Insecurities:
Part 4
by
Author's Note: This isn't really an author's note, it's more like an explanation, but that'll work too. Anyway, I decided to write this series, as an eight-part story, in which one character dictated each part of the story. As the title suggests, it will focus on the personal insecurities of each character. These stories take place during second season, at various times. Happy Reading!
Disclaimer: I head this somewhere on the Internet, and felt it was appropriate. So I'm going to use it here. *I highly doubt that Jason Katims and Melinda Metz have taken up a new hobby writing fanfiction. So, therefore, you can assume that the characters aren't mine.*
Rating: PG
Feedback, please? I want to know how I'm doing. It goes to teneljade@netzero.net, and thanks again!
Max
************
I'm eighteen years old. And the weight of the world rests squarely and quite literally upon my shoulders. To anyone who ever thought the world was light, you are sadly mistaken.
It's funny. I can still joke about it within my head, yet the people I know say I'm the most serious being they've ever met. I don't think I remember cracking a smile since my break-up with Liz. And yet, with something of such utter importance as the lives of the billions of creatures on Earth, I can laugh. Or snicker, at least. I don't think I've laughed since Liz, either. Not really.
I suppose this royal task would be harder without my faithful followers, but some days it seems like it would be easier without them. When I take a good look at them, I wonder why they stick around in the first place. All they ever do is wreck their lives, especially romantic and social, helping me, and then gripe about it.
Michael is supposed to be my second in command, but does he ever do anything but break into places and get into trouble or oppose my ideas? And Isabel, she's so rebellious. I mean, I would be too, in her place, but it just makes things harder for me. I value her opinion, but when she just feels like kicking up her heels, can't she do it some other time?
Then there's Tess. And she has a story all to herself. Which is much too long and sordid to get into here, but suffice it to say that she's never been anything but trouble for us. The problem? Her heart is in the right place. She means well. And just because she has turned our lives upside down, it doesn't warrant extreme measures. After all, she was only doing what she had had drilled into her since a very young age. 'Destiny' had become a compulsion. Make it come about, or you have failed in life. I wish she didn't feel that way, because she is a wonderful being in her own right. It is only her fixation with our past lives that makes her so hard to be around.
The humans are another, and yet the same, story. I really can't understand why they stay. At least with the rest of the Royal Four, they have a destiny, a duty to fulfill. The humans, there is no reward in it for them. They get nothing out of it. And yet, they stay. I will never truly know why, I don't think.
They differ in actual usefulness, though. Sheriff Valenti is an invaluable assistant. Kyle is just a pain in the butt, but he seems to make Tess happy, so I attempt to put up with him. On a different note, it's funny that both of the women I'm supposed to be 'destined' to be with one way or another, also fall for Kyle Valenti during some point in their teenage years.
Alex is never in the way, and has been of more help to us than I could ever credit him with. I would run out of breath. But he has also caused incredible heart-ache for my sister. Maria and Liz are the same way, only Maria with Michael and Liz with me.
I don't believe that Liz slept with Kyle. That isn't her. But she said she did, and she wouldn't lie. Except... once she told me she wouldn't lie for anyone but me. And I think that's what this is all about. Protecting me. I wish she could just tell me. Something could be done, I'm sure. Or maybe not. All I really know is that I miss the touch of her skin against mine, of her hair in my hands, of her constant scientific chatter when we're figuring out a problem, more than I thought you could ever miss something or someone.
And then there are days when I wonder if I'm insane. Here I am worrying about eight people when the world could collapse without my leadership. But those people are my friends, my reason for living. Without friends, why would anyone live anyway? To fight for strangers isn't very motivational.
Sometimes I feel as though I am two entities. Both share this body and my partial alien powers, but there is one who is a mighty king, and one who is a slightly scared, rather ordinary teenager with extraordinary powers. Max and Zanith. Zan and Max.
The king is this royal figure, a commander and a great leader of the people. Embraced by all for his ability to show compassion for the strangers of the land, for his wonderful heart. Max... Max is a frightened, slightly selfish, very serious, under-confident straight-A student at West Roswell High who is awed and impressed by his powers, but equally scared of them.
And the hole in my heart doesn't help matters any. When Zanith wants to be studying plans for saving the world, Max wants to curl up on his bed and indulge himself in a long moping session, lamenting his loss of Liz Parker.
For the last almost nine years, since I first saw her in the third-grade schoolyard, Max Evans has been head-over heels in love with the beautiful, smart, gentle girl. When I healed her and told her and Maria about me, I placed his life in her hands. Her gestures of secrecy proved her love, and for the past year, the world as Max sees it has revolved around her.
But my calling in life is not with her, and as much as I want to ignore it, I must settle things with a certain blond pixie girl.
I don't love her, and I never will. Zanith does, and my physical body feels a powerful pull of attraction, but in this life, Max dominates in matters of the heart, and he doesn't feel it. Just can't seem to make that spark flare between the two of us.
Life will go on. Most people can say that, and know it's pretty sure to be true. Even if they, themselves, don't go on, there will always be life. But I'm pretty sure they mean the human kind. And if I don't live up to expectations, if I can't keep the planet safe, the saying will have an entirely different meaning.
I suppose I have a lot of things to worry about. It's natural for pressure and stress to build, right? But it builds so fast, the extended work-out sessions can't burn it completely away anymore. Even in my sleep, I can find no escape. I dream of what I will someday have to do.
My name is Max Evans, and I am a King. I will make the decisions that determine the rise and/or fall of civilization in my lifetime. And I'm scared as hell.
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