Love/Fear
By Voleuse
Pairing: Alec/Max
Timeline: Season Two
-~|~-
She breaks him in every conceivable way.
He's not sure how she does it. He's smarter than her, despite his proclivity to flash barcode at inopportune moments. He's stronger, with more training and more discipline. He even harbors the suspicion he might be prettier than her.
Why, then, does he always lose? How does she manage to bruise, belittle, and berate him every day?
Why does he keep coming back for more?
-~|~-
She lives a life defined by fear. Fear of authority, fear of capture, fear of pain.
Fear of love.
She fell in love once, and that love blazed brilliantly before sputtering out. Snuffed, through DNA, chaos, and finally, indifference.
Once was enough. She cannot bear it again.
She fears him now. He used to be a responsibility, then an occasionally useful annoyance. Now, however, she thinks of him with something like affection, and she knows the path that leads to.
That path, too, she fears to tread.
finis
