All I Want
Summary: Max keeps sending Alec on dangerous supply runs, but is there more to it? Max/Alec
Well, it's that time of year again. Time for the annual Christmas one-shot. I had grand plans for the multi-chapter that's still sitting in my drafts, but I was finishing up the new novel and it had to be done first. It's called Between Seasons (adventure, romance, Fae, an arranged marriage with the Autumn King, etc), and it's up at Amazon if anyone's interested. But first things first, let's get Max and Alec on the road to love again.
Well, this was just great, Alec thought.
Merry freaking Christmas. Well… Christmas Eve.
Here he was again. In the sewer. All because he was too stupid to tell Max that he refused to go.
He'd warned her this supply run was a disaster in the making. Now here he was. In the disaster. It was well and truly made.
Alec glared at the rising sewage. The smell was enough to make a regular person's eyes water, let alone a transgenic's. His jeans were soaked where he was sitting on the concrete floor and he had no doubt that the stink was leaching into his skin. It would take weeks to get rid of it completely.
If he lived that long.
Maybe he would die and he wouldn't have to worry about the stench. He supposed that was one positive thing in all this.
Alec pulled at the handcuff that was shackling him to the pipe concreted into the wall. He'd pulled and pulled, but he couldn't get free. It was tight enough he couldn't even break the bones in his hand and slip it free. Maybe if he crushed his hand. He'd heal, but it didn't matter anyway. He didn't have a good weapon or tool to manage it.
His head wound wasn't helping. He just couldn't think. His vision was blurry and he felt like he was going to vomit. It wouldn't affect the smell if he did, but he still leaned to the side. He really didn't want to throw up on himself. The mess was bad enough without adding to it.
The contact Max had sent him to meet hadn't been on the up and up just like Alec had suspected. He'd warned Max he had a bad feeling, not that she ever listened. The guy had shown up at the meet, but he hadn't been alone. He'd roped a gang of Steelheads in to help. Alec was as good a fighter as Manticore could produce, but even he couldn't escape an overwhelming force that had made sure to try to kill him first.
They'd intended the first shot to be a head shot. Alec had blurred at the sound of the gun firing, but the bullet had still clipped him and he'd fallen to the ground barely conscious. A thorough beating had followed judging by how bruised he felt, but he didn't remember much after the boot to the face. He had no idea why they'd cuffed him to the pipe in the sewer. Maybe they thought he was dead and wanted to make sure the body stayed hidden for a while, buried in sludge. Or maybe they had other plans for him.
Merry freaking Christmas and a happy New Year.
He was going to kill Max. Or kiss her. Sometimes it was hard to decide.
Too bad he was going to die before he figured it out.
"Where is he?" Max demanded. "He should've been back by now."
"Well, he's not." Mole chomped on his cigar angrily.
"Did he say anything?"
"No. We can't raise him on the radio and the team Alec had with him lost sight before the meet."
"Any luck with the drones?"
Mole almost snarled at her. "Princess, why don't you shut it and let us work. We'll see if we can find him before he gets dead."
Max stopped talking, but mostly from shock. Mole wasn't the only one who seemed annoyed. Luke and Dix were purposely not looking at her.
"You got something you want to say to me?" Max snapped.
"Yeah, I do." Mole pulled his cigar out of his mouth and pointed it at her. "This is the third suicide mission you've sent him on, and Alec might complain about the job, but he's too whipped to say no. You're gonna get him killed because you can't own that you caught feelings for the guy, and the only thing your idiot self can come up with is to keep sending him on every hare-brained job you find to keep him at arm's length."
Max just blinked, and it felt like every single eye in the room zeroed in on her, judgment plain on their faces. Was that what they thought? About her? And Alec?
Max didn't want him hurt. They were locked in TC and they needed all kinds of things, and in some cases they were getting desperate. Food, gas, baby formula. Alec was the best person to send after supplies. That was all.
Really.
Alec had contacts, and he could charm them. TC needed him. She knew that. She wouldn't jeopardize him. She wouldn't. Not unnecessarily.
Was she feeling awkward around him? A little uncomfortable? Was she was having trouble looking him in the eye? Maybe.
They'd been on a job at a club, dancing to fit in while they did reconnaissance. And then they'd forgotten about the recon. He'd looked at her, his face so close to hers, their lips almost brushing. She'd wanted…
That was it. She'd wanted.
"Listen up!" Max raised her voice so everyone could hear. "Alec's a big boy and he makes his own decisions. We're blockaded here in TC and we have to take some risks to get what we need. It isn't personal and I care about Alec as much as any of you. Maybe more than any of you," she added a little more quietly. She cleared her throat and raised her voice again. "Just find him," she ordered. "We need him, and we'll go get him."
Mole grunted, shoved the cigar back in his mouth and turned back toward the consoles. The others started moving as well and Max tried not to fidget while she waited. She was tempted to head for the area where he'd disappeared and wait for word, but Alec's team members were already there. She needed to be able to head to another place if they found out he'd been moved.
"Wait," Dix said suddenly. "Go back." He pointed to the screen and the video Luke was reviewing. "Top left corner. You see that?"
Max and Mole crowded in as well to see what they were looking at. Luke replayed the drone video, slowing it down and zooming in a bit, although that really just made it grainier.
"Is that Alec?" she asked.
There was a guy standing just at the edge of the drone's field of vision. Several people stood in front of him, although they were partially obstructed from view by an awning in the way. Several more people appeared behind Alec, blocking him in.
"Steelheads," Mole murmured, and Max nodded.
Suddenly, Alec's head snapped to the side and he dropped like a rock.
"Head shot," Mole observed, completely blank and emotionless.
Max, on the other hand, could not be that distant. No, no, no. Her stomach dropped, and she looked on in horror as the steelheads closed in around their downed prey.
"And no one on his team saw any of this?" Max demanded. "How did they miss that?"
"Sector cops held them up at a checkpoint asking stupid questions. They missed the meet-up by a couple of minutes," Luke explained. "By then Alec was gone."
Max just nodded, still watching the video from the drone. The steelheads picked up their victim and carried him farther away, disappearing from view.
"You think he's dead?" She had to ask. She didn't want to, but she had to ask.
"Maybe," Mole said, never one to sugarcoat anything. "Maybe not. We're hard to kill."
Max turned and grabbed her jacket, shrugging it on as she headed for the door. "His team still out there?"
"Yes," Luke answered.
"Tell them I'm on my way."
Alec pulled on the cuff again listlessly. He tried to shift, and his ribcage lit up like he was on fire. He looked down and for the first time noted the blood on his shirt. Lower and to the side. Not from the head wound.
Huh. He'd been shot in the chest, too. Great.
Now that he realized that, it actually hurt worse. He hadn't thought it could get worse.
The sewage level was rising. He was sitting on the concrete floor, and it was above his hips now. The stench of it was coming up to meet him, and he was beginning to hope that he died from the gunshot wounds instead of drowning in sewer sludge. Not exactly a dignified burial at sea. He was a transgenic who'd been purposely built and created to be the perfect soldier. This was not how he'd expected to go out.
He wished he could see Max.
They'd gone on that recon mission, and they'd been dancing and all of a sudden he hadn't cared about anything but her and dancing and her lips that were so close to his. He could still feel his hands on her hips as she moved, and then she'd looked at him and he'd wanted…
That was it. He'd wanted. Her. A kiss. A night. A future. A life. Just one moment, one look, and he'd wanted it all. He'd wanted it with her. Just her.
Max. His Max.
Alec didn't know how much longer he could keep his eyes open. He didn't like giving up. He'd fought too long, and come up with every scheme in the book to stay alive no matter what Manticore threw at him. Surely he could get out of this. He could get back to Max.
Alec heard a scratching sound and forced his eyes to focus. Wonderful. He had a new friend. A rat was walking past on a tiny ledge, but paused to size him up.
"Not yet, buddy," Alec wheezed out. "And tell your friends. Nobody gets to gnaw on me."
The rat squeaked and ran on when Alec lifted his free hand and flung a bit of water at it. That little bit of movement cost him though. It jarred his side and that was all it took. Lights out.
One of Alec's team members, Roma, had a little more dog than cat DNA, and her sense of smell was impressive enough to actually track through all the people, garbage, and filth of the city. She'd been following Alec's trail for a while, and been sidetracked a few times, lost the scent and had to backtrack, but they were still on the hunt when Max caught up to them.
Roma was a pretty typical looking X-5, dark haired, fine-featured, a bit taller than average and slightly above average in the looks department. At the moment, though, she was red faced and pissed off. She was pacing back and forth and when Max stopped near her, Roma looked up and flung her hands out in frustration.
"I keep losing the scent here. They either put him in a car, or took him underground." She shook her head. "No scent trails leading into any of the buildings here."
Her partner, Viz, acted as protection while Roma was tracking. He was cool and watchful while Roma was the more high-strung of the pair. "They might have bagged him so we couldn't track him," he said grimly. Transgenics were definitely familiar with the uglier side of life and didn't flinch away. "Or maybe sewers, although she hasn't found a trail to one of the entrances."
"You try scent-tracking the steelheads instead of Alec?" Max asked, refusing to consider that he'd been taken out by some random bad guy. Once again, just like it had been doing over and over the entire way there, her stupid brain chose to replay the seconds on the video when Alec's head snapped to the side and he crumpled to the ground.
"I tried, but I'm not as familiar with their scent as with Alec's. Can't track 'em in all this crap." Roma gestured to the stacks of garbage and detritus around them, and looked like she wanted to hit something.
"Buck's following them back to their hangout," Viz added, referring to the last member of their team. "He's going to grab one and question him. We should be hearing from him soon."
"Someone had to have paid off the Sector Cops," Roma said. "First everybody got held up at the sector crossing, not just us, I mean. Everyone. Then the drones should have seen something, but there weren't any in this area. We were lucky to catch the glimpse Luke and Dix found."
"Someone wanted a clear shot at Alec?" Max asked. "Why?"
Viz's cell phone buzzed. "Go," he ordered.
"There's a sewer entrance hidden under a burnt out mini-van just north of you. The steelheads are strong enough to lift the van and use the place as hidey-hole to stash stuff."
"Do we know why?" Viz asked, all of them already moving toward the mini-van.
"They were paid to get a specimen," Buck snarled. "Government wanted one of us to study. Dead or alive, but preferably alive. That's why they stashed him until the government guys show up to collect him."
So he was alive. Max felt like she could breathe for the first time since she'd seen the drone video. Her heart was hammering so hard she could barely hear. Alec was alive, or he had been when they'd put him in the sewer.
"Get back to TC," Viz ordered his teammate. "We'll get Alec and meet you there."
Viz shoved his phone in his pocket and walked up to the mini-van. He didn't hesitate. He kicked the front bumper like he was booting a door open. The mini-van shuddered under the blow and moved back several feet. Max didn't know what kind of DNA he had, but the guy was a battering ram. Viz repeated the kick, buckling the entire front of the van, but it moved back far enough for them to see the open manhole.
"Wait here," Max ordered. "You two keep watch in case anyone shows up."
Viz and Roma nodded, turning their backs to the manhole to keep guard as Max climbed down.
The stench hit her first. It had been bad above ground, but underground it was choking. She dropped to the floor, knee deep in sewer run-off. She remained silent for a second, listening for any movement, but all she heard was water gurgling and scratching from vermin.
"Alec?"
There was no answer and Max began to slosh away from the entrance. Alec was never going to let her live this down. He was always complaining that he ended up in the sewer because of her. Then again, she just hoped he was still alive to complain about it.
"Alec? You down here?"
Her heart stopped in her chest. She could see him now. He was against the far wall, his head barely above water, eyes closed.
"Alec!" Max slogged her way to him, and put her hands under his arms. She tried to lift him, but was immediately pulled to one side as he snagged on something. She felt beneath the water, and her fingers slid over the cold metal of handcuffs. They weren't the kind with a chain linking the two cuffs. They were hinged, and harder to remove. She pulled on the pipe as well, but it wasn't budging.
Max half-hopped, half-jogged back toward the manhole cover. "He's cuffed to the wall!" she called up. "I need something for leverage to break him loose."
Viz jumped down through the manhole, causing a wave of sewage to spread out from the impact. Max ran back to Alec as the wave shoved him to the side and his head sank below water level. Max ran back to him and held him up. He was breathing… barely.
Viz reached her side and felt below the surface. "Hold him," Viz commanded, as if that wasn't what Max was already doing. Viz punched and kicked, and kicked and punched, until the wall and the pipe broke free around the other half of the cuff. They'd worry about unlocking it later.
Viz grabbed Alec out of her arms and hefted him over his shoulder. Max tried not to take it personally since the guy was built like a tank. All that mattered now was getting Alec back to TC.
"M'I dead?"
"No."
"Dying?"
"No."
Alec opened bleary eyes. Max was hovering over him, her expression worried, which didn't seem possible. Max didn't do worried. Max did annoyed. Or blank-faced. Or disgusted. Especially when he was involved.
Except when they were dancing a few days ago.
"Hallucinating?"
"No."
"Still in the sewer?"
"No."
"Why 'm I still wet?"
"Ice bath."
"Explains why I'm freezing." He looked down. "And naked."
Alec didn't have a modesty issue. Manticore had knocked that right out of them from birth. They'd had scientists and doctors staring at them, studying them, prodding at them any time they'd felt like it, often in groups. To Manticore, bodies were just bodies, and transgenics were tools they worked with, not kids to be coddled or cared for.
"You had a fever. All the junk from the sewer made sure your wounds were infected. Your body's fighting it off, but you over-heated, even for one of us."
"Huh."
"Plus the stink," Max added. "I couldn't take it anymore. This is your third bath."
Alec wasn't in a real tub. Those were hard to come by in Terminal City. He was sitting awkwardly in a large plastic bin, knees pulled up so as much of him as possible could fit in the freezing water.
"Ya know… I've had fantasies about waking up naked with you, but this wasn't it." His teeth were chattering and his vision was fading.
Max wrapped her arms around him, not that he could see her. "Hug?"
"No."
She lifted him out of the water, and the air hitting his wet skin made the shaking worse. She hauled him… somewhere. The shaking made everything hurt. His head hurt. His side hurt.
Max turned them, and that was too much. Dizziness swamped him. He hoped Max caught him before he hit the floor.
Max pulled the blanket over Alec. They had their own rooms since TC was big enough, but they were all still sleeping on the floor, because what other choice did they have. Max didn't like it though and especially not now. Alec was still shivering from the cold. His wounds were closing, but the gash from the head wound stood out against his pale skin.
Guilt hit her again. They'd brought him back to TC, and Mole had taken time out of his busy day to glare at her again. He still thought she'd sent Alec on a suicide run just to keep him out of her way.
Max was a lot of things, and she could admit she was about as emotionally aware as a rock sometimes, but she didn't let any of them get hurt, no matter what. She could be as confused as she wanted to be about her almost-kiss with Alec, but she wouldn't endanger him like that.
That didn't mean this wasn't her fault. She'd sent him out there hoping for a new contact that could bring in much needed food supplies. She'd sent him, and he'd nearly died. For TC. For them. For her.
Max shrugged out of her wet shirt and jeans. She'd gotten soaked moving Alec in and out of the ice bath, and getting him cleaned up. She pulled on a pair of sleep shorts and a t-shirt, and climbed under the blanket beside Alec. She wrapped herself around him and tucked his head under her chin, his face pressed to her skin. She ignored the discomfort, because Alec needed the heat, and she needed the reminder.
When she was just a kid, she'd sent her brothers and sisters out into the world when they escaped Manticore. As an adult, she'd gone back and burnt the whole place to the ground, and sent them all out. Now, she helped run TC, and she was still sending them out into a world that hated everything about them. She'd been endangering people she cared about from the very beginning and she had to remember the consequences of screwing up.
Alec's shivering, injured body in her arms was an ugly reminder to be more careful. She didn't want to lose him. She couldn't. He was important. To her.
Alec was important to her.
Max closed her eyes and tightened her hold on Alec. He was still alive. An inch difference and the head shot could have taken him from her. The second shot could have stopped his heart. A few minutes later, and Alec could have drowned in the sewer.
Max knew she wouldn't sleep. She never did really. For now, she'd just wait for Alec to wake. That was all she needed.
"Max?"
She could feel his lips move against her neck as he spoke, his warm breath ghosting over her skin. He'd finally stopped shivering and settled more comfortably in her arms. That had been hours ago, but she hadn't been able to force herself to let him go. They were snug in their little cocoon of blankets, and she didn't want to move.
"Yeah?"
"When we went to that club…"
"What about it?" Max's heart sped up, and she knew Alec would feel it. For once, she didn't mind the giveaway.
"We were dancing." His sleep-filled voice was hardly a whisper, just a shared secret in the dark.
"I remember."
"I was going to kiss you."
Max tightened her hold on him involuntarily when Alec did just that. He pressed his lips to her neck, just the barest nip.
"I was, too," Max managed to say.
"Gonna take you dancing again," Alec murmured.
Max smirked. It was that or roll her eyes. "Oh, yeah?"
"New Year's Eve." He pressed another kiss to her skin, just along the soft flesh below her jaw. "Won't be dizzy by then."
Alec paused and she realized he was waiting for an answer, not that he'd really asked a question. Max cleared her throat nervously. "It's a date."
They both remained still as the world, their world at least, rearranged itself into something entirely different. Something better.
"Merry Christmas, Maxie."
"Merry Christmas, Alec."
Christmas had never meant much to her, but this year, she definitely had a gift in her arms, and that made all the difference.
And a very merry Christmas to all of you. Hope you enjoyed a little time with our two favorite transgenics.