A/N: I know it's been a while, but please forgive me and R&R. All responses
welcomed, and I mean all. Go On, Flame Me. I dare ya. Also, I've really
earned my R rating on this chapter, and subsequent chapters will only be
darker. Read at your own risk.
Alec parked the dark blue panel van in the lane beside Foggle towers. He got out casually and locked the door, looking around for anything out of the ordinary. The drizzling rain masked the scent of the dumpsters at one end and puddles were slowly collecting underfoot. He turned up the collar of his jacket and headed for the service entrance. The residents of Foggle towers didn't want their tradespeople using the front door.
He ran his stolen passcard through the door lock, smiling when the light turned green. He had picked it up from the pocket of a drunken cleaner at a strip club an hour before. By morning the guy would have it back in his pocket, none the wiser. He took the emergency stairs and broke into Logan's apartment , wondering if Max was already inside.
The first thing he noticed was the darkness. His eyes adjusted quickly but he realised that he had never before seen Logan's apartment without the lights on. There was no smell of cooking, no softly burning candles. Even the computer was silent and dark, sitting innocently on the desktop.
He did a quick scan of the rooms, they looked tidy but everywhere there were signs of Logan's life. A stray sock occupied his bathroom floor, his razor was slightly out of place and a smudge of shaving cream decorated the mirror. The bed was slightly rumpled, as if somebody had sat on it after it was made. The kitchen was clean but a white coffee mug rested on the sideboard as if he had rinsed it rather than put it in the dishwasher. The cupboards weren't as full as he thought they would be. He wondered what Logan's financial situation had been like, towards the end.
A quick glance at the walls showed a couple of bare patches where art had been. An impressive Persian rug was missing from the floor. There was still enough art left in the apartment to finance a small revolution, so Alec didn't exactly feel sorry for the guy. You wanna be a hero, you gotta pay the price.
He looked at his watch. Max was four and a half minutes late. Time to get down to business. The computers were his main priority. He checked the computer, cables, desk and power point for explosives. Logan might have taken one risk too many but he was pretty security conscious. Alec didn't really mind detonating the computers, but he wasn't keen on losing fingers or his hand in the process.
They were clear so he started disconnecting things, wrapping the cords around to make them easier to carry. He wished there was a more tactically sound way of moving the goods down the building. It was either large loads and fewer trips, making it hard to see and hard to defend himself, or smaller loads and more trips, increasing the risk that someone would come along and question what he was doing.
Alec chose larger loads and fewer trips, carrying Logan's hard drives down to the van first. He scanned the lane again, and glanced up at the windows of Foggle towers. Some instinct deep at the base of his spine told him that there was nobody watching him.
It was after the second load that Alec returned to find Max in the apartment. Sitting down on the couch. He looked at his watch, she was 20 minutes late.
He looked at her carefully, she seemed o.k. 'You're late'
'Yeah. Got caught up.'
He waited for more of an explanation. None came.
'Help me get this last load'
They worked silently together, carrying the last of Logan's equipment down the stairs and into the night. The light rain had gotten heavier and was pelting down hard, stinging Alec's exposed skin and soaking through his hair and jeans. They opened the van and as they put the gear inside he felt the water run inside his jacket, trickling down his spine. He turned to see Max heading for the building at a run but he took his time closing the van and followed her slowly, enjoying the cold water as it scoured his skin.
He found her in the kitchen, packing the food into a large box. She looked up as he entered.
'I thought we could use this stuff'
He nodded, although he couldn't really see what Logan's bottle of balsamic vinegar would do for the common good, and squelched off to the bathroom. He found a fluffy towel hanging there and used it to dry off his hair and face. He removed his soaking jacket and his gray t-shirt, enjoying the feel of the soft towel on his skin. Logan, he thought with a tinge of regret, had got his priorities right in some ways.
He put his shirt back on, cringing at the clinging dampness against his skin, and decided against the jacket. One last check of Logan's workstation showed that nothing had been left behind, there were no stray disks or papers. The metal wastepaper bin had ashes in it, Logan had apparently been careful about burning the evidence.
'Do you think we should fence his art?' asked Max from the kitchen.
He felt a spark of surprise. He hadn't expected such a casual attitude to Logan's stuff, and he wondered how long her practical attitude would last. He looked around the room with an appraising eye.
'It's a good collection' he acknowledged. 'Small pieces, good variety so it's not too noticeable. Valuable but not so valuable they're a health risk. Be easy to fence, normally.'
'I know what you're thinking' she said as she walked into the room. 'Too many trips and not enough of a payoff'
He smiled at her. 'Right'
'Bummer it has to go to his family though.'
'They that bad?'
Max sighed and looked around. 'Just a bunch of narcissistic assholes. No biggie'
'And that surprised you, why?' It came out harsher than he wanted so he gave her something else to think about. 'There a safe anywhere round here?'
She looked confused. 'A safe?'
'Yeah. Logan moved large amounts of cash every now and then. Unless he was keeping it in his pocket or under the mattress.'
'A safe', she murmured, looking thoughtfully around the room. 'We'll have to look for it'
He scanned the apartment. 'I'll take the bedroom and the bathroom'
He started with the bathroom, moving the fluffy white towels aside to check behind the rail. Nothing behind the picture on the wall either, but Alec hadn't really expected him to be as obvious as all that. He checked the shower recess but the tiles and floor were totally secure. He opened the medicine cabinet and raised his eyebrows. Eight different kinds of painkillers. Bandages. Syringes. Tryptophan. Stimulants. Sedatives. Antibiotics. Either Logan was the world's biggest hypochondriac or life with Max had really taken a toll on his medicine cabinet. He began to empty the cabinet. T.C, like the rest of Seattle was always short on anything medical.
He checked the back of the empty medicine cabinet and made sure it couldn't be detached from the wall. Nada. He looked closely at the walls, but there were no flaws in the plaster. He checked the floor as well, but left the stray sock where it was. Looked like the bathroom was a safe-free zone.
The bedroom was next. The walls were unblemished, the floor too. He thought about pulling the bed away from the wall to check behind it, but the thing was massive, old and wooden. There was no way Logan would have been able to move it on his own. He could hear Max searching still, so he lifted the mattress a little and ran his hand under it, coming up empty. He slid under the bed, checking the slats individually, hoping to find a key or some cash taped to one of them. He got some hope from the fact that it was pretty clean under there, but didn't find anything.
He slid back out and rifled quickly through the bedside table. Books, a pair of glasses, some computer bits, a small screwdriver, a couple of ancient condoms, nothing useful or informative. He moved the table and checked the wall and floor where it had been. No luck and that left only the wardrobe to search.
He paused at the door. There was a twinge of something deep in his belly. Guilt? It was as if he half expected Logan to come bursting through the door, yelling about invasion of privacy. He squashed it, he was one of the world's most expensive cat burglars and would go wherever he damn well wanted. It smelled of Logan's expensive aftershave in there. He started with the boxes in the corner, moving them aside to check the walls and floor. He pulled the drawers out of their rack to look behind them and slotted them back in when he found nothing. He checked behind the sweaters on the shelves and resisted the urge to toss the neatly organised clothes and their hangars to the floor. He pushed them aside.
'Max.'
'You got it?'
'Yeah'
He heard her enter the bedroom and pause.
'In here'
She came up behind him and looked around his shoulders.
'Nice safe. Not much of a challenge though'
He pressed his ear against the safe and began to run through the digits on the dial. He lost himself in the soft scrapes and clicks, imagining the intricate lock turning on itself. The cool metal caressed his face and he smiled to himself. Safe cracking had been one of his favourite exercises back at Manticore, a baby's game really, but methodical and reasonable when the rest of his life had no reason at all.
The safe unlocked and he turned to Max with a grin.
'Done. You wanna congratulate me?'
'What, and interrupt your tender moment with the safe?'
He flushed a little, embarrassed that she had picked up on his brief contentment. He turned back to the safe and opened it. There was cash inside, and papers, a gun and a gold Bast statue. The wads of cash were too fat for his jeans pockets, so he tossed them over his shoulder, smiling when he heard Max catch them. He looked at the papers and winced. The Last Will and Testament of Logan Alexander Cale, dated only 4 months before. Guy was a regular boy scout, always prepared. He tucked the gun into his pants, and wondered why Logan had bothered putting it in the safe at all. He was reaching for the Bast statue, when he heard Max speak, so quietly he had trouble picking it up.
'Don't'
He turned around and looked at her carefully. 'Don't what?'
Her eyes were glued on the safe, on the statue and he looked at it more closely. There was a tag around it, handwritten, and the words were 'For Max.'
'Leave it there' She was louder this time, more assertive. 'He keeps trying to give me stuff I don't want.'
Alec looked at her measuringly and clicked the safe shut. He would send someone back for it if she changed her mind.
They walked from the wardrobe and he detoured to the bathroom for the meds. It was more than an armful and he juggled them awkwardly to the kitchen and into the box. Max walked through the apartment and flipped the lights off one by one. Eventually, they were together in the dark. Max stood with her back to him, looking towards the window and he studied the taut muscles under her t-shirt. The silence swirled around them, swelling into the empty space.
Alec hated silence. 'Why did you do it?'
'Do what?' She didn't turn to face him.
'Let him get away with it. Pretend you didn't know' He said it casually, trying to keep his tone flippant.
There was no visible change in her posture, no audible change in her breathing. 'Didn't know what?'
'About Asha. That they slept together'
She turned around and looked at him seriously. 'What makes you think I knew?'
'Could've been the total lack of surprise about that whole birthmark thing. Then again, maybe you're used to other women being more familiar with your boyfriend's body than you are'. His voice was sarcastic and he regretted it as soon as it was out there, but he couldn't take it back.
She looked at the floor, and looked up again. She had a tiny smile on her face, her brown eyes had an expression he had seen from her before but couldn't quite place. Sympathy? He was thrown. He didn't know what he wanted her to do, or expected her to say, but sympathy hadn't even figured into the equation. He had a brief flash that the split in her lip had been worse than he thought, he could still see it and her transgenic healing should have cleared it up by now.
She broke the silence, the eerie little smile still on her lips. 'I don't expect you to understand'
'What's to understand? You let yourself be played. By him. Bad enough that he cheated on you while you were gone.'
'C'mon Alec, He thought I was dead. What was he supposed to do? Just say no?'
The tiny smile held firm when she spoke and it was starting to grate on his nerves. It was as if he had done a jigsaw puzzle only to discover at completion that there was a piece missing. He felt a push of anger and didn't bother trying to keep calm
'You got any excuses for him doing Asha the second time?'
'Like I said Alec, I don't expect you to get it.'
'You're right. I don't get it. You've done nothing but bust my chops since I met you but you couldn't spare some anger for a guy who supposedly loved you and then fucked another woman on his goddamn desk?'
That one went home. The smile didn't waver but something in her big brown eyes did. He felt a kind of sick pleasure at having got to her.
'That something new? He was gagging for it Max. They didn't even make it to the bed, just found themselves a place somewhere in between all that shit we carried to the car'
No sign of a smile now.
'Like I said, Alec. There is no way you could understand. I didn't let myself be played, I just didn't let myself get angry. He deserved my forgiveness. He forgave me. I forgave him. That's what love is.'
'You think I don't understand what love is? You think love is about forgiveness? You're an idiot Max. I know all about love Max, and let me tell you, if he loved you there's no way you would've been sitting around drinking wine for a year.'
'Yeah? What would we have done? Fucked? Love isn't all about sex Alec'
'You think I don't know that? I do.unlike somebody else in the room I can tell the difference between love and other emotions.'
'What's that supposed to mean asshole?' She practically spat the words and he could tell that he was really getting to her now, paying her back for months worth of taking her shit. Adrenaline pumped through his bloodstream at the thought.
'Tell me that this "love" of yours isn't mixed in with an unhealthy dose of hero worship'
'It isn't' she denied it a little too hotly and he smiled maliciously at her.
'Really? What about guilt? Got any of that in the mix?'
She opened her mouth to retort but he stopped her. 'Don't even try denying it Max. You blame yourself for his condition. You mix it in with admiration, with safety, with friendship. You call it love but it isn't. It's an excuse. It holds you back, keeps you miserable, keeps you secure.'
Her eyes were filled with water. A tear rolled down her cheek but he didn't stop. Couldn't if he wanted to and he really didn't want to. He had spent his whole life with his emotions on a leash, behind doors and bars. They had been building for days and now they were free, his anger burning through him in a rush, her defenses collapsing against the onslaught. She had gotten too used to him just cracking jokes and letting it go, she was powerless against an aspect of his personality neither of them had ever seen before.
She deserves it, he thought, she deserves it.
'Face it Max. Logan was just part of your search for a family. A father figure: Logan and Lydecker, always watching over you. Eyes only.'
'Shut up.' She ground it out, her shoulders shaking with the effort of it. 'You think you could have done better Alec? You think being out of Manticore a year qualifies you to judge me? Fuck you. You think fucking that rich slut was love? You wouldn't know real love if it bit you in the ass.'
He didn't see his fist moving until after he had caught her in the jaw. Her head snapped back and she stumbled from the force, coming up against the wall behind her. He stood still for a moment, realising abstractly, that he had hit her hard enough to bruise his own knuckles.
'Shit, Max. I'm.'
She charged him, and her head impacted with his stomach as the air rushed out of him in a whoosh. 'Asshole.'
He fell underneath her, more from surprise than anything else, and failed to block when she punched him in the kidney. He buckled from the pain, but she straddled him, holding him down and punching him again, first in the kidneys, then in the face. Pain ripped through him, splintering his consciousness as he fought the urge to throw up. Blood trickled into his left eye and he blinked, hard, to try and clear it. Max pinned his arms with her own and looked down at him, confident in her ability to hold him where he was.
The look in her eyes was speculative, as if she was trying to work out where to hit next. His instincts kicked in and he brought his head up with lightning speed, smashing his forehead into her face as he rolled her underneath him, reversing their positions. The fog in his head coalesced and dispersed as the moment stretched out around them.
Max, he realised, was unconscious.
Alec parked the dark blue panel van in the lane beside Foggle towers. He got out casually and locked the door, looking around for anything out of the ordinary. The drizzling rain masked the scent of the dumpsters at one end and puddles were slowly collecting underfoot. He turned up the collar of his jacket and headed for the service entrance. The residents of Foggle towers didn't want their tradespeople using the front door.
He ran his stolen passcard through the door lock, smiling when the light turned green. He had picked it up from the pocket of a drunken cleaner at a strip club an hour before. By morning the guy would have it back in his pocket, none the wiser. He took the emergency stairs and broke into Logan's apartment , wondering if Max was already inside.
The first thing he noticed was the darkness. His eyes adjusted quickly but he realised that he had never before seen Logan's apartment without the lights on. There was no smell of cooking, no softly burning candles. Even the computer was silent and dark, sitting innocently on the desktop.
He did a quick scan of the rooms, they looked tidy but everywhere there were signs of Logan's life. A stray sock occupied his bathroom floor, his razor was slightly out of place and a smudge of shaving cream decorated the mirror. The bed was slightly rumpled, as if somebody had sat on it after it was made. The kitchen was clean but a white coffee mug rested on the sideboard as if he had rinsed it rather than put it in the dishwasher. The cupboards weren't as full as he thought they would be. He wondered what Logan's financial situation had been like, towards the end.
A quick glance at the walls showed a couple of bare patches where art had been. An impressive Persian rug was missing from the floor. There was still enough art left in the apartment to finance a small revolution, so Alec didn't exactly feel sorry for the guy. You wanna be a hero, you gotta pay the price.
He looked at his watch. Max was four and a half minutes late. Time to get down to business. The computers were his main priority. He checked the computer, cables, desk and power point for explosives. Logan might have taken one risk too many but he was pretty security conscious. Alec didn't really mind detonating the computers, but he wasn't keen on losing fingers or his hand in the process.
They were clear so he started disconnecting things, wrapping the cords around to make them easier to carry. He wished there was a more tactically sound way of moving the goods down the building. It was either large loads and fewer trips, making it hard to see and hard to defend himself, or smaller loads and more trips, increasing the risk that someone would come along and question what he was doing.
Alec chose larger loads and fewer trips, carrying Logan's hard drives down to the van first. He scanned the lane again, and glanced up at the windows of Foggle towers. Some instinct deep at the base of his spine told him that there was nobody watching him.
It was after the second load that Alec returned to find Max in the apartment. Sitting down on the couch. He looked at his watch, she was 20 minutes late.
He looked at her carefully, she seemed o.k. 'You're late'
'Yeah. Got caught up.'
He waited for more of an explanation. None came.
'Help me get this last load'
They worked silently together, carrying the last of Logan's equipment down the stairs and into the night. The light rain had gotten heavier and was pelting down hard, stinging Alec's exposed skin and soaking through his hair and jeans. They opened the van and as they put the gear inside he felt the water run inside his jacket, trickling down his spine. He turned to see Max heading for the building at a run but he took his time closing the van and followed her slowly, enjoying the cold water as it scoured his skin.
He found her in the kitchen, packing the food into a large box. She looked up as he entered.
'I thought we could use this stuff'
He nodded, although he couldn't really see what Logan's bottle of balsamic vinegar would do for the common good, and squelched off to the bathroom. He found a fluffy towel hanging there and used it to dry off his hair and face. He removed his soaking jacket and his gray t-shirt, enjoying the feel of the soft towel on his skin. Logan, he thought with a tinge of regret, had got his priorities right in some ways.
He put his shirt back on, cringing at the clinging dampness against his skin, and decided against the jacket. One last check of Logan's workstation showed that nothing had been left behind, there were no stray disks or papers. The metal wastepaper bin had ashes in it, Logan had apparently been careful about burning the evidence.
'Do you think we should fence his art?' asked Max from the kitchen.
He felt a spark of surprise. He hadn't expected such a casual attitude to Logan's stuff, and he wondered how long her practical attitude would last. He looked around the room with an appraising eye.
'It's a good collection' he acknowledged. 'Small pieces, good variety so it's not too noticeable. Valuable but not so valuable they're a health risk. Be easy to fence, normally.'
'I know what you're thinking' she said as she walked into the room. 'Too many trips and not enough of a payoff'
He smiled at her. 'Right'
'Bummer it has to go to his family though.'
'They that bad?'
Max sighed and looked around. 'Just a bunch of narcissistic assholes. No biggie'
'And that surprised you, why?' It came out harsher than he wanted so he gave her something else to think about. 'There a safe anywhere round here?'
She looked confused. 'A safe?'
'Yeah. Logan moved large amounts of cash every now and then. Unless he was keeping it in his pocket or under the mattress.'
'A safe', she murmured, looking thoughtfully around the room. 'We'll have to look for it'
He scanned the apartment. 'I'll take the bedroom and the bathroom'
He started with the bathroom, moving the fluffy white towels aside to check behind the rail. Nothing behind the picture on the wall either, but Alec hadn't really expected him to be as obvious as all that. He checked the shower recess but the tiles and floor were totally secure. He opened the medicine cabinet and raised his eyebrows. Eight different kinds of painkillers. Bandages. Syringes. Tryptophan. Stimulants. Sedatives. Antibiotics. Either Logan was the world's biggest hypochondriac or life with Max had really taken a toll on his medicine cabinet. He began to empty the cabinet. T.C, like the rest of Seattle was always short on anything medical.
He checked the back of the empty medicine cabinet and made sure it couldn't be detached from the wall. Nada. He looked closely at the walls, but there were no flaws in the plaster. He checked the floor as well, but left the stray sock where it was. Looked like the bathroom was a safe-free zone.
The bedroom was next. The walls were unblemished, the floor too. He thought about pulling the bed away from the wall to check behind it, but the thing was massive, old and wooden. There was no way Logan would have been able to move it on his own. He could hear Max searching still, so he lifted the mattress a little and ran his hand under it, coming up empty. He slid under the bed, checking the slats individually, hoping to find a key or some cash taped to one of them. He got some hope from the fact that it was pretty clean under there, but didn't find anything.
He slid back out and rifled quickly through the bedside table. Books, a pair of glasses, some computer bits, a small screwdriver, a couple of ancient condoms, nothing useful or informative. He moved the table and checked the wall and floor where it had been. No luck and that left only the wardrobe to search.
He paused at the door. There was a twinge of something deep in his belly. Guilt? It was as if he half expected Logan to come bursting through the door, yelling about invasion of privacy. He squashed it, he was one of the world's most expensive cat burglars and would go wherever he damn well wanted. It smelled of Logan's expensive aftershave in there. He started with the boxes in the corner, moving them aside to check the walls and floor. He pulled the drawers out of their rack to look behind them and slotted them back in when he found nothing. He checked behind the sweaters on the shelves and resisted the urge to toss the neatly organised clothes and their hangars to the floor. He pushed them aside.
'Max.'
'You got it?'
'Yeah'
He heard her enter the bedroom and pause.
'In here'
She came up behind him and looked around his shoulders.
'Nice safe. Not much of a challenge though'
He pressed his ear against the safe and began to run through the digits on the dial. He lost himself in the soft scrapes and clicks, imagining the intricate lock turning on itself. The cool metal caressed his face and he smiled to himself. Safe cracking had been one of his favourite exercises back at Manticore, a baby's game really, but methodical and reasonable when the rest of his life had no reason at all.
The safe unlocked and he turned to Max with a grin.
'Done. You wanna congratulate me?'
'What, and interrupt your tender moment with the safe?'
He flushed a little, embarrassed that she had picked up on his brief contentment. He turned back to the safe and opened it. There was cash inside, and papers, a gun and a gold Bast statue. The wads of cash were too fat for his jeans pockets, so he tossed them over his shoulder, smiling when he heard Max catch them. He looked at the papers and winced. The Last Will and Testament of Logan Alexander Cale, dated only 4 months before. Guy was a regular boy scout, always prepared. He tucked the gun into his pants, and wondered why Logan had bothered putting it in the safe at all. He was reaching for the Bast statue, when he heard Max speak, so quietly he had trouble picking it up.
'Don't'
He turned around and looked at her carefully. 'Don't what?'
Her eyes were glued on the safe, on the statue and he looked at it more closely. There was a tag around it, handwritten, and the words were 'For Max.'
'Leave it there' She was louder this time, more assertive. 'He keeps trying to give me stuff I don't want.'
Alec looked at her measuringly and clicked the safe shut. He would send someone back for it if she changed her mind.
They walked from the wardrobe and he detoured to the bathroom for the meds. It was more than an armful and he juggled them awkwardly to the kitchen and into the box. Max walked through the apartment and flipped the lights off one by one. Eventually, they were together in the dark. Max stood with her back to him, looking towards the window and he studied the taut muscles under her t-shirt. The silence swirled around them, swelling into the empty space.
Alec hated silence. 'Why did you do it?'
'Do what?' She didn't turn to face him.
'Let him get away with it. Pretend you didn't know' He said it casually, trying to keep his tone flippant.
There was no visible change in her posture, no audible change in her breathing. 'Didn't know what?'
'About Asha. That they slept together'
She turned around and looked at him seriously. 'What makes you think I knew?'
'Could've been the total lack of surprise about that whole birthmark thing. Then again, maybe you're used to other women being more familiar with your boyfriend's body than you are'. His voice was sarcastic and he regretted it as soon as it was out there, but he couldn't take it back.
She looked at the floor, and looked up again. She had a tiny smile on her face, her brown eyes had an expression he had seen from her before but couldn't quite place. Sympathy? He was thrown. He didn't know what he wanted her to do, or expected her to say, but sympathy hadn't even figured into the equation. He had a brief flash that the split in her lip had been worse than he thought, he could still see it and her transgenic healing should have cleared it up by now.
She broke the silence, the eerie little smile still on her lips. 'I don't expect you to understand'
'What's to understand? You let yourself be played. By him. Bad enough that he cheated on you while you were gone.'
'C'mon Alec, He thought I was dead. What was he supposed to do? Just say no?'
The tiny smile held firm when she spoke and it was starting to grate on his nerves. It was as if he had done a jigsaw puzzle only to discover at completion that there was a piece missing. He felt a push of anger and didn't bother trying to keep calm
'You got any excuses for him doing Asha the second time?'
'Like I said Alec, I don't expect you to get it.'
'You're right. I don't get it. You've done nothing but bust my chops since I met you but you couldn't spare some anger for a guy who supposedly loved you and then fucked another woman on his goddamn desk?'
That one went home. The smile didn't waver but something in her big brown eyes did. He felt a kind of sick pleasure at having got to her.
'That something new? He was gagging for it Max. They didn't even make it to the bed, just found themselves a place somewhere in between all that shit we carried to the car'
No sign of a smile now.
'Like I said, Alec. There is no way you could understand. I didn't let myself be played, I just didn't let myself get angry. He deserved my forgiveness. He forgave me. I forgave him. That's what love is.'
'You think I don't understand what love is? You think love is about forgiveness? You're an idiot Max. I know all about love Max, and let me tell you, if he loved you there's no way you would've been sitting around drinking wine for a year.'
'Yeah? What would we have done? Fucked? Love isn't all about sex Alec'
'You think I don't know that? I do.unlike somebody else in the room I can tell the difference between love and other emotions.'
'What's that supposed to mean asshole?' She practically spat the words and he could tell that he was really getting to her now, paying her back for months worth of taking her shit. Adrenaline pumped through his bloodstream at the thought.
'Tell me that this "love" of yours isn't mixed in with an unhealthy dose of hero worship'
'It isn't' she denied it a little too hotly and he smiled maliciously at her.
'Really? What about guilt? Got any of that in the mix?'
She opened her mouth to retort but he stopped her. 'Don't even try denying it Max. You blame yourself for his condition. You mix it in with admiration, with safety, with friendship. You call it love but it isn't. It's an excuse. It holds you back, keeps you miserable, keeps you secure.'
Her eyes were filled with water. A tear rolled down her cheek but he didn't stop. Couldn't if he wanted to and he really didn't want to. He had spent his whole life with his emotions on a leash, behind doors and bars. They had been building for days and now they were free, his anger burning through him in a rush, her defenses collapsing against the onslaught. She had gotten too used to him just cracking jokes and letting it go, she was powerless against an aspect of his personality neither of them had ever seen before.
She deserves it, he thought, she deserves it.
'Face it Max. Logan was just part of your search for a family. A father figure: Logan and Lydecker, always watching over you. Eyes only.'
'Shut up.' She ground it out, her shoulders shaking with the effort of it. 'You think you could have done better Alec? You think being out of Manticore a year qualifies you to judge me? Fuck you. You think fucking that rich slut was love? You wouldn't know real love if it bit you in the ass.'
He didn't see his fist moving until after he had caught her in the jaw. Her head snapped back and she stumbled from the force, coming up against the wall behind her. He stood still for a moment, realising abstractly, that he had hit her hard enough to bruise his own knuckles.
'Shit, Max. I'm.'
She charged him, and her head impacted with his stomach as the air rushed out of him in a whoosh. 'Asshole.'
He fell underneath her, more from surprise than anything else, and failed to block when she punched him in the kidney. He buckled from the pain, but she straddled him, holding him down and punching him again, first in the kidneys, then in the face. Pain ripped through him, splintering his consciousness as he fought the urge to throw up. Blood trickled into his left eye and he blinked, hard, to try and clear it. Max pinned his arms with her own and looked down at him, confident in her ability to hold him where he was.
The look in her eyes was speculative, as if she was trying to work out where to hit next. His instincts kicked in and he brought his head up with lightning speed, smashing his forehead into her face as he rolled her underneath him, reversing their positions. The fog in his head coalesced and dispersed as the moment stretched out around them.
Max, he realised, was unconscious.