No. I'm not dead.

Well, I finally managed to start getting my writing bunnies back, it seems. Carrot cake bait is so much better than just plain old carrots. =D So yeah...this is the first fic they wanted to update, and to thank them for coming back, I'm allowing it . I hope you all haven't run away - this story has a lot of stuff to cover yet, and I dont plan on abandoning any of them. At all. Not a sausage.

Also, University = big time-eater. I'll be getting a netbook in the new year, so I can do stuff either work related or fiction related on the 3 hour commute every day, so hopefully updates for all stories will become more frequent *fingers crossed*

I'm sorry if I haven't replied to any reviews - If you post any new ones, I promise to send you a little message to thank you for it! I do love hearing people's opinions. . Now, enjoy:

One Insult Too Many

"You have got to be kidding."

Max paused through the doorway and stared up at the ceiling, but Fang continued picking his way over the rubble without even looking back. She gazed up at the series of ornate balconies that bordered the walls of the room with her mouth half open in disbelief, tucking her hand free hand into her pocket and shaking her head very slightly.

She's come through here just an hour before. Any doubt it could just be a similar room was erased by the two dead bodies that greeted her as she cast her eyes about the area. The idiot that had followed her off of the balcony was finally silent and still, one arm outstretched as if he was reaching for something, the other behind him to pull himself forwards, his eyes glassy and lifeless.

A shudder spread through Max's spine and she forced herself to look away, averting her eyes from the other corpse in the middle of the room to focus on Fang's back. It didn't help that he was, at that moment, utilising his long legs to step over the body she was trying to avoid looking at without touching even the blood pool that had accumulated beside it.

With one leg on either side of the corpse, Fang took a fleeting look down at the body he was trying to avoid touching. Though it was obviously a splicer he was still pretty normal looking. His genetic degeneration was minimal to the extent you could barely tell he was different from anyone you met on the street, minus the slight grey-ness of his skin, but that could have been due to a lack of sunlight.

So many years ago, when he had first been dumped in Rapture and found his way out of the little submarine he'd woken on, Fang might have vomited when subjected to that. The smell of iron and body odour was overwhelming and there was blood virtually everywhere. Not to mention he could see clear through to the floor below the splicer when looking at his chest.

Instead he just cringed as he dragged his other leg over the body, careful not to let his feet touch the corpse or even the blood surrounding it. These kind of situations had quickly become an every day occurrence during his first few days in Rapture, and by the end of the week he could swallow the bile as it rose in his throat without even looking sick.

He erased the image from his mind and focused on his next objective: Finding somewhere safe to rest. He didn't need the time out, as he had been trapped in that booth for the best part of a week and couldn't have felt better. He was however, worried that Max had seen more than she thought she could handle, and was hoping to find somewhere secure before she had a mental breakdown and became a gibbering wreck.

Taking a glance over his shoulder he saw Max picking her way over the rubble in the doorway. She'd been actively erasing images from her mind since her first encounter with the Zombie splicer and had wasted no time in forgetting about the lifeless corpse reaching for her from the other side of the room. She raised her eyes from the floor to see Fang look away from her and head for the door on the other side of the room.

Why am I even following him? She asked herself as she began closed the distance between herself and her new friend, if she could feel comfortable using that term just yet. It's not like I know anything about him. Now he doesn't need me, he might kill me the next chance he gets. He certainly didn't hesitate to shoot the splicer back there.

Both her legs and her thoughts stopped dead when she reached the corpse in the middle of the room. Her foot was still a few inches off of the blood puddle in front of her, and it took barely a second's contemplation to pull her leg back and put her foot down in anything but the congealing goo.

A glance up told her that whatever else was going through his mind, one thing Fang wasn't thinking about was waiting for her to catch up. He already had each hand on separate metal poles on the gear door and was straining to pull them down and open the door. As of now he wasn't having much luck, the door refusing to budge even an inch.

Looking back down at the corpse, Max wrinkled her nose, averted her gaze and took a deep breath, holding it as she stepped her first leg over the bloodied mess that used to be a splicer. It look every inch of her shorter legs to get over the body without stepping in any blood or even on part of the splicer itself. She took a few seconds to test her balance before pulling her other leg over in one quick motion, hopping a few steps forwards to make sure her second foot missed the blood puddle as well.

She had to physically stop herself looking over her shoulder at the body, swallowed hard, and instead headed over to Fang.

Fang grunted as he threw all of his strength into trying to get the gear on the door to budge. Some of the doors in Rapture were dodgy and hated to open, but this one was well and truly stuck, which was terrible as it was the way back to the Safe Zone. He rested his muscles for just a second then threw them into pulling the gear down again.

And to his surprise, it moved.

It was sluggish and resilient, but the gear was beginning to turn as the mechanism groaned. Fang took his hand off the lower bar and moved it to the top one as if it were a ladder he was climbing, throwing all his energy into dragging the heavy gear downwards, forcing it to open.

When he opened his eyes again, he realised why the door had suddenly begun to budge. On the other side, with the other two metal poles in each hand, was Max. She'd braced herself against the gear and then begun forcing the poles on her side upwards, the opposite direct to Fang's. The extra strain had been too much for the stubborn door, and it had been forced to move.

She caught him staring at her as she strained to help him open the door. He had curiosity playing about is eyes, even if the rest of him looked blank and unfriendly. She moved a hand down to the metal pole that had come up from Fang's side, just missing hitting her in the leg, and offered him a small, confident smile.

He returned it with a sideways smirk, and then the door clicked open.

Max stooped to pick up her bloodied bar while Fang tugged the door open, turning on her heels to follow him into the new room, but she stopped in her tracks and frowned. He had stopped in the doorway, with the door just half open, and seemed to be frozen to the spot. Cautiously, Max crept up behind him and slipped onto her tip toes, peering over his shoulder.

There, just a few feet from Fang's chest, was a Zombie splicer. It was staring blankly at him with one hand on the door, it's well and truly dislocated jaw wobbling slightly with every strained breath that left the creature's body. It's flesh seemed to be rotting while still attached to bone, and one of it's eyes was hanging an inch out of it's eye socket.

Feeling bile rise in her throat, Max swallowed with a gulp.

"Give me the pole," Fang whispered over his shoulder, carefully moving his hand off the doorframe and positioning it behind his back. The monstrosity of science tilted it's head and uttered something close to the noise a dog makes when being strangled - it's own noise for curiosity.

Behind him, Max wasn't listening. All of her attention, whether she wanted it to be or not, was on the grotesque figure before her. As it tilted it's head, it's eye wobbled on the few tendons that were holding it in, and another wave of nausea and disgust flooded her system.

Added to the smell, it was too much to bear - she gagged. And that upset the splicer.

Before she could turn around to vomit, Fang had snatched the pole from her grasp and pushed her further behind him. The pole connected with the splicer before it's remaining brain cell could even think, though the impact did very little itself except startle the beast. Those few seconds were long enough for Fang to regain his balance, reposition the pole and jam it through the monster's pathetic excuse for a lower jaw, through its mouth and into its brain.

It hit the floor at the same time as the prep bar Max had eaten earlier. It was just as dead too.

Placing a foot against the creature's head, Fang wrenched the bar from the creature's face and cringed at the fresh stench of iron that followed. He wiped the sticky red fluid on his jeans before spinning round to look at the back of Max's head.

By this point Max had collapsed to her knees, had her head bowed to the ground and was spitting the last of her breakfast onto the floor. She could feel her body spasming as another semi-wave of nausea trickled through her stomach. Retching, she tried to ignore the smell of vomit and regain her composure, her body slowly coming to terms with her sudden heaving.

Fang knelt down beside her. "Are you alright?" he asked quietly as Max's shudders slowly became nothing more than a twitch. After a few seconds delay she nodded slowly, her eyes still turned down to the ground, even though they were closed. Noticing she'd managed to miss getting any vomit in her hair, Fang gently tucked it behind her ears, withdrawing quickly when he felt her tense up at contact.

He stood back up and took a few steps backwards, giving Max space as she spat some fowl tasting saliva onto the floor and took a deep slightly shaky breath. With one final, strained swallow she flicked the few escaped strands of hair back and pulled herself to her feet, wiping her mouth on her sleeve as she turned to face Fang.

They stared at each other in silence for a moment, until Max held her hand out to him. He flipped her pole up in the air and caught it by the sticky end, offering her the cleaner part, which she didn't hesitate to grasp. Once he'd relinquished the bloodied end, she dropped it to her side without breaking eye contact, straightening up and setting her shoulders back defiantly. Though he was impressed with her perseverance, Fang didn't show it.

Instead, nodded his head towards the open door as he took a step backwards. "Not much farther. Then you can rest."