, Chloe changed clothes as fast as she could. When she left her bedroom she crashed right into Alek's chest. A very muscular one from what she could gather.
"If you really wanted to get this close to me, you could have asked. I'm always available for some closeness." The charming British accent sounded very close to her ears and before she felt more affected by it, Chloe took a step back and quirked an eyebrow at her fellow Mai.
"I don't doubt that."
"I'm hurt." Alek mockingly said causing Chloe to roll her eyes and walk down the hall to climb down the stairs. "Hey, want to race to the shop?"
Chloe looked back at him, cocking her head to the side, curiosity written all over her face.
"As in rooftop racing?"
"That very kind, yes."
Suddenly, Chloe grinned in this unusual way and Alek knew right away she was plotting something. Of the 'I'm-going-to-make-you-regret-it' kind.
"Let's make a bet. Whoever wins gets a rain check."
"A rain check?" The blond boy asked, puzzled. Chloe had to admit he looked rather cute when absolutely out of the loop. "For what?"
"Anything. At any time."
"Why do I feel like I'm going to regret this?"
"You're just being a chicken." Chloe answered, knowing that he would not tolerate having his honor spoiled like that. She climbed down the stairs and walked right before the door, hearing Alek's footsteps behind her.
"We'll see who is the chicken, Chloe King." He whispered close to her ear before opening the door, letting her out first.
Closing the door behind him Alek locked eyes with his protégé, then glanced rapidly to the alley where he usually climbed up to get to her roof and, when he saw her nod, the two flashed into a run for it.
When reaching the destination, they jumped on to the closed dumpster and climbed up to the roof with Alek always letting Chloe go first, making her wonder if he was letting her win their race. When they both go to the top they locked gazes once more.
"One."
"Two."
"Three!" The blond boy exclaimed and they both started their race.
They were neck to neck, jumping over rooftops ignoring everything around them and letting their true nature out. They were Mai and needed to let themselves feel what being Mai meant. This racing contest of theirs was nothing but an exposure of their traits and Alek's way to, little by little, awaken more of Chloe's Mai heritage. She needed to come to facts with it, to stop ignoring who she truly was. And maybe, he wished, she would realize that it also meant living and loving those like her. Like him.
"Cheater!"
"What? I won fair and square!" Chloe gasped, immediately glaring at Alek for accusing her of such.
They were walking up to the Vintage shop and Alek was, for lack of a better word, sulking. In his own cockish 'I'm-not-sulking' kind of way.
He had lost. To Chloe King. His protégé-slash-student. She had obviously cheated. That had got to be it. He was Alek Petrov; he didn't lose. Ever. Much less to a recently awakened Mai. Who was actually the Uniter of their race but that was beside the point.
"You did."
"How would that even be possible? We were neck to neck, Alek. I just got a lucky break and got here first." Chloe stopped and looked back to him, hands on her hips.
Alek had to admit the upset look looked good on her. Even when it was directed to him. She looked very much like a lioness ready to pounce. Very Mai of her… and very appealing too.
"You distracted me, of course." He answered, crossing his arms and making his muscles more prominent which distracted Chloe herself for a second. Eye candy was eye candy, no matter if it was an obnoxious cocky Brit guy who lived to torment her.
"I distracted you? You're such a sore loser!"
"I am not–"
"Excuse me to meddle into your obvious flirtation but I would like my employee to start working. Now." Lana Jacobs interrupted them, leaning on the open door of her shop.
Blushing like a red beet, Chloe smiled apologetically to Lana and glared at Alek saying under her breath 'I'm going to get you for this' knowing he could hear it with his Mai abilities. Turning her back from his cocky, smirking face, Chloe entered the shop and followed Lana to the counter where the older woman crossed her arms and frowned at her.
"I'm sorry?" The blond girl half-smiled, trying her best to really look like she was sorry. Which she was. It was all Alek's fault, really.
"Chloe… you're a great girl and I owe you for helping me out with Jesse but you really have to start setting your priorities straight or I might just reconsider letting you work here." Lana said in a tired tone of voice. "You either arrive here very late or keep getting distracted by your friends and… boyfriends."
"Alek is not my boyfriend!"
Lana raised an eyebrow.
"And that other boy? The kitty hat one?"
Chloe closed her mouth shut, a look of anguish in her face. Lana, seeing this, easily dropped out the argument realizing she had crossed some invisible boundary she shouldn't have.
"I have this new shipment at the back that needs to be tagged and put in the right shelves. Can you get started on that?" The shop manager half-smiled at the blonde teenager who gladly took that to save herself from even having to think about Brian.
It was too soon.
All of her shift, Chloe had felt a pair of eyes following her every move. She was already used to that feeling and was satisfied Alek kept his distance from her and didn't even come to annoy her like other times. He seemed to understand that Lana hadn't been joking when she mentioned reconsidering Chloe's second chance at the job.
There was this sudden warmness in her chest at the thought of Alek actually caring and being considerate of her. True, he was her protector – one of two actually – and it was his duty to look out for her and preserve the remaining lives she had but, at the same time, it felt good knowing he might even care for her outside the whole Mai protector thing.
Sure, Alek was too cocky and had that bad boy sort of vibe going on but she knew that he was much more than that. That there was a side to him that not many hadn't seen because, for whatever reason – maybe his parents' deaths, Chloe thought –, he had hidden it from others. She was sure she had seen glimpses of it on few occasions but the one that she could easily recall had been during breakfast that morning when he had confessed he wasn't happy for her situation with Brian, that if she felt sad he felt exactly the same. Why, she had really no idea. Alek Petrov was a tricky mystery to solve.
"Chloe?"
Her name being called took her out of her musings and she turned to whoever had called her. The two pieces of clothing she had in her hands fell to the floor.
Brian.
"Hi." He said looking – and probably feeling – a little out of place.
"Um… hi."
Picking up the clothes from the floor, Chloe was hit with a strong wave of mixed feelings – anger, protectiveness and… jealously? –, all coming from the same person who was definitely not Brian.
"Look, could I talk to you? In private?" The dark-haired college student asked Chloe and even without her empathy hits she could easily hear a certain desperation in his voice. It wouldn't be that that would make her change her decision.
"I'm sorry Brian but my decision was final."
"But Chloe! Can't you rethink it? Please?"
Feeling the tears close to well up in her eyes, the blond girl shook her head negatively, turning her back to him to walk to the counter. Suddenly, she felt a hand around one of her wrists pulling her in the other direction.
"If I were you I would take your hand off of her right now." A British accented voice almost hissed the threat just like a cat feeling his territory threatened and quite ready to pounce on the perpetrator which Alek looked quite close to do when Chloe turned around.
Surprised at the intervention of this stranger but feeling himself in danger due to his overwhelmingly dangerous presence, Brian let go of Chloe and took a step back.
"I just wanted to talk to her, not that you have anything to do with it." He told and he could see the blond guy's fists clenching hard until his knuckles turned white. Brian was sure he would be no match to this six something feet tall and rather muscled stranger.
"Brian… just leave. Please." Chloe begged him, her hand going to Alek's left arm as if to stop him from acting on his impulses. He seemed to ease off a bit from her touch and she really thought he was acting very much like a cat at that moment, calming down at a gentle human's touch.
At that moment, she saw something on Brian's face: realization.
"He's with you?"
"I-I can explain–"
"Yes, she's with me." Alek interrupted Chloe, chin held high and a smirk on his face. The anger and jealously easily wore off from his aura to give space to this feeling the blonde girl could only explain as pride. If she didn't know better she would say he was staking his claim at the moment. Stupid, cocky bastard.
Brian looked furious all of the sudden, looking from Chloe to Alek. Taking one last look at her, he left the store banging the door with such force on the way out that it called the attention of Lana who had been at the back.
"Chloe, is everything alright?" The shop manager asked, eyeing Alek. Chloe faked a smile.
"Everything's fine. Let me just say a word to my friend here and I'll go back to work."
Lana looked suspicious but nodded. Still with that fake smile on her face, Chloe pulled Alek further into the store, out of Lana's hearing reach.
"Are you insane?" She whispered with a scowl on her face. "Do you have any idea of what you did?"
"I protected you from that human. He was hurting you and no one hurts you under my watch."
For a brief second Chloe saw Alek's eyes shifting into cat slits then back to normal; the anger was back. She had never seen him like this, so out of control.
"I can defend myself, Alek!"
"But you don't need to while I'm here. I'm your protector." He hissed and Chloe felt a strange shiver from head to toe. This… overprotective behavior of Alek was having a strange effect on her, making her feel both protected and like she belonged. To what she wasn't sure.
"Being my protector doesn't mean you can go all caveman on me." The Mai girl refuted, crossing her arms. "I'm not yours to claim, Alek."
To her shock, her protector calmed down and smiled. Not a smirk but an actual smile. He caught a loose strand of her hair and twirled it on his fingers.
"There is a lot you don't know about us Mai, Chloe. One of them is that, when we feel deep down in our heart, our soul, that we could give our life for another Mai… a claim is made. You'll have to accept that I don't give up so easily. Much less on something like your heart."
And he left the shop, leaving one shocked teenage girl trying to wrap all that information in her head.
End of chapter 2
A/N: Is it obvious I like overprotective and territorial Alek? :) I have a plan for this written on my notebook which is currently laying somewhere in the "jungle" I call bedroom; I have the next 5 chapters roughly drawn out. There are things I feel the need to address because that hasn't been done on the show yet and since I keep speculating about them… I'm adding my two cents (if you have any suggestions, I'll be happy to take them in account). Also… I'm not sure about how this will follow the next episodes. I've read the spoilers for all of them and I might mention a thing here and there but I feel like making this its own story. Even though I like (more like fangirl love) how they went with the last episode. Suggestions anyone?
For those waiting for the Chalek action… I'm waiting with you on that anxiously. But, as a writer of many years and lover of a good, realistic and emotion-filled plot… We're all going to have to wait for it. I know… I'm not amused either and have wanted to smack myself for it. Hope you liked it and keep coming for more. :) Now I'll be going to watch that flawless Chalek episode again. Because they belong together.