A/N: Thanks to all the reviewers! Melissa, PurpleSpinx (thanks for the plethora!), src13, ariana, wrenbailey (I agree! mwaha... ahem), Nic (flail!), p3karen, Chica, and Michelle Amethyst!
K is a cute twist of one of the most prominent fanon ideas in DA; I wanted to shake things up a bit. Why do guys always have to react to Heat? Plus, I like this one 'cuz I think I made Max do the smartest thing I've ever had her do in any of my stories. You'll see what I mean.
L is book!verse. There's no fixin' book!verse, I could only soften the blow. Eh, I like where I ended it. Anyway, book!verse is too retarded, too nauseating... If you get the vague sense of tongue-in-cheek in some areas, ignore it, I couldn't help it, 'cuz that's how ridiculous I find the books. FF . Net doesn't allow links (even removes FF . Net from documents if you don't have the spaces in there) but clean up the spaces and try this one. www. tv. com /dark-angel/ show/ 36/ the-books/ topic/ 152-529859/ msgs.html? tagboardtopics;title;4 (WARNING: Summary of books. Completely spoilerish and highly nauseating)
K is for Kill
Rated M
"Max," Alec blinked. "Why are you handcuffed to your bed?"
Max glared at him, but lookin' dignified was out, what with the way she was kinda stuck here. "Why do you think, idiot? What are you even doing here? I told you to watch T.C. while I was indisposed." Her hands were clenching and unclenching in the handcuffs. And it wasn't from embarrassment or anger, even though Alec did look pretty chuffed.
Okay, maybe a little bit was anger. What the hell was so funny?
Maybe it was just Manticore's ultimate joke; making females go into Heat in the first place. Making, so far as they could tell, males without the necessary pheromone receptors to recognize, much less react, to it; except for in a normal, male, ohmigod-there's-a-lusty-female-coming-on-to-me-yay sort of way. Ha ha, very funny.
Okay, yeah, maybe it wasn't all bad news, because that meant they hadn't had to deal with too many Heat-fueled fights, any big huge, animalistic, bloody brawls, except for when very normal human lust and jealousy arose. Hey, I had my eye on her first, and we went to lunch a few months ago, so her comin' on to you don't mean Jack, pal… except it kind of did because females seemed to pick ahead of time, almost instinctually, who'd they be convincing to come home with 'em; kinda like her n' Eric, her n' Rafer… So, yeah, feelings could get hurt and macho males could get to fighting over it, but that wasn't the same thing as being animalistically driven to mate. Guys didn't know how easy they had it. It just wasn't fair.
Anyway, male trannies didn't really react to Heat, except in a childish way, but still, she didn't want to make an ass of herself in Command either; throwing herself at anything that moved until her instincts guided her to that one perfect mistake. Which is why she'd taken herself off the roster; why she'd told Alec to watch over T.C. for her the last couple of days. Maybe she should have told him why she was taking the weekend off, maybe he wouldn't have stopped by.
"Oh jeez, you're in Heat?" Alec laughed. His eyes moved appreciatively, caressingly, down her form, the black tank top stickin' to her ribs, the pajama pants clinging to her legs. "That explains why you're so sweaty."
"Shut up," She whined. And smiled at the end, wiggling on the bed. "And come here,"
Alec blinked. Then smirked, leaning back, his hands digging into his pockets. "No way, I'm not letting you talk me into your bed,"
"Then what are you even doing here?" Her eyes were moving across his shoulders, down his lean form.
"Meh. My pipes 're still busted," He shrugged. "Can I borrow your shower?"
She was still smirking and Alec's eyebrow's rose into his hairline, his hands comin' out of his pockets, as her voice descended into a sultry purr. "What am I going to get out of it?"
It was just too easy.
His shirt came off his body in one fluid motion and her mouth went dry and half-hearted wiggling turned into a needy kind of writhing. Worse, when his hands flicked at the button of his jeans, his pants just barely hanging onto his lean hips. She made a little whimper and that, coupled with the way she was moving, the sweat on her flushed skin, made Alec's entire body tighten. Maybe teasing her wasn't such a good idea after all…
"What do you get?" He asked, smiling slowly, evilly. "Absolutely nothing," There was only a hint of vindictive glee there (payback for all those times she'd made a face when someone brought up his good looks. Ha, wasn't implyin' he was ugly now, was she?), and he shot her a wink before turning and sauntering off.
"I'm going to kill you!" She shouted at his lean, gorgeous, toned back as he disappeared into her bathroom with a disbelieving snort.
Or maybe she'd kill herself, she thought, her head dropping back into the pillows, her mind clearing a bit now that his beautiful skin, glorious muscles, had been taken away from her. God. Droolin' over Alec's fantastic body. What was she thinking? Okay, so maybe she still wasn't thinkin' too clearly.
Clear thinking or no, she'd glance back up in surprise when she heard the shower turn on, heard the spray of water hit the tub's bottom. Guess shutting the bathroom door was a non-issue when she was chained to the bed and couldn't see anything anyway. She whimpered. But oh god, she could just imagine…
His jeans pooling on the floor, nothin' but tight skin and muscle (in Max's mental imagery, underwear was strictly unnecessary) and a body that men would kill for, that women would kill to possess. Maybe he'd preen a bit, because he was good looking and he knew it, but more likely he'd be all brisk efficiency and step immediately into the-
The sound of the water's spray pelting against the tub's bottom changed to that tell-tale sound of water hitting skin, wickedly attacking her sensitive ears, and Max's mouth couldn't make up its mind on whether to salivate or go completely dry at the new mental images that blossomed. Droplets collecting around those lips, sliding down his neck, pooling in his collarbone. The spray of water, cascading around broad shoulders, down a defined chest, a perfect abdomen... Oh man, there's no way this could get worse.
"Max, where's your regular soap?" Alec called. "All you have is this stupid foamy stuff." She could almost hear his shrug. "Oh well."
Oh. My. God.
Frantic straining did nothing, the handcuffs didn't break. Her head turned and she stared desperately at the key on the floor near the window, the key she'd kicked off the bed so she wouldn't be able to get to it. Willed it to sprout legs and help a sister out while a man was all soapy. It just sat there, glinting dully, evilly, in the waning light of the setting sun. Alec started whistling, ignorant of her desperation, and she decided it would most def be a murder-suicide as her struggling finally stilled… She could be patient. She had to be patient. She could bide her time.
No she couldn't.
She started struggling once more.
Alec stepped out of her bathroom a torturous fifteen minutes later. Only his loose jeans were huggin' his hips and his bare toes were pressing into her carpet. The only thing he was wearing on his upper body was a dampness that made him positively lickable and a towel slung around his neck, collecting the last of the water run off from his wet, spiked hair. God, the reality was so much worse than any mental image she could have conjured.
Her thighs were rubbing together now. Trying to contain the ache. Her wrists were red from the straining, and when she arched, hands clutching at that short steel chain, it caught his eye and made Alec frown.
"Jesus, is it really that bad?" Alec asked, crossing the room, getting a better look at her red wrists. Manticore had kept Heat pretty hush hush, it probably embarrassed them a bit, so it shamed him to say he didn't know much about Estrus. Usually he liked to know everything 'bout everything.
Max didn't notice his ignorance anyway.
Yeees. That's it, Pretty Boy. Just a little bit closer. Come to Maxie.
"You have no idea," Max made a face, her voice surprisingly calm given all the physical turmoil she was under.
But rather than placing him at ease, her neutral voice seemed to put Alec a little on edge and he backed up a few steps. No! He was goin' in the wrong direction! Her mind raced in a strange combination of anxiety and calm as she quickly thought of every way to get him to stay. She went for the most direct.
"Alec, can you do me a favor?" She stalled his retreat with a question.
"Sure thing, Max," But his face looked doubtful.
"Can you get me that key over there?" She smiled at him, her eyes darting helpfully to the small handcuff key on the floor. "I accidentally kicked it off the bed earlier," She explained with a small little shrug. But he wasn't biting. Crap. She hadn't made her voice too sweet had she?
Alec was shakin' his head in amusement at her sugary sweet, totally anti-Max, tone. "No way, Max. Can't have you wanderin' around T.C. when you're like this. Not everyone is as discriminating as I am."
Her eyes narrowed, his words like a bucket of ice water, and she fell still on the bed. "What's that supposed to mean?" She demanded, her voice going back to its customary harshness. What, she wasn't good enough for him?
His eyes glanced over sweaty skin, the slight moisture there between her breasts, her arms handcuffed to the iron of her headboard. She was like a pornographer's fondest dream and it made Alec shake his head ruefully once more. "I'm just sayin', not every trannie is a good guy."
"Pfft, like you are," She glanced away, losing interest in words as her body distracted her again.
His eyes were still on her and the pull of his intense gaze had her turning her head back towards him. His voice was low; it crackled like electricity across her skin, moved like a fire through her belly. "You have no idea,"
Another whimper and the straining began again. "Al-lec."
It was dragged out of him, but it was one foot in front of the other and a small step in the right direction. "Ma-ax."
"I need you," She begged.
He fell still again, not even close enough for her to twist and scissor him with her legs, make him see what he was missing. "Ahh, Max, see that's how I know it's not you talking. You don't need anyone," The way he said it, it almost sounded like a compliment and her face, already flushed, pinked just a hair more. Her voice didn't show it, though, desperate as she was.
"You don't understand!"
He shrugged. Another small step, as he pulled the towel from around his neck and let it drop to the floor. Good. "Explain it to me." It was a low, commanding rumble and it made her mouth dry, made her insides ache.
"I… I…" Not the truth, no, if she gave him the truth, that she needed him, needed him inside, she'd never get out of these handcuffs. Quick, quick, lie.
"You?" He prompted, a wicked little smile on his devilishly handsome face.
"I… have to use the bathroom," She finally muttered darkly, glancing away.
He snorted and stared at her for a few moments, tryin' to gauge her sincerity. He finally shrugged and crossed to the window, bending over (Max bit the inside of her cheek) and picking up the handcuff key. "Maybe you shouldn't have chained yourself up to your bed then,"
Max relaxed her teeth and concentrated on doing her very best impression of not holding her breath, hoping he couldn't see her heart thudding in her throat, doing her best to keep her excitement out of her voice. "Cindy was supposed to be here already. She knows how to keep me in check. But she was sayin' that Normal fired two people, so I guess she had to work overtime." Max shrugged. Then added, whiny, "But I really gotta go, Alec."
Something within Alec told him not to trust her. But her eyes were wide, her face pained, and Heat or no, Max was too prudish to lie about something like having to pee.
"Promise not to go wandering the streets if I let you out?" He was eyeing her a little distrustfully, a little sternly, like a parent cautioning a wayward child that just couldn't do good. She coulda gotten angry, but he'd probably put the key back down and that'd never do.
"I promise," She smiled. Nope. Nosirree. No wandering for Max. She was going to stay right here… with him.
He leaned over her, reaching for the handcuffs, and she murmured and strained towards him and "Fuck," as the key slid out of normally sure fingers and bounced against her mattress. One hand grasping the bars, he leaned over her, making a grab for the key in the folds of the sheets she'd had to kick off, and Max almost died as a tight abdomen was suddenly hanging over her face. She whimpered. Stupid, traitorous hormones. His hands closed around the key and she was so close to freedom, so close to freely pouncing, but the need surged up and claimed her and she just needed to feel him, to taste him-
"Jesus!" Alec hissed, his knees falling inwards, hitting the edge of her bed, his hand steadying himself on her mattress as her hot tongue moved just above the rise of his jeans, against his abdomen. Really, at this point, he should be moving away from her as fast as he could, but he had a feeling if he let go of the headboard, tried to push out of his lean, he'd fall flat on his face and smother her. Probably because of the rapid redirection of blood.
"What are you doing?" He demanded instead, looking down, between his tight arms, looking at her torso, her neck, straining up towards him, her lips moving across his skin.
Her innocent, muffled "Nothin," might have been more believable if she hadn't said it around denim, her teeth hooking around his button to pull it free.
"Why don't I believe you?" Fucking hell, her teeth closed around his zipper and she was arching, trying to maneuver it sideways and down and he had to look up at the ceiling, away from the sight that was quite probably the most arousing thing he'd ever seen. Maybe this was the point that he should be moving away. But his limbs were heavy; all that liquid arousal running through his veins making his teeth clench, leaving him weak.
She didn't bother answerin' him, busy as she was rubbing her legs together, writhing a bit, nuzzling at the waistband of his jeans, pushing it slightly out of the way so her tongue could run the length of the material to his hip, leave a quick little bite there on bone. A reward for matchin' up with her fantasy and not wearin' any boxers.
And that was the last straw for Alec. Almost a year's worth of USTing culminating in this? "Okay, that's it." He straightened, finally releasing the headboard, his skin just out of the reach of her lips. She started protesting noisily, her head falling back into pillows, but fell silent in breathless anticipation as he reached over her. The click of the lock was like the gates of Heaven swinging open before her.
She didn't bother rubbing at her red wrists, just grabbed and pounced, attacking his neck with her mouth as muscled arms lifted her up and away from the bed. Her legs wrapped around his waist and it didn't occur to her to ask him where they were goin', 'cuz if he was there, she didn't care. Maybe she shoulda though.
Peeling her off his body would've proven too difficult, so Alec just stepped into the tub, unwrapped one arm from around her to reach forward, and turned the shower on full blast.
She screeched, almost a yowl, as the cold water hit her back, her claws digging into his back, further proof that she really was a cat. The sting of water, like a thousand little knives, brought her back to herself and her eyes widened in horror.
But she didn't let go of him.
"Ohmigod, Alec."
He shrugged, willing her not to make a big deal out of it. But he shifted her in his arms and didn't let go. "You're welcome."
They stared at each other for a few moments, the haze of hormones reduced for now. Watched the water collect on faces, on shoulders, on skin.
"Sooo…"
Max looked away. "Yeah."
Silence reigned, just for a moment.
Right before he slammed her back into the wall, his mouth devouring hers, and she started clawing at his back, trying to get him closer, trying to meld their skin together, get him inside.
"How's your hormones?" He asked against her mouth, doing his best to kick out of his heavy, sodden jeans, lifting them with a foot, letting them spill over the tub's rim, fall to the dry ground.
The icy water was a turn-off. The heat of his body, though, after not feelin' skin against her own for over a year… "Bearable,"
"Fantastic," He murmured, hardly paying attention, focused as he was on her sliding down his body, bare feet touchin' the cold water sluicing across the bottom of the tub, before she was shoving down those pajama bottoms. She straightened and her top was off shortly afterwards, Alec wasting no time in seizing the hem and lifting upwards.
Her leg hooked around his waist, and she was straining up on her one supporting leg, almost on her tip toes, and they gasped as one as his body pressed against hers; the wet heat that'd been gathering since he'd first walked in her room, the soft slickness that was almost decadent, the perfect symmetry to the hardness, the almost painful, hot rigidity.
"Tell me to stop," He grunted, and his hands slid down the wall at her sides, turned inwards and cupped her ass, drew her up and in, so close, in a motion that couldn't be anything other than teasing as he slid against her, just missing the completion she burned for. "You're in control now, Maxie. Tell me to stop," His head hung a bit, the top of his head pressing into the well next to her own, his eyes falling shut as he prepared to painfully pull away at this, the final moment.
And in that bitchy voice, so that he knew it was her, just her. "Don't be stupid, Alec."
That easy, commanding tone, that bitchiness… shouldn't have made his eyes clench, his teeth clench, but it was so Max and it was almost an automatic reaction to pull her up and surge forward, into her.
Perfect. Oh Jesus. Perfect.
He paused, hissing, his eyes clenched as he tried to calm his skyrocketing heart rate, as she tried to remember how to breathe, her eyes wide, staring unseeing at the ceiling, her hands clenching his shoulders. He tried to hold steady, his arms starting to tremble with the pain of non-movement, to give her time, them both time, as her body, unhappily man-free for over a year, happily adjusted to the difference. He couldn't help the little movements that started taking over. The small little thrusts. The slight rocking that drew those perfect little gasps from her. More, needed more of 'em, addictive, needy little breaths of air against his ear, and it had him drawing a little further out with each pass, pressing back in with just a little more force, almost jerking with the strain to control himself, keep it gentle. Maybe the animal in him didn't react to pheromones in an overt way. But this, heat and wet and fuck, this was definitely something it could react to. And she was starting to respond with more than just gasps, her arms wrapping around his shoulders as his movements were becoming more sure; longer, harder strokes. She was starting to rise up and come back down to meet him and she grunted and arched suddenly, her heels dug into the backs of his knees, and she slammed back down as he was thrusting in and fuck, fuck, fuck.
The year's worth of USTing took over and she was crying out his name and gentle just couldn't be a term in his vocabulary, not when she was begging him, not when her body was clenching around him, her hands fisting in his hair, her mouth capturing his, swallowing the snarls that were the embodiment of need.
It was an explosive fuck and it shook the wall and it was everything she'd ever thought it would be and it was oh god, right there, don't stop, please don't stop and it was-
"Oh my god, I'm blind!"
Max only had a moment to focus her eyes, to look over Alec's rocking shoulders, try and disassociate herself from the tension gathering between her legs like a hard, powerful burn, from the haze climbing up her body, sweeping towards her neck, but she musta been hearing things 'cuz there was no one there, and oh, it was still building despite the icy water that kept her mind clear and would be strong and consume her and wash everything away and-
The frying pan cracked across the back of Alec's head with enough force to roll his eyes back up into his head, make him collapse, boneless, and as he was holding her, she tumbled down with him, to the freezing, shallow water, gathered in the tub.
"You killed him," Max cried. Mostly in horror. But no, he was still breathing she noted in relief.
And part of her pouted; she'd been so close. She wiggled a bit, experimentally, but he was totally and one hundred percent out.
"You can thank me later," O.C. looked away from her friend's naked back, blushing a bit, still finding the ability, despite the eyeful she'd gotten, to purse her lips and roll her eyes.
Cindy stepped from the room, wisely saying nothing, to let her friend get decent. But Max knew she'd have some 'splainin' to do. It was almost painful to draw away from Alec, to separate from his cool skin. And it was cool now. Wow, that water was freezing. She frowned and bounced away from the spray, shutting it off with a glare. It took her a moment to collect herself, to finally step from the tub. She wrapped a towel around her own naked form and it wasn't too difficult to pull him from the tub, to maneuver him into her blue robe.
"Why ain't we throwin' his ass out in the street?" Cindy huffed as she helped Max deposit his deadweight on the bed. "He gonna just wake up and Kitty Cat is gonna come out to play once more and Cindy gonna have to bust another frying pan upside his-"
"Males don't react to Heat, least not in any discernable way that we've found so far," Max wouldn't look at Cindy as she lifted Alec's legs onto her bed and tried not to let her hands linger too long, definitely not to let 'em slide up into the robe while O.C. was watching. "You coulda asked us to stop and we probably… well… we might have been able to."
Cindy blinked, leaning back into her heels. Before she scowled. "You mean he ain't under hormonal duress?"
Max shrugged.
"Then why the hell ain't we throwin' his ass out in the street and shooting him?" Cindy demanded.
Max's face colored and she wouldn't look at her friend, wouldn't say anything.
"You awfully calm about this, boo," O.C. was frowning in suspicion now. Why wasn't Max horrified, and crying, and headin' out to borrow Mole's shotgun to use on Alec? She seemed collected enough, not nearly as crazed as when Cindy had left for work that morning after a long night of tellin' Max that no, she couldn't call Alec to pick up some take-out, or no, doesn't matter if Alec's pipes are busted, he wouldn't be needin' to use her shower, or no, Alec's shoulders weren't the most fascinating things on the face of the-
Come to think about it, O.C. frowned, there seemed to be kind of a theme there. But Cindy didn't know how to broach the subject delicately, didn't know how to ask if all that fiery fighting that Max and Alec did was, just as she'd suspected for a few months now, a cover for something just as hot.
She kept it general, safe, frowning at Max, chalking up her surprisingly 'okay-ness' to her long dry spell. "Max, how long it been since you had an itch scratched?"
"One year and three days," Max replied automatically. Like she'd been keeping count. Which she had.
"Damn," O.C. shook her head as Max turned and went to her dresser to grab some new clothes. "Original Cindy almost feels guilty 'bout popping Hot Boy upside the head now."
"Shut up," Max shook her head, a small smile on her face, but not payin' much attention as she drew soft material up under the towel, over languid limbs. Free from the cool water of the shower, the slow warmth was creeping back into her body, the hot blinding haze of hormones was creeping back over her mind, and by the time she was done dressing, it was all she could do to pull her heavy gaze from Alec's still form.
"I suppose this would be a bad time to mention that Logan was askin' 'bout you," O.C. said dryly, not missing the way Max was lookin' at Alec. And by askin' O.C. meant demandin' and bein' kind of annoying in general.
"Mmhmm," Max said dreamily, starting to creep forward a bit. Cindy snagged her by the back of one red spaghetti strap, ending Max's advance.
"C'mon, girl, let's go do some push-ups,"
"But I don't wanna," Max whined. "I wanna scratch."
O.C. snorted. "And Original Cindy got half a mind to let you. Year and three days." She shook her head in wonder before steeling her face. "But whatevah, c'mon, fifty push-ups, in the living room, now."
Max frowned and right before she was turning to leave suddenly turned and lunged for the bed, and Cindy started to protest, but her girl leaned right over Hot Boy and grabbed for something shiny… and before Cindy could even ask Max what she'd grabbed, she'd clicked a pair of handcuffs onto Alec's wrist, around one of the iron bars of the headboard.
"Max, what are you doing?!"
"Making sure he can't get to me," Max replied with a shrug, drawing away from him slowly.
"But you said he don't react to the pheromones!"
"Making sure I can't get to him, then." Max amended defensively.
"Are you sure?" O.C. demanded. "'Cuz it look like you makin' sure he can't get away. Where the hell is the key?"
"I dunno," Max lied, traipsing to the living room.
"Max, give me the key!" Her friend rushed at her, but Max dodged and booked it to an opened window and the little metallic bastard went straight out and into the darkening street. Cindy arrived just moments too soon and stared down at the street in dismay, her eyes unable to pick up the dull metal on the dirty ground three stories below.
Max leaned back into the wall next to the window, shrugging. "Guess you'll have to go find it,"
"Yeah, right, I'm not leaving you alone for a minute, probably try n' lock me out or something," Cindy turned back to glare at her friend.
Max scowled, and Cindy was gonna take that as a yes, that was totally what she'd been planning. Cindy frowned, her lips curling, as she pointed at the floor. Max relaxed with an unhappy sigh, dropping to the ground, starting to push out the fifty that Cindy had demanded of her, ignoring her friend's scowl on the back of her head and her own body begging for more, begging for the finish.
Begging for Alec.
Cindy stayed almost the entire night and couldn't get Max to fess up why she wasn't lettin' Alec go. Nor could she talk Max into tellin' her about what had happened, why and how she'd ended up with Hot Boy in a freezing cold shower, doing the dirty. Heat, duh… but still. Even if Alec was some kinda crazy mystical sex god, if the noises Cindy had heard when she'd first come into the apartment were any indication, Max shoulda seen the error of her ways by now. But it looked like O.C. wasn't gonna get any answers, and it was creepin' up on dawn and soon she'd have to go back home to get ready for another double shift at Jam Pony.
But she didn't know how ethical it was to leave Alec in Max's clutches. Max didn't have a phone, and had snuck away while Cindy was usin' the guest bathroom to hide Alec's, so Cindy didn't know how to call Logan, or Mole, or anyone else to come and rescue her male friend without having to leave the apartment and get locked out anyway. And she didn't know if she wanted to subject Max to that kind of embarrassment… Plus, she was sleepy and annoyed anyway, going on way too many hours of awake time, having spent two nights now keeping an eye on her girl. And this night had been even worse than the previous, with Max constantly trying to get to her boy. Cindy had finally ended up snagging a chair and putting it in the bedroom's doorway, flipping idly through a magazine as Max ran a gamut of every exercise the woman could think of.
All that work for no reason, 'cuz she had to leave soon anyway…
But there was something to be said of lost causes…
Especially when they were a substitute for a situation even more lost. Max's pager was goin' off again, and O.C. stopped to frown at it in the middle of trying to talk herself into not going to work. The thing had been goin' off almost all night. Logan never liked it when Max ignored his pages and O.C. never liked it when Logan... She made herself take a calming breath, telling herself that Max's decisions were Max's decisions and if Max wanted Logan like she said she wanted Logan, Original Cindy should be helpin' her girl out… But…
Cindy spent a hot minute arguin' with herself, tellin' herself she shouldn't be playin' Relationship God… but Alec hadn't exactly been an unwilling participant from what she'd seen and Max… well, she'd fixated pretty heavily on Alec to begin with… And Eyes Only… that cat sure knew how to work a nerve, callin' a sister while she was at work and demanding to know where Max was because he had to, in so many words, put her in the line of bullets for an expose that O.C. would never count as important as the life of her friend. Like her girl's life wasn't dangerous enough to begin with... O.C. finally turned and scowled at Max.
"Don't be scratchin' so hard that you both come up bloody on the other side of this bitch," O.C. frowned and finally made herself stomp out.
Yey.
"Aaalec," Max was smiling down at him.
Alec grunted, and tried to flop to his side, go back to sleep.
But he couldn't, because someone seemed to be sitting on him. And both of his arms were tingling, like they didn't have enough blood flow, and the back of his head hurt, and he finally, unhappily, opened his eyes and-
"What the fuck?" He glanced groggily up at his arms, attached to her bed, before focusing on her, straddling his hips, lookin' at him like a cat eyin' the open bird cage, the nearby fishbowl, the carton of milk, tipping precariously on the edge of the table. "Max?"
How had he gotten here? Why was she in her PJ's? Last thing he remembered was- His pupils expanded, his eyes nearly black.
Oh. Yeah. Last thing he remembered was fucking her against the wall of the shower, his whole world about to implode. He grunted, almost in pain, his head dropping back into pillows, shutting his eyes against the assaulting images.
Max murmured something appreciative, shoving the blue robe open and lookin' down at a smooth chest that made her want to squirm and did. She moved over top of him, and that with the memory of her heat; his body was reacting now, and maybe Heat did affect males a little bit, even humans react slightly to pheromones, but more n' likely it was just something he'd wanted for so long and so hard-
"You still here?" Max demanded when his eyes had stayed distant for too long. His gaze snapped back to her, where it belonged, and he smirked as he bucked up against her, making her gasp.
"Yeah,"
"Good," Her eyes reopened slowly as she steadied herself against him. She smiled slowly. "'Cuz I'd hate to have to kill you,"
He smirked right back, surprisingly okay with being handcuffed to Max's bed, to bein' moments away from the complete upheaval of the normal order of things. "Ah, but Max, little deaths are deaths of the best kind,"
She smiled slowly, leaning down into him, her expression almost predatory. "My thoughts exactly."
"Whatevah you do," Cindy sniffed into the phone when Logan was layin' on his own brand of charm later that day. "Don't ask about the handcuffs."
"What?" Logan demanded. But O.C. had hung up on him.
"Normal, I'm tired," Cindy pushed away from the payphone, turning the corner to scowl at her boss across the counter.
"Not my problem," Normal didn't even glance up.
"Should be, your boy kept me up all night," O.C. frowned. Normal dropped the clipboard, his eyes swinging up in horror and... jealousy? "I'm goin' home to sleep," She rolled her eyes when she noticed Sketchy starin' at her in the same undisguised shock, havin' overheard their conversation. Jeez, why men always assumin' a girl's gonna jump back to the straight n' narrow at any minute? Whatevah, she deposited the packages he'd tossed at her back on the counter and stomped out.
Max and Alec came into Command the next morning, arguing about a key or something, and it was hard, but Logan didn't ask about the two broken halves of the handcuffs, still connected to Alec's wrists like two sado-masochistic, silvery bracelets. It was probably good that he didn't ask. He had a feeling the answer could very well kill him.
L is for Lie
Rated T+ for language
It was a lie.
Their whole relationship.
He hadn't lied to her, no, he'd just neglected to mention the truth. Had kept it to himself. Everyone had supported him, had stood up for him. She'd left town for a few days, tried to wrap her head around it, tried to figure out how someone who loved her could keep that from her… And when she'd come back to Terminal City, when her mind was made up, everyone had shook their heads, had made her see the error of her ways. "Logan's a good guy," was the resounding theme there, "He didn't know how to tell her, he hadn't meant to cause Seth's death…"
Pen tapped paper. His mouth pressed into a thoughtful line.
They were right. It wasn't a lie…
It just wasn't the truth, either.
There is another kind of lie that floats through the world, something soft, something insidious. The lie of omission. A lie of the most powerful and worst kind. A lie that could build relationships, build over three years worth of feelings, of hope, could blind a girl to everything, her friends, her family, everything. Make her forget about them all. And she had, hadn't she? Given up on the one thing that used to be so important to her. She'd given up Zack for him, so long ago. Zack had been a threat, and because Max loved Logan, she had released Zack, released her family. She had released her righteous anger for the death of Seth for Logan. Because of a relationship, built on a lie, a lie of silence, she was giving up her family left and right.
Who else would Max sacrifice, for Logan's sake? If Alec were to ever look cross-eyed at Logan, he'd be gone in a heartbeat, and that guy had put up with more shit in the past two years than some people did in a lifetime. What about Joshua? He'd killed White… brutally… ripped his head clean from his shoulders, vengeance for Annie. If those large hands neared the dainty hairs of Logan Cale's neck, would it be Joshua, thrown from her life? Undoubtedly. Cindy and him? Well. They'd both been given up for Logan ages ago. Their time spent together had dwindled away to practically nothing once Max had met Eyes Only. She'd tried, though, kept up with 'em at work, and sometimes on the weekends, at Crash, but there was no denyin' she spent more time with Logan than she did with her supposed 'friends'. And once she'd left her job at Jam Pony, moved into T.C., she'd become kind of a non-entity in their lives, not that her track record before that had been too stellar.
It just didn't make any sense. How could a girl change so much in three years? How could someone so people oriented (she could bluster and bad-ass all she wanted, but she used to be all about family, and not just her Manticore family) become so fixated on only one man, and to hell with everyone else? A man that that had lied to her no less. Is that what love did? Create blind, forgiving fools? Dude. Count him out. How could she even stand it? How could she wake up to his face every morning, the face of a man that hadn't told her the truth?
Maybe it was easy. Maybe she'd had practice.
Her whole life was a lie, really, when you think about it.
The Apocalypse, the Comet, had come and gone. The Familiar's prophecies were wrong. The Comet was supposed to leak biotoxins into Earth's atmosphere. It was supposed to kill off all human life… But the Comet had passed and nothing had happened. Thousands of years of planning, of selective breeding…. for nothing. The creation of Manticore, to build toxin-resistant soldiers to cure humanity, to fight the Familiars… All of it was for nothing… She'd been created the perfect soldier for no reason. Their lives… her special purpose? It was all a big joke, she hadn't saved anybody. Okay, she'd led some transgenics against the Familiars, had killed the Cult leaders, rescued Logan, freed captured trannies… But even if Manticore hadn't been created, the Familiars wouldn't have succeeded in taking over the world without the help of the biotoxin… the toxin that never came…
What's it like, to realize your 'purpose' is a glimmer in the eye of a god that's laughing at you?
Another intake of breath, the smoke rushes down, fills lungs, makes the mind even more loose, more disjointed…
But Calvin "Sketchy" Theodore always has his best thoughts when he's toked out his mind. Really, he's already had these thoughts, already released them from pen to paper, finger to typewriter, and soon it would be sealed, signed, and delivered to his editor. It was his job to report the truth… and that's what he'd done. The whole truth, and nothing but the truth… so help him God, when Max sees it.
Not his fault. Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts, he giggled quietly to himself. It was the job of any upstanding journalist, such as himself, to pass on the truth. And he had; he'd written every nugget of truth, every kernel of actuality, hadn't sugar-coated any of the events that had happened in the last couple of weeks. How transgenics had 'saved the world', only they hadn't, not really, because the Apocalypse never came in the first place, which he helpfully pointed out in his article. He'd spent days interviewing everyone, finding out what happened. And the truth was Max's life was the biggest, and saddest, lie he's ever come across.
Her relationship was a lie. Her purpose was a lie. Hell, she'd lied to him, to the world, from day one, had to find out from Cindy what she n' Alec really were. In between bouts of feelin' kind of sorry for her, Calvin Theodore was a little bit disgusted. He'd thought better of her, but sometimes… Sometimes… Shoot, sometimes, Sketch thought that Max wouldn't know the truth if it was printed on the front page of a newspaper in bold, five inch type.
Which it would be, if his editor ever got his way…
Weekly World News… well, they weren't exactly the New York Post. They demanded sensationalism. They wanted the dirt. So he gave it to 'em. In his article, he told the truth, and in this case, the truth wasn't always pretty. She was tied to a man that didn't know what love was, surrounded by people she would abandon in an instant for a lie of a relationship, and her one special purpose had proven to be unnecessary…
Sketchy sighed, going through the article one more time.
And he tossed it into the trash.
The truth was too harsh. She was his friend. The truth wasn't fit to print, so some time before midnight tonight, he'd walk into his editor's office and he'd hand in an article that spoke of the triumph of the transgenics, how they'd saved mankind, how the Savior of humanity had found true love… and the truth would remain in his trash, where it could do no harm.
But Alec came over that afternoon, looking like he needed to unwind. Weed wasn't really his thing, but ever since the 'end of the world', sometimes Alec just liked to hang out and act broody until Sketch agreed that they should go shoot some pool or something… Sketchy couldn't do that tonight, 'cuz he had a deadline to contend with, but Alec hung out anyway, maybe just escaping for a few minutes. He really had been increasingly moody since the Familiar threat had been dealt with… since Logan had been cured in a rather unconventional way… since Max and Logan spent every night cooped up together, doing God, and everyone else, knows what. Literally.
Alec would tap his foot impatiently, drink from his beer can, Sketch couldn't afford the bottled kind, and glance around Sketch's small digs.
"Thinkin' 'bout leaving town," Alec frowned, leaning forward suddenly. Sketchy's reddened, droopy eyes narrowed and he frowned.
"Wha-?"
"No reason to stick around," He added with a shrug.
"Sure there is!" Sketch racked a fuzzy, loose brain for reasons why Alec should stay, because he knew Alec's next question would be-
"Like what?"
It was a conversation they'd had before. Were having more often, the last couple of weeks. Alec sounded worryingly serious this time. "You're my wingman," Sketchy smiled, too high to do anything but keep it light. "Can't go out without my wingman,"
Alec rolled his eyes, shoving back into the sofa once more. In his toked state, Sketchy found it funny that Alec was even over here in the first place. He was one of those beautiful people that you should be able to look at, read about, maybe, but never get to touch. Alec should be out… hangin' out with other beautiful people, being cool and super-strong and everything else he could do really, really well… but instead he was hangin' out here, with Calvin Theodore, bullshitting and brooding. Fuck. Sketchy stubbed out his blunt, because this was getting a little warped. If he started crying, he was givin' up the green for good.
"You can pick up chicks without me," Alec shrugged.
Sketchy fixed him with horrified eyes. 'Cuz no one could deny that Alec opened a lot of avenues for him previously unattainable…
"How's the article coming?" Alec changed the subject again.
His eyes darted towards the trash. Alec's eyes, faster, followed.
"It's coming along," Sketchy covered. "I haven't started it, yet."
But Alec was already halfway across the room, and he pulled the loose sheets from the bin. Sketchy sighed, put-upon, as Alec's hazel eyes scanned the words quickly. He waited, because part of him really did want to know what Alec would think of the work he'd put in.
"In the end," Alec murmured aloud, "The apocalypse the Cult had been planning for didn't even come to pass, so transgenics..." He fell silent, unable to read aloud that maybe his life was unnecessary. Silence or no, it didn't bother him too much. It wasn't so bad; it was just the truth... In fact, it was almost funny if you possessed a morbid, black sense of humor. The irony of being created a savior, being put through a childhood of hell, all for a world that didn't even need saving? He smiled darkly, sure that some god was laughing. But Alec's mouth fell into a grim line when he got to the muck-raking section on Max's love life that would send Sketchy's editor into paroxysms of happiness.
"You can't print this," Alec shook his head, fingering through the papers quickly. "Max would kill you,"
"Which is why it was in the trash," Sketch pointed out. Then he sighed, "Don't worry, I'm gonna tie it all up in a pretty bow, give everyone what they want; a nice, happy ending. Transgenics save the world. Heroine gets the boy. Everyone ends up happy."
Alec smiled tightly. Hazel eyes were mirthless. "There are no happy endings, pal." The article, the truth, was tossed back into the trash, and Alec spun on his heel.
"You're not really going to leave, are you?"
Alec paused in the doorway. Thought long and hard. "No," He lied. "I'll stay." He left.
Sketchy turned back to that old typewriter he'd wrangled off of the pawnbroker for half his paycheck and his dad's old watch, the only thing the old man had left him before ditchin' him and his mom to a hard life of makin' ends meet. Sketchy had almost been glad to be rid of the damn thing, glad to replace it with something worthwhile, something he could use to make a name for himself. He stared at faded keys long and hard, but everything was still so loose and he rubbed at bleary eyes. Finally, he got up, paced and paced and thought and thought until the fog had cleared. It was almost an hour later, half a box of cereal that had been tucked under his arm was gone, and finally he sat back down. Keys clacked, carefully, no spell-check on this type of machinery, not enough money for buckets of white-out or bales of expensive, pristine paper… Every thought was carefully constructed before crashing out of his fingertips.
He got it to his editor by 11:59.
It was the most beautiful lie he had ever written.
It ran the next day. They took him out, his friends, and loaded him up on beer in celebration. His first big break. His first real story, and it was the story of a lifetime. The story of a savior who'd gotten her happy ending.
"So, be honest, what'd you think?" He asked, still cruising on cloud nine with a smile that showed it. No ganga required, tonight he was high on life.
Logan smiled like he knew him. "It was great." Sketchy paused for a moment, before finally nodding at the man that wasn't really part of his group, but his hand was on Max's hand, so guess that makes him part of the in-crowd by default. Really, wherever Max was, Logan was, so you'd think Sketch would have gotten used to the man, the round, cultured peg in the square, urban hole, by now. A round peg in a square hole, and not the other way around, because, sure he could actually fit in, dress down, dumb it down, but no one was blind, once you got close enough, anyone could see he didn't fit the shape, didn't really belong.
Max smiled, but there was a sadness behind her lying eyes, always was, lately, despite how happy she made herself out to be. "You did good, Sketch,"
O.C. smiled warmly. "Always knew you had it in you, crazy ass white boy,"
Alec, the only person who'd seen the original copy of the article, nodded, his eyes hard. "How 'bout a toast?"
Exchanged glances. A sudden, wary undercurrent. Glasses lifted, waiting for it all to shatter. For the beautiful lie to give way to the ugly truth.
But Alec kept his mouth shut. "To our good buddy Sketch… who can finally afford to buy us a pitcher for a change,"
"I'll drink to that," O.C. murmured, before taking a slow sip from her glass.
Alec didn't drink, just turned hazel eyes on Max and Logan. Max tightened. Logan frowned. They waited, tense. "And to you guys too. And the cure." Well… that wasn't so bad. But then Alec smiled and the harsh bite of honesty made Max freeze. "You two… after all this time… everything you've been through… you two deserve each other."
Max's beer fell back to the table, made a sound as the glass bottom hit scarred wood.
"What's that supposed to mean?" O.C.'s face twisted.
"It was a toast," Alec defended, glass still held aloft. "I was being nice,"
"Didn't sound like it," O.C. fixed him with a knowing look. He shrugged. Took a swig from his beer. Logan set down his own, confused.
"Did I miss something?" Logan asked, turning to Max who was staring blindly into her mug, her hand stiff under his. "Is he upset about something?"
Alec rolled his eyes, hellooo, sitting right here. He watched as Max's eyes snapped back to Logan's and her face was fixed in that warm smile once more.
"Who knows," She shrugged. "He's just being Alec."
The blind leading the blind. It was only fitting that two people that could not comprehend love would end up together. If she was willing to forgive him, knowing what he'd done, knowing that their love was built on a lie, then she did deserve him. Him and the heartache he would undoubtedly continue to heap upon her in the years to come. He turned to Sketch, standing from his stool. "Come on, man, let's go hit up some girls for old times' sake."
Sketch wasn't thinking, and he was joking, and it just slipped out. "Gotta hook me up with at least one more honey before you leave town."
Cindy frowned. Logan frowned. Max blinked in something that looked a lot like unhappy surprise, the smile dying once more.
"Leavin'?" O.C.'s face twisted. "Hot Boy, where you think you fixin' to go?"
Alec shrugged, his hands digging into his pockets. "Don't know. Haven't really decided yet. Chicago, maybe? New York?"
"Can't escape big city living, huh?" Logan asked. Ever since Alec had saved his life, prevented him from toppling down the stairs and breaking his neck, they'd come to a grudging sort of truce. It also helped that there was something relaxed in Logan lately. Wasn't surprising, really; Logan had gotten the girl and Alec hadn't even remotely dipped his toes into the picture in over a year.
All eyes swiveled to Max. Waited for her input. Finally, she shrugged. "Whatever,"
A small, half smile from Alec and he shook his head. "Well, you just lost yourself an invite, sister," He slipped away, towards the bar before she could make some sort of telling statement about them not being related but that never meant enough at the end of the day. Sketchy followed with a self-assured swagger. They were chatting up two girls in less than two minutes; Alec was on the ball, on the prowl, tonight. Logan's hand had yet to uncurl from around Max's.
"Jes' won't seem the same without him," O.C. sighed.
Max made a face, and her words were hollow in her ears, "Please, like he was even a part of our group,"
O.C. blinked for a good second. Her mouth opened, and snapped shut before the truth could come tumblin' out; more a part of 'em than Logan ever was. Logan was here for Max. O.C. had never spent time alone with him, not really. She didn't know him. Hot Boy, though, Hot Boy was her friend in his own right, not just because of his ties to Max. Finally, she carefully crafted the words.
"Yeah, whatevah."
She rolled her eyes, too. It wasn't a lie, it wasn't anything, and it definitely was easier than the truth.
"So," Logan asked. "Did anyone even read the article?"
"Soon," Max said guiltily.
"Soon as we buy a paper," O.C. agreed. Logan shook his head. "We been busy!" O.C. defended, "And it only jes' came out today,"
"You'll love it," Alec's bland voice washed over 'em, and they started in guilt. "Literary excellence from my good friend, Mr. Theodore," His arm was draped loosely over a blonde's shoulder. That was fast. The girl's friend was still talking animatedly to Sketchy in the background; apparently she found reporters fascinating.
"Who's your friend?" O.C. lifted an eyebrow.
Alec opened his mouth, paused, and frowned in confusion before glancing down at the girl under his arm. "What's your name again?" Max rolled her eyes. Especially when it didn't even faze the girl. She didn't even blink, just smiled, said "Darla," and Alec nodded, smiling wickedly. "Darla, that's right." His eyes slid to O.C. and his grin widened. "We're going to go play… baseball."
Max's face twisted in confusion. Before she grunted in disgust as Alec added, "Darla bats for two teams. Feel like comin' along, Cindy?" Darla was eyeing Cindy a little closely.
Cindy scowled. "Fool, don't make me get up and smack you so hard-"
Alec grinned. "Ooo, stop, you're turning me on,"
Cindy huffed in disgust, reaching out to pop him, but he danced away. She slid from her chair and Alec released Darla in favor of bouncing away from Cindy's second attempt at a smack. "Get back here!", "No way!" as Cindy all but chased him back to the bar.
Darla watched the childish antics, a small smile on her face. She turned to Alec's two friends, offered them a small, awkward smile… and her eyes widened, her voice almost coming out in a squeal.
"Ohmigod. It's you guys,"
Logan blinked. "Excuse me?"
"From the article! Ohmigod, I totally read about you today! Your pictures were in the paper! You saved the world!"
"Hardly," Max scowled. The world hadn't really needed saving at the end of the day. Really all she'd done is kicked some ass, rescued her guy, and freed some transgenics.
But Darla was shaking her head, gently. "Wow, I hope I can have what you guys have one day. True love? No beating that." She sighed, wistfully, a small smile of a little girl trapped in an older girl's body escaping.
Logan shared a glance with Max. "True love?" She asked, a small smile quirking her lips, and she finally pulled her hand away from Logan's, wiping her sweaty palm discreetly on her jeans below the table. "Sketchy wrote that?"
"Yeah," Sketchy was back, frowning. "I thought you read it," He glanced between them in confusion, not missing the glance, full of guilt, that they exchanged.
Another lie to add unto the pile of their lives? Somehow, he wasn't surprised.
"Well," Max started. "You see," Logan began.
"Don't worry about it," Sketchy deflated a little bit. And in a snappy, unhappy voice, that sounded a lot like payback, "None of it was true, anyway," He grabbed for his drink and slunk off, moody. Cindy frowned after Sketch as she walked back up, her hand still tingling from where she'd caught Alec across the back of the head.
"What'd y'all do to Sketch?"
Max hadn't been by Sketchy's place in almost three years… since before she'd met Logan really. It was just as cramped as ever. She came with beer, hoping to make amends for her slip. He opened the door in nothing but some boxer shorts and Max reared away.
"Max?"
"Hey," She shifted, lookin' away in horror, her voice coming out quick, snappy. "Look, I feel kinda bad about-"
"Calvin?" A breathless, sultry voice wafted from the bedroom.
Oh my god. Sketchy had a girl in there? The girl from the bar from the sound of it.
Sketchy leaned out the door, whispering conspiratorially. "Listen, Max, this girl really has a think for angsty journalist types. You think maybe you can come back later?"
Max huffed in disgust, whirling. Here she'd thought he'd been feelin' bad, but he'd probably just been playin' it up to get slutty little Darla's friend home with him… But Sketchy's voice stopped her, only a few steps down the hall.
"Hey Max?"
She turned back, she kind of owed it to him for earlier.
"Are you happy?" in your lie?
"What kinda question is that?" She asked, her face twisting.
He pursed lips, an expression he'd picked up from his good buddy Alec. "Nevermind," He finally shrugged. "What do I know?" He was just the goofy, tall guy everyone made fun of. He was supposed to pop in and spread some jokes around once in a while; he wasn't supposed to be able to see anything. Wasn't supposed to hear that he'd asked her if she was happy and she hadn't said 'yes'.
"What are you talking about?" She scoffed.
He couldn't believe he was about to do this. There was a hot chick, practically naked in his bedroom, and he was about to throw it all away because, "You wanna read my rough draft?"
"Now?"
His eyes darted inwards. He sighed, again. This sucks. "Yeah, now."
"I interviewed most of T.C. to get this," Sketchy sighed, leaning forward over his knees. "Everyone but you, Logan, and Alec, really."
Max read through the article slowly, sitting on the sunken in, worn cushions of Sketchy's dilapidated couch. Sketchy sat across from her, in that rickety old desk chair. The blonde, Melissa, was long gone, having already tossed on her clothes and flounced out in a huff. Sketch had also put on some clothes, on Max's insistence that he was burning her retinas.
She read the copy he couldn't print, once. Then went back and read it again.
"A love so strong, so unseeing," She murmured aloud, "that even learning the truth of her brother's death could not dissuade her from blindly pursuing…" She trailed off, frowning. Looked up. She preferred the article she picked up after she'd left the bar; the one that threw grandiose words like 'destiny' and 'true love' around. The one that was a beautiful retelling of the truth. "I left town, you know. I didn't just bat my eyelashes and tell Logan everything was cool, let's hop in the sack."
"Didn't take much for you to forgive him, either." Sketchy frowned. He sounded like a reporter. Max frowned back, unhappy that he was actually acting intelligent for a change, asking the questions she didn't want to ask herself. But he couldn't help it, despite her scowl. This was the one source he hadn't tapped yet. Her story, he didn't have, not from her own lips, and he took himself too seriously, when it comes to journalism anyway, to not try and get it.
"Well," Max finally shrugged. "I talked to everyone after I got back and I realized they were right; it wasn't really his fault Seth died. He couldn't have told me when we first met, because then I wouldn't have worked for him. And once feelings started developing, how could he have told me, knowing it'd push me away?"
Exactly. He hadn't told her, because he would have lost her. Kind of proved his whole article; proved that the man she had risked the neck of every transgenic to rescue had built their entire relationship on a lie of omission. She wouldn't have stuck around, if she'd known. There'd be no schmoopy eyes and nights lost to Eyes Only if she'd known.
Max was still talking, but it was almost like she was staring past him, talking to herself, "And then I went to his place, to try and talk to him about it, but he'd been kidnapped." Her eyes refocused upon Sketchy, and he wondered if she was trying to convince him or herself, "A guy being kidnapped kind of makes a girl examine her priorities. No matter what happened before, I love Logan, I gotta-"
"Are you kidding?" Sketchy's face twisted in disbelief. "Max, no one, 'sides Herbal, could be that saintly! And he was only that good 'cuz he spent all of his free time lighting up."
Max scowled.
Sketchy pushed on. "I mean, come on, you knew him for three years, and he just kept something like that to himself? I could understand if it was something like hiding an extra toe or a third nipple or something, but he just forgot to mention the death of someone you thought of as a brother?!"
"It was never the right time!" Max defended, looking away and rolling her eyes, like, what did he know? It was just Sketchy.
"Maybe I'm not the smartest man in the world," Sketchy frowned, slowly. "I get it, you know? I'm supposed to be the dumb white guy that everyone makes fun of." Max started in guilt, and he shook his head. "I've done my share of lying in relationships; cheating, obviously. But I'd never keep something like that, something that frickin' big, from someone I loved… and I don't know if I could forgive anyone if they kept it from me." It'd hurt pretty bad to learn Max and Alec were transgenics and hadn't told him… and that was nowhere near as big as a bomb as Seth must have been to Max. He just didn't get it.
Max looked down at her hands, and wouldn't say anything.
Sketchy shook his head again, almost in confusion. "Sometimes… sometimes it's like someone, who doesn't even know any of us, asked a friend for pertinent info on our lives and then wrote a really bad, unbelievable novel about us… I just don't get how you could go from this bad ass government experiment to an unnecessary savior that hopped in bed with a man that's been lying to you for almost three years."
Max glanced away, scowling, muttering, "Much less how Josh could decapitate White like that,"
"What was that?"
"Nothing," She sighed, glancing again at the article in her lap, pretending to read. "It's complicated, Sketch, I love Logan."
"…Does Logan love you?"
She glanced up. "Of course he does!"
Sketch stood, pacing. Max went back to reading, for real, this time, the words leaping automatically at her eyes. The article dipped a bit into the sci-fi realm when it went into how Logan was cured. Lines were drawn through that area, with notes in the margin stating that the method of cure was too unbelievable, no one would ever buy it, so it needed to be shortened to 'he was cured through unconventional means' and left at that. Well, who would believe that a transgenic had fallen in love with Max, gone homicidal, physically morphed into Logan when Max touched him, somehow taking the effects of the virus from Logan's blood, somehow curing them both? It was a little (okay, a lot) unbelievable. An author fresh out of college could probably come up with something more believable than that… But Max skipped through all that, went to the end and the pointed questions about what was next, now that the Familiars were dealt with and transgenics had no purpose other than to live as regular humans, free to make all the mistakes of their Ordinary counterparts... Was that another dig at her and Logan?
What was next for transgenics? Scattering to the four corners of the globe, nothin' left to keep them all tied together?
She went back to the beginning of the article, to the softest piece of truth in the entire thing. "Her second-in-command has been by her side for almost two years; a friend, almost family." She murmured, trailed off…
"You really gonna let him leave?" Sketch asked into the silence.
"He's a grown man," Max shrugged, "He can do what he wants." There was softness there.
"You're the only reason he'd stay, y'know."
Max's face twisted. "Please, he'll stay for Josh, and all the other transgenics. He won't stay for me,"
Sketch thought long and hard for a long moment. He'd worked with them a year at Jam Pony. Now that they were all together again, he still saw the way that she could affect him. "Yeah, that's probably true. He will leave for you, though. Or because of you, I guess I should say."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Max dropped that article and all its gory details on her life to the ground.
"You ever wonder why Alec hasn't had a girlfriend in so long?" It was a question he'd asked himself last night, in a moment of herbal insight. Alec was amazing when it came to getting girls, but from what Sketch had heard, he'd spent the past year as Max's sidekick, working hard, without the simple creature comfort of a warm body next to him in bed.
Max sighed. "Probably because of Rachel,"
"Who?" Sketchy's face twisted.
Max glanced away. A secret. Another secret. "Nobody,"
A long period of silence was kept, as they both moodily considered the possibility of Alec leaving.
"You really wouldn't care if he left?" Sketchy finally asked, unhappy, almost in disbelief.
"What do you want from me, Sketchy?" She demanded, her face suddenly twisting in annoyance. "You want me to admit that it hurts knowing that I was lied to for that long? That I've wanted Logan for so long… that that's all I know how to want, anymore? That being with him is easier than-"
"What's all that got to do with Alec leaving?" Sketchy asked in confusion, clueless. But Max had stood and stalked across the room and yanked open the door… and almost got hit in the face by Alec's hand, raised to knock. So much for Darla.
"Max?" Max's hands connected with his shoulders, shoving him out of her way. He frowned after her, turning to glance at Sketchy for a moment before shrugging and trotting after Max down the hallway. "Max, wait up,"
Sketchy closed the door, went back to the discarded article. Picked it up and reread. "A friend, almost family." Really, it was supposed to be the softest truth in a piece filled with harsh, ugly truths. In reality, it might be the most believable lie he'd ever written.
"I'm going home," Max's steps didn't even falter.
"Where's home?" Alec snarked, falling into pace behind her. "T.C. or Logan's place? It's so hard to tell, these days."
Max didn't know. But she kept walking anyway.
His voice made her stop though. "I've been by your side for a year now,"
She turned. Her eyebrow arched. "Longer than that. Closer to two."
"Yeah," He shrugged, relaxing in that artificial way that mean he was readying to tense. "Maybe it's time to move on,"
She shifted, from one foot to the other. "Maybe."
His eyes glanced across her face. His voice was soft. "Would you care? If I left?"
"Of course I would, stupid, you're my friend,"
He rolled his eyes, "So says the girl that acted like she couldn't give a damn when we were at Crash,"
Her customary scowl made an appearance. "You just… caught me off guard, okay? I didn't think..." She trailed off, her hard frown falling into something soft and melancholic. They'd been through so much together, the 'end of the world', rescuing Logan, multiple times, rescuing each other, rescuing the transgenics, defeating Mathias and his band of loony snake followers, and two years worth of events before that as well, it never occurred to her that one of her best friends could just up and leave.
"I want to leave," He said, musingly, into the silence. "I don't think I can be here… watch you and Logan together,"
It was the first time he admitted anything like that even remotely aloud and Max startled. "Alec?"
"I always thought you two had this great love. I mean," He amended, so Alec, with a shrug, "Yeah, a little unconventional, repressed, and retarded, definitely," He frowned again, his voice suddenly gentling as he forged onwards, "But maybe something bigger, grander, than I could ever be, you know? Something truer than anything I could ever offer,"
Her eyes went wide. His words, from so long ago, suddenly came floating back, always go for the ones I can't have, and it made any attempt at speech stick in her throat.
He shrugged, looking away, 'cuz he wasn't tryin' to make some kind of mushy declaration of love, he was just tellin' it like it is. Just telling her that, "I don't know if I can watch you two together, knowin' you two are just as fucked up, just as broken, as everything else in this world. Feel like the whole fairy tale ending is just a quick gloss over, the biggest fucking joke I've ever heard of." His eyes slid up to hers, his teeth together, lips slightly parted.
His hand came up, brushed a long strand of hair away from the side of her face and she fell very, very still. His eyes were still hard, but his voice, when it came, was soft. "Don't know if I can stick around, knowin' that any day, I could be the one sacrificed to Logan, and you'd move on just as easily."
Max slapped his hand away. "Please," She rolled her eyes, "Like anything would ever happen to you,"
"If it did, would you care?" His voice was harsh as his hand fell back to his side. She remained silent, 'cuz she didn't know the words. "If you could forgive Logan for Seth, for a brother, how much more worthless must I be when it comes to the great Logan Cale?"
"Shut up," She snapped, unhappy, her shoulders hunching almost protectively, "You don't know what you're talking about,"
He sighed, shaking his head, almost ruefully. He was pushin' it he knew, and he retreated back to a safe distance within himself, behind carefully constructed walls. "Sorry… I just… never thought it'd end this way, you know?"
"Well, how else was it supposed to end?" Max demanded. "Was I supposed to admit I loved you right after admitting that you might be kind of attractive after all?"
"What?" He demanded.
She gave him the same hollow excuses she had given Sketchy, "Besides, Logan got kidnapped. Makes a girl examine her priorities… I love Logan. I get that he couldn't tell me about Seth dying on that Eyes Only mission. It was never the right time and-"
"I get that too," Alec shrugged. "I mean, lying about your brother's death, obviously a huge thing like being kidnapped would make that all better, make some under sheet activity regain importance."
"Please don't start," She sighed.
"Believe me," He grunted. "I don't want to. I want to stop, Max. I want to leave. There's nothing left. War's over. Everyone's got their happy ending,"
"There are no happy endings," She said softly. He paused, suddenly alert. It was the closest that Max would probably ever get to admitting her relationship with Logan was a lie, and it made his blood freeze in his chest.
Maybe it was a lie. But it was the only one she knew, anymore.
He took a slow step towards her, closing the distance between their already close bodies. He didn't know if he could do this without her. He needed to know. Needed to hear her say it. "I need you to tell me it's okay to leave, Max,"
The words crested in her throat and she choked on them. "I can't," She said miserably, instead.
"Then tell me you love Logan again." He pleaded, "Tell me that you're finally happy."
Her silence was overwhelming in the small hallway.
His hands glanced across her shoulders, tightened. "Tell me," A little shake, like he was trying to loosen the words lodged in her chest. "Tell me you could never want me."
Breath expelled in a surprised caress. "Alec-"
Another small shake, brutal in its carefully controlled gentleness... Like after everything they'd been through, he couldn't be the one to hurt her, not anymore. "Tell me we're just friends. That that's all we could ever be." He sounded desperate.
She glanced away.
"Goddammit, Max, just lie to me!"
"I don't know how!" She shouted, ripping away from him. Alec's face, burning in impotent rage, melted back into neutrality, his hands, still held up, fell slowly, almost in defeat, and he stepped away and slumped back into the wall, against yellowed, peeling paint, suddenly tired.
"I'm leaving for Texas next week. Big cities not for me, after all." He finally said into the silence. "After everything's that happened I just want to fade away..." He glanced up, admitting, "Josh will probably come with me,"
"I thought you couldn't leave," Her eyes widened in unhappiness. Her throat clenched in something that felt remarkably like panic. They couldn't both leave. Who would she have left?
"I can't stay, either," His head fell back into the wall. "Nothing's real here anymore. It's like our whole lives… it's like the last year has made a joke of us all. Love is defunct. Our purpose was the cosmic joke of the century. None of us knows anything about any others of us. We're all blind, all of us liars. Hell, you didn't know about Seth, took you weeks to figure out Logan was cured. We haven't talked to Cin and Sketchy, regularly, anyways, in almost a year, but we're still all actin' like we're best friends. I never thought Josh'd… well... And me? Somewhere along the line, I became the pretty, snarky backdrop, that's just here. Just alone. I need more than that Max." He looked at her once more, eyes blazing. "I need more than that, and I can't stay here any longer."
She leaned next to him against the wall. "Will you come back?" She glanced down, at her hands, at dirty fingernails and rough skin.
"Not if I can help it," He admitted.
Her smile quirked, a little sad. "Can I visit?"
"I'd rather you didn't," He sighed. Her quirked smile tightened, and her eyes burned in something that felt a lot like the beginning of tears. She pushed away from the wall, leaving. Alec followed a few footfalls behind… Guess that was just his place in life. Her backdrop. The pretty scenery, never meant to be the leading man. Maybe that's why he needed to breakaway. Get out from under her, and Logan's, shadow.
It didn't matter. He could leave. Logan was cured. Logan was all she wanted. She'd finally gotten everything she'd always wanted.
The tears were falling before her foot even hit the top step. Alec leaned back into the wall once more, his arms tight around her, his breath little puffs of air against her scalp. "You wanna tell me about him?" He asked quietly, "About Seth?"
"Would you settle for hearing all the ways I thought of murdering Logan?" She joked wryly through the tears.
"Yes," His cheek pressed into the top of her head.
Just friends, almost family. She had Logan; she had her happy ending.
It was a beautiful lie, but one probably not meant to last. Not forever.
Texas was overrated, anyway.
