"The Gift of Darkness", part 12
by pari106
pari106@hotmail.com
Disclaimer: See first chapter
Rating: PG-13
A/N: Sorry this took so long! Forgive me! Please keep reading and reviewing!
A/A/N: Here's my URL if you wanna go check out my webpage: http://www.geocities.com/pari106/damain.html I have all my old stories, plus two M/Z stories in progress, and a Z/M/L (complete!) all new! (I figure it would be a good idea to give you the URL, just in case you have trouble getting to it here. Now that FF.Net is back up and running, I figure the Dark Angel section will be crazy busy!)
Yet another author's note: Speaking of which, let me just give a quick nod to the folks at Fanfiction.Net. What would we do without them? (During the outage I found out. And it isn't pretty.)
Gift of Darkness, part12
by pari106
When the door to Bling's apartment burst open, Max's first instinct was to duck. Bling's first instinct was
to reach, yet again, for his gun. But the next sensation that assaulted both of them was a feeling of déjà vu.
"Max!" their intruder yelled.
Max stilled. "Zack?"
Then she and Bling came out from the kitchen. There, coming through the door, was a bloody and beaten
Zack…carrying a bloody and beaten Logan. That's where the déjà vu kicked in. Because Logan was not
only covered in blood, once again, but he was also unconscious.
"What happened?" Bling and Max were both asking, simultaneously.
Zack had just opened his mouth to speak, when suddenly Logan jerked so violently he almost came out of
the other man's arms.
"Help me!" he yelled, lowering Logan to the floor as the others rushed to his side.
"What the…"
Bling had no idea what was going on, but Max had a horrible idea that she did. She watched, helplessly, as
Logan writhed beneath them.
"Seizures…" she whispered.
'Oh, God.'
Logan was seizing. And bad.
"Max!" Before Max could contemplate the situation any further, Zack's voice was tugging her back to
reality. She looked up to him, her dark eyes meeting his blue. And if anything frightened her more than
seeing Logan this way, it was seeing that look in Zack's eyes. Because Zack look frightened, too, and he
was never frightened. Especially not where Logan was concerned. "You know what to do," Zack told her
now.
"We need triptophan."
"What?" Bling asked, looking up. "Triptophan…"
"Helps alleviate seizures in X5s," Zack finished for him. Both Bling and Max gave him a look. It was the
first time he'd referred to Logan as if he believed that that was what he'd become. But Zack didn't notice
their looks. He turned to Max instead. "Do you have yours with you?" he asked. Logan was starting to
settle down.
Max shook her head.
And then, suddenly, the seizures were back again, strong enough to startle the two men nearby. "Then go!"
Zack yelled.
Max didn't hesitate. She was out of the apartment and speeding away on her bike in a flash, heading back
to her place to retrieve her bottle of triptophan.
**** ****
By the time Max arrived back at Bling's, Logan's seizures seemed to have stopped. For the time being.
Zack and Bling had put him in Bling's bed, and now he was sleeping like the dead.
And the second Max thought that, she cringed, pushing back the panic that suddenly arose at the visual.
'Bad metaphor, girl.'
Then she saw Zack and Bling sitting in the kitchen.
Or, rather, she heard them before she saw them.
"No. I'm fine."
"No, you're not. A little ice would…"
"I don't need a little ice. It'll heal."
"And until then, you're just gonna sit there and bleed?"
"That's the idea."
Despite the situation, Max smiled. She could imagine the look of long-suffering patience that must be
playing out on Bling's face. She'd seen that look often enough thanks to Logan.
Then the smile died as she remembered why Zack and Logan were bleeding in the first place.
When she finally walked into the kitchen, Max's expression was grim.
"Max!" Bling smiled when he saw her. Whether it was because he was actually happy to see her, or
because she had the triptophan, or simply because she'd rescued him from further non-conversation with
Zack, she didn't know.
Max didn't smile. Zack didn't smile. Max set the bottle of triptophan down on the table.
"He should take two of these as soon as possible," she said.
Zack was just looking at her, with one of those carefully blank looks of his.
And Bling glanced between the two.
"Uh…yeah. He's sleeping now. But I'll see if I can get him to wake up and swallow a couple."
Bling grabbed the bottle like it was salvation and left Max and Zack to their awkward silence. Max took a
seat at the table and stared at Zack staring back at her.
Finally they spoke. They both spoke. At the same time.
"What the hell did you do?" she was asking, at the same time as he was saying, "It's not my fault."
Then they both shut up. And tried again.
"What do you mean, not your fault?" Max asked. Simultaneously, Zack said, "What do mean, what did I
do?"
Max sighed. "You didn't have to beat the…"
"Look, I'm not the one who threw him into a truck, okay? Besides…" Zack was really glowering now,
and his hesitance to say what he said next amused Max just enough to replace her ire. "He held his own,"
Zack confessed, with a little shrug of the shoulder.
Max snorted.
"Yeah. I noticed."
That cut on his lip, and the one over his left eye, didn't look so hot.
Then Max sighed again, debating. She was angry at Zack for getting into this thing with Logan. Not as
angry as she was at Logan for starting it, but…
Still, Zack looked like a big kid sulking because he'd been punished for something his brother did instead
of him. That thought made Max's lips quirk just a little. And the sight of Zack, sitting there, looking all
roughed up, finally softened her gaze and her posture.
Without another word, she went to the cabinets and pulled out a towel, then went to the freezer and pulled
out a handful of ice, wrapping it up for a makeshift compress. Too bad Bling didn't have any steak.
Then Max went over to Zack's side, kneeling by his chair. Apparently he had something else on his mind,
because he didn't even realize what she was about to do until she was pressing the compress against his
temple.
"Ow! What the hell are you doing?"
Zack tried to bat her hand away, but Max just raised a brow and pulled the towel and ice out of his reach,
placing it back on his face as soon as he put his hand down.
"Bling's right, you need to put some ice on that," she mumbled, using a dampened corner of the towel to
wipe some of the blood of the skin surrounding the cut. "So stop being a baby," she told him, mostly for
the sheer joy of needling him.
Zack snorted, but he didn't resist any further. He just sat there, letting Max work in silence. But then that
silence became awkward. Max was close enough for him to pick up the scent of her hair. She was
kneeling awful close to him. She'd unconsciously rested one hand on Zack's knee, for balance, and her
touch was gentle as she tended to his minor injuries…
Zack squirmed in his seat.
"I don't need to be coddled," he muttered under his breath.
Didn't she have something else to do right now? Like pining by Logan's bedside or something? Anything
that didn't require touching Zack?
Max laughed. Oblivious to the reason for Zack's discomfort.
"Zack, I don't know anybody who needs coddling more than you."
The comment surprised him, but Max missed the sharp look Zack gave her.
She did, however, pick up on a growing tension that had somehow begun to fill the room. For some
reason, she became distinctly aware of how close she was kneeling by her brother. There was just
something about the way…
Max put a smile on her face, shoving the compress into Zack's hands.
"There. I think you can take i…"
She started to rise, but suddenly Zack's hand shot out and grasped her by the wrist.
He was just staring at her, intently. Too intently. His blue eyes were trying to lock with her brown ones,
and she felt his fingers move against the skin on the inside of her wrist, as if he were trying to caress her.
Max let out the breath she was holding. "Zack…"
But whatever she'd thought she'd seen, or felt, must have been imagined. Because this was Zack, right?
Her brother?
Anyhow, he let go of her before she could question herself.
"I just wanted to say…thanks," he said.
Max didn't know why, but she didn't believe him. He was still looking at her, and she hated when he
looked at her like that. He had this riveting gaze, and you could never tell what he was thinking when he
looked at you. It was intimidating. And discomforting at the moment.
Still, Max kind of smiled. "Yeah. No prob." But her voice was quieter than she would have liked.
In an ironic twist of the evening's earlier events, it was a voice from behind them that broke the tense
silence of the moment.
"I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" the voice asked.
Max turned…and saw Logan standing there.
"Logan?"
This time, when Max smiled, it was genuine, and she went to Logan's side, she promised herself she'd wait
till her felt better to beat the hell out of him for hitting her brother. And for scaring the hell out of her.
Again.
She'd interpreted the pained expression on Logan's face, when he'd come into the kitchen and saw Zack
holding Max's hand, as having to do with his injuries. And she missed the pained expression on Zack's
face as he watched her smile at Logan.
And she also missed the heated look the two men exchanged, over her shoulder, when her back was turned.
But, standing just behind Logan, Bling hadn't missed anything. He turned and went to the living room,
sitting down as he sort of whistled under his breath.
Transgenic love triangles. What the fuck next?
Pediatrics. That's what he should have gone into – pediatrics. Snot-nosed kids with freckled faces. There
were enough physical therapists cum bodyguards in the world.
And if that look Zack and Logan had given each other was any indication, Bling had a feeling Seattle
would be needing them.
by pari106
pari106@hotmail.com
Disclaimer: See first chapter
Rating: PG-13
A/N: Sorry this took so long! Forgive me! Please keep reading and reviewing!
A/A/N: Here's my URL if you wanna go check out my webpage: http://www.geocities.com/pari106/damain.html I have all my old stories, plus two M/Z stories in progress, and a Z/M/L (complete!) all new! (I figure it would be a good idea to give you the URL, just in case you have trouble getting to it here. Now that FF.Net is back up and running, I figure the Dark Angel section will be crazy busy!)
Yet another author's note: Speaking of which, let me just give a quick nod to the folks at Fanfiction.Net. What would we do without them? (During the outage I found out. And it isn't pretty.)
Gift of Darkness, part12
by pari106
When the door to Bling's apartment burst open, Max's first instinct was to duck. Bling's first instinct was
to reach, yet again, for his gun. But the next sensation that assaulted both of them was a feeling of déjà vu.
"Max!" their intruder yelled.
Max stilled. "Zack?"
Then she and Bling came out from the kitchen. There, coming through the door, was a bloody and beaten
Zack…carrying a bloody and beaten Logan. That's where the déjà vu kicked in. Because Logan was not
only covered in blood, once again, but he was also unconscious.
"What happened?" Bling and Max were both asking, simultaneously.
Zack had just opened his mouth to speak, when suddenly Logan jerked so violently he almost came out of
the other man's arms.
"Help me!" he yelled, lowering Logan to the floor as the others rushed to his side.
"What the…"
Bling had no idea what was going on, but Max had a horrible idea that she did. She watched, helplessly, as
Logan writhed beneath them.
"Seizures…" she whispered.
'Oh, God.'
Logan was seizing. And bad.
"Max!" Before Max could contemplate the situation any further, Zack's voice was tugging her back to
reality. She looked up to him, her dark eyes meeting his blue. And if anything frightened her more than
seeing Logan this way, it was seeing that look in Zack's eyes. Because Zack look frightened, too, and he
was never frightened. Especially not where Logan was concerned. "You know what to do," Zack told her
now.
"We need triptophan."
"What?" Bling asked, looking up. "Triptophan…"
"Helps alleviate seizures in X5s," Zack finished for him. Both Bling and Max gave him a look. It was the
first time he'd referred to Logan as if he believed that that was what he'd become. But Zack didn't notice
their looks. He turned to Max instead. "Do you have yours with you?" he asked. Logan was starting to
settle down.
Max shook her head.
And then, suddenly, the seizures were back again, strong enough to startle the two men nearby. "Then go!"
Zack yelled.
Max didn't hesitate. She was out of the apartment and speeding away on her bike in a flash, heading back
to her place to retrieve her bottle of triptophan.
**** ****
By the time Max arrived back at Bling's, Logan's seizures seemed to have stopped. For the time being.
Zack and Bling had put him in Bling's bed, and now he was sleeping like the dead.
And the second Max thought that, she cringed, pushing back the panic that suddenly arose at the visual.
'Bad metaphor, girl.'
Then she saw Zack and Bling sitting in the kitchen.
Or, rather, she heard them before she saw them.
"No. I'm fine."
"No, you're not. A little ice would…"
"I don't need a little ice. It'll heal."
"And until then, you're just gonna sit there and bleed?"
"That's the idea."
Despite the situation, Max smiled. She could imagine the look of long-suffering patience that must be
playing out on Bling's face. She'd seen that look often enough thanks to Logan.
Then the smile died as she remembered why Zack and Logan were bleeding in the first place.
When she finally walked into the kitchen, Max's expression was grim.
"Max!" Bling smiled when he saw her. Whether it was because he was actually happy to see her, or
because she had the triptophan, or simply because she'd rescued him from further non-conversation with
Zack, she didn't know.
Max didn't smile. Zack didn't smile. Max set the bottle of triptophan down on the table.
"He should take two of these as soon as possible," she said.
Zack was just looking at her, with one of those carefully blank looks of his.
And Bling glanced between the two.
"Uh…yeah. He's sleeping now. But I'll see if I can get him to wake up and swallow a couple."
Bling grabbed the bottle like it was salvation and left Max and Zack to their awkward silence. Max took a
seat at the table and stared at Zack staring back at her.
Finally they spoke. They both spoke. At the same time.
"What the hell did you do?" she was asking, at the same time as he was saying, "It's not my fault."
Then they both shut up. And tried again.
"What do you mean, not your fault?" Max asked. Simultaneously, Zack said, "What do mean, what did I
do?"
Max sighed. "You didn't have to beat the…"
"Look, I'm not the one who threw him into a truck, okay? Besides…" Zack was really glowering now,
and his hesitance to say what he said next amused Max just enough to replace her ire. "He held his own,"
Zack confessed, with a little shrug of the shoulder.
Max snorted.
"Yeah. I noticed."
That cut on his lip, and the one over his left eye, didn't look so hot.
Then Max sighed again, debating. She was angry at Zack for getting into this thing with Logan. Not as
angry as she was at Logan for starting it, but…
Still, Zack looked like a big kid sulking because he'd been punished for something his brother did instead
of him. That thought made Max's lips quirk just a little. And the sight of Zack, sitting there, looking all
roughed up, finally softened her gaze and her posture.
Without another word, she went to the cabinets and pulled out a towel, then went to the freezer and pulled
out a handful of ice, wrapping it up for a makeshift compress. Too bad Bling didn't have any steak.
Then Max went over to Zack's side, kneeling by his chair. Apparently he had something else on his mind,
because he didn't even realize what she was about to do until she was pressing the compress against his
temple.
"Ow! What the hell are you doing?"
Zack tried to bat her hand away, but Max just raised a brow and pulled the towel and ice out of his reach,
placing it back on his face as soon as he put his hand down.
"Bling's right, you need to put some ice on that," she mumbled, using a dampened corner of the towel to
wipe some of the blood of the skin surrounding the cut. "So stop being a baby," she told him, mostly for
the sheer joy of needling him.
Zack snorted, but he didn't resist any further. He just sat there, letting Max work in silence. But then that
silence became awkward. Max was close enough for him to pick up the scent of her hair. She was
kneeling awful close to him. She'd unconsciously rested one hand on Zack's knee, for balance, and her
touch was gentle as she tended to his minor injuries…
Zack squirmed in his seat.
"I don't need to be coddled," he muttered under his breath.
Didn't she have something else to do right now? Like pining by Logan's bedside or something? Anything
that didn't require touching Zack?
Max laughed. Oblivious to the reason for Zack's discomfort.
"Zack, I don't know anybody who needs coddling more than you."
The comment surprised him, but Max missed the sharp look Zack gave her.
She did, however, pick up on a growing tension that had somehow begun to fill the room. For some
reason, she became distinctly aware of how close she was kneeling by her brother. There was just
something about the way…
Max put a smile on her face, shoving the compress into Zack's hands.
"There. I think you can take i…"
She started to rise, but suddenly Zack's hand shot out and grasped her by the wrist.
He was just staring at her, intently. Too intently. His blue eyes were trying to lock with her brown ones,
and she felt his fingers move against the skin on the inside of her wrist, as if he were trying to caress her.
Max let out the breath she was holding. "Zack…"
But whatever she'd thought she'd seen, or felt, must have been imagined. Because this was Zack, right?
Her brother?
Anyhow, he let go of her before she could question herself.
"I just wanted to say…thanks," he said.
Max didn't know why, but she didn't believe him. He was still looking at her, and she hated when he
looked at her like that. He had this riveting gaze, and you could never tell what he was thinking when he
looked at you. It was intimidating. And discomforting at the moment.
Still, Max kind of smiled. "Yeah. No prob." But her voice was quieter than she would have liked.
In an ironic twist of the evening's earlier events, it was a voice from behind them that broke the tense
silence of the moment.
"I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" the voice asked.
Max turned…and saw Logan standing there.
"Logan?"
This time, when Max smiled, it was genuine, and she went to Logan's side, she promised herself she'd wait
till her felt better to beat the hell out of him for hitting her brother. And for scaring the hell out of her.
Again.
She'd interpreted the pained expression on Logan's face, when he'd come into the kitchen and saw Zack
holding Max's hand, as having to do with his injuries. And she missed the pained expression on Zack's
face as he watched her smile at Logan.
And she also missed the heated look the two men exchanged, over her shoulder, when her back was turned.
But, standing just behind Logan, Bling hadn't missed anything. He turned and went to the living room,
sitting down as he sort of whistled under his breath.
Transgenic love triangles. What the fuck next?
Pediatrics. That's what he should have gone into – pediatrics. Snot-nosed kids with freckled faces. There
were enough physical therapists cum bodyguards in the world.
And if that look Zack and Logan had given each other was any indication, Bling had a feeling Seattle
would be needing them.