Numbers
Author: sereace
Disclaimer: The following characters, settings, and, uh, everything else, are the property of their respective owners. Author is in no way related to owners, creators, producers of Dark Angel. No copyright infringement is intended.
Pairing: Max/Alec, or at least the implication of it. For now.
Summary: A prolific writer knows that a composition is the sum of its parts.
A/N: Hm, I have problems writing Original Cindy. I love the girl and all, but she's just too challenging for me. Plus, I have issues writing words as they're pronounced but I really tried, so. And I don't know what possessed me to think of writing using Sketchy! wails As a result, they've become a little bit OOC, just because of their speech. Anyone who can help me write them, please help me. And to RRaine, thanks for the offer and the comment! And that goes to everyone else, too! Thank you!
Reviews: Are my cream puff. And I really, really, really like them. :D
Four
So. Half an hour in the loo and the world comes to an end. He thought he'd thrown up the two pitchers of beer that he'd won from the bet with Skye, and the three shiny, white tablets he'd scored from a dealer, but apparently, mixing alcohol with…whatever the dealer gave him was bad. He closed his eyes and counted to ten, actually hearing himself do so, and opened them.
Huh.
Maybe it was time to talk to a shrink.
"Fool! Would you close your mouth?"
'It was the lilting of her speech that always gave Cindy away,' Sketchy thought to himself, a distinct sound of hand meeting face, and he had to blink. 'Okay, so also the hitting.' "Ouch, O.C. Can't you give a poor guy a break?" He raised a hand and rested it upon his cheek. Damn, the woman has an arm on her.
"There were flies flyin' close to your mouth, an' I'ma not gonna see anyone, friend or no, eating flies." O.C. gave a shudder. "That's just, bleh." And the sound she made after that gave him shudders. He shrugged. "Well, thanks, O.C., but next time, please just tell me. There's no need to follow Max's example – speaking of which, is that Max over by the bar, talking to Alec?"
O.C. rolled her eyes, huffing a little. "Her boy's havin' a tough time."
Now it was Sketchy's turn to roll his eyes. "Come on, O.C. That's so not the only reason why she's hangin' out with him!"
She turned to face him, eyes narrowing. "What on earth are you on about, dickwad?"
Sketchy snorted, but only quietly. His head's beginning to throb. "O.C. half the time Alec's havin' a hard time is because of Max."
"What?!"
"O.C., don't tell me you don't see it."
"See what?!" O.C. practically screamed, her voice beginning to sound shrilly. Sketchy loved O.C., but high pitched voices and a throbbing headache plus a detox are not to mixed together.
"The way that Max forces Alec to do what she does. You know, be," and at this Sketchy wriggled her fingers and dropped his voice, "Max-the-Male-version. Or Logan-the-second. Or, some days, and man, you should see Alec whenever this Max the Conformer appears: Be-Anyone-Else-But-Alec. It's enough to drive any man insane!" And then Sketchy paused for breath, looking at O.C. looking at him like he'd lost his head sometime from his journey from their table to the loo and back. Which he so did not, because, hello, he could totally feel the throbbing headache. "What? I'm just sayin'!"
And O.C. was doing this thing when she looked at you, eyebrows raised, fingers drumming on the table, like you were a hair product she should discard or refill.
He sort of swallowed pass the lump that suddenly formed in his throat. Lo and behold! He learned something new today, like: do not talk to O.C. about Max and Alec when coming down from a high. Definitely hazardous to your health.
And then just at that moment, Max flopped on the seat next to O.C., fuming. "I can't believe it!" Max tilted her head to one side, then amended herself, "Actually, I can believe it. He's Alec, after all." Pause, before she grabbed a glass of beer, and ugh, it was too soon for him to see someone drink beer, tipped it, and drank it straight. Sketchy thought he would acquaint himself with his breakfast yesterday. Then Max, set the glass back, their table rattling at her wake. "Damn, how hard is it to answer a freakin' simple question anyway? It's not like he's gonna drop dead on the floor the moment he actually answers something!"
'Well,' Sketchy thought, 'Stranger things have happened in Seattle.'
"Boo, getting this worked out over him is not helping."
Max grunted, and it goes to show that gorgeousness does go a long way because Sketchy was sure if another girl did that he'd be disgusted. With Max, it was just a Max thing she did. Sketchy looked back to where Alec was, saw him just as he was standing up, and turned back and faced Max. "He's leaving," he said, glass inclined towards the direction where Alec stormed off.
Max's head turned so fast Sketchy got a mouthful of hair, then a hastily thrown "Gotta blaze, guys, see you tomorrow!" was all he and O.C. got. He looked to see O.C. following Max's form as she waded the crowds of Crash, then as she went up the stairs, and finally disappeared as the door shut, her left eyebrow raised. Sketchy raised both hands, palms out. "Woah! What'd I do?"
O.C. rolled her eyes, before settling on him again. "Honestly, doesn't that remind of something?"
Sketchy had to think hard, and he came up with a blank. Which showed on his face, judging from the exasperated look on O.C.'s face. He shrugged. "I don't even know what should remind me of something. Or what I should even be remembering."
"Sketchy, come on, don't go proving Normal being all right by being an actual reprobate! That," she jerked her thumb in the direction where their friends had gone, "wasn't that a déjà vu?"
Sketchy sort of blinked. "What, Max leaving scorch marks all over Crash in her dire need to get to Logan?" O.C. was looking at him like she wanted to kill her, which made him pause, rewind and play. And promptly choke all by his lonesome. O.C. eventually took pity on him and thumped his back.
"Well, talk about comin' down to a realization!"
Sketchy sort of waved his hands all over and O.C. stopped her ministrations, "Well, you could've warned a poor guy! I was sort of high, you know!"
This time, he got a thump on his head for all his self-pitying. "Fool! Did you honestly not see it comin'?"
Sketchy shot her a sardonic look, "I'm a guy, O.C.! Also, what could possibly have clued me in? Besides the head thumping, punching, insulting –"
"Okay!" She cut in, "Okay, cut my boo some slack, a'ight? She's just new to this," she sort of waved her hands all over and Sketchy didn't even pretend to follow, so O.C. sighed, "Liking a guy thing."
Sketchy snorted a "Yeah," which earned him a sharp look from O.C., with sharper words to top it all, "What's that even s'posed to mean?"
Sketchy shrugged. "Cin, Max wasn't like this with Logan – she wasn't all, you know. Physical. And I don't even mean it in a guy way, it's just." He paused, surprised to see his friend actually listening to him. 'Hm, will wonders never cease?'
"What? Just what?" Prompted O.C.
"Violent? Hell, I don't know, O.C., okay? Guys aren't made to talk about things like these!" He is so not getting even a little bit hysterical. The perspiration on his hairline is just because Crash is getting crowded. Totally.
"But you actually got point, Sketch."
'Huh.' "Huh."
"See, with Logan, she was all just all butterflies and flowers—"
"And pasta." Sketchy had to say it because, man, if you have someone as hot as Max in front of you, you don't exactly think of pasta.
O.C. banged a fist on their table, "Yeah!"
"And with Alec she's all punch him on the chest, kick him on the shin, thump him on the head, and insult him with every breath he makes?"
"And I thought you were getting' on with my program, you scoundrel!" O.C. has a great voice, really, except when she's sort of harping on you for being stupid. And wow, O.C.'s been listening to Normal lately, she's even quoted him on scoundrel. Huh.
"O.C. hey, I'm sorry, okay? I'm just not seeing how her constant ragging on Alec for simply existing is equivalent to her bein' all hot and bothered for him as she is with Logan, okay? You have seen how chicks dig Alec, right? They don't exactly touch him with the intent of leaving bruises." He blinked, and O.C. blinked, and Sketchy had to concede. "Okay, so maybe they want to leave bruises but not the kind that Max does. Nope. Chicks want Alec for the horizontal mambo. Or the vertical, I guess, 'coz Alec said something some time about this girl he had—"
"So not interested in Alec's sex life, Sketchy!"
"Right. Sorry, sorry."
O.C. reached for a glass, drank, and set it down, obviously preoccupied because it was his glass she drank from. "So anyway, the point is, I think my girl has a thing for Alec."
"Aside, of course, from the thing she has with Logan."
"Shut up."
"Just sayin'."
"Shut up."
"But," and here Sketchy had to smile a little bit, because it was kinda funny if you think about it the right way, "If you consider the way Alec frets about Max whenever she's gone and he's not with her," He had to pause to commit to memory the way O.C.'s jaw just dropped, "Or the way he thumps himself on the back when he makes her smile," He never really thought O.C.'s eyes were big, but hey, shock really does work wonders to the system, "Or the way he gets scary when Max is obviously not okay, and no," he raised a hand in the universal motion of wait at O.C.'s best innocent look, "I'm not really as blind and stupid as everyone thinks." As an afterthought, he added, "Please don't lie to me now."
O.C. smiled, and Sketchy smiled, because he understood that everyone has secrets. And if Max and Alec thought they were fooling anyone with their 'No we have no history!' speech, well. He'll let them believe that, because he's a great friend, and all.
"You're a great friend, Sketchy."
"Yeah, I totally rock!" And they had to have a toast to that because it wasn't often he got toasted. Or, you know, celebrated. And, really, even if it just used to be him, O.C. and Max, Alec is…Alec. The cool guy who everyone looks at and listens to, with whom everyone's just a little in love with 'No matter how high that Wall of Denial is, Max, when the day comes that Alec chooses to scale that is the day I will have my own column in The Washington Post' and still decides to hang out with him no matter how deep the trench he'd dug for himself.
And that he's actually gotten laid just because Alec's been seen hangin' out with him is just a bonus.