The Monkey Tree

Z is for Zoo, 3C

2009-10-26T01:57:56Z

Was supposed to be part of 3B, but dang LJ thinks it's too long.

He was tempted to get in his car and drive non-stop back to Wyoming. He was tempted to march back into his small, utilitarian room and pack his few remaining possessions and heaven help them if anyone asked him if something was the matter.

Heaven help her if Casey saw him before he could get out.

He didn't go back to Wyoming. He drove to the Space Needle and stepped out into frigid night air, staring upwards at its imposing structure. He didn't have the strength to climb its many steps, didn't have the strength to face all the memories, so he sat on the hood of his dark car and stared up at it instead. He sat there for what felt like hours, ignoring everything, strangely still, his thoughts strangely silent. He barely noticed the cold. He hardly noticed the lights of the approaching car and the person that stepped from it.

"I thought I'd find you here."

He grunted, barely acknowledging Logan's presence.

"Dix told me he saw you in Command."

No wonder Dix hadn't called Mole in the last three months. Apparently he'd flipped sides. Couldn't blame him. This whole misunderstanding, this whole mess, it did sort of make Alec look like the world's number one jerk. He made another noise in the back of his throat.

"What are you doing here, Alec?"

Alec's head swung slowly. He took in Logan's face. It was hard, his blue eyes as icy as the night air. The man looked exactly the same. He hadn't changed a bit. Why did Alec feel so much older? He looked at the Space Needle once more. "Max is pregnant."

Logan's voice was dry in response. "Having actually been here the last three months, I'm well aware of that."

Annoyance flared and Alec slid off the hood of his car, turned to face the other man. "Well bully for you. Maybe if Max had actually told me, I would have been here too."

Logan's eyes narrowed in suspicion. His hands dug deeply into the warmth of his jacket. "What do you mean she didn't-"

“She didn’t tell me! Okay? I don't know what Max has been splashing around T.C., but I'm not the one she told. She told someone else and assumed it would get back to me..." He paused before finishing bitterly. "Which it didn't.” The anger flared again. Casey's calm, lying eyes flashed in his mind's eye. His fist tightened.

Logan’s eyes were still narrowed in suspicion, and he was watching Alec in wariness.

Exasperation made him roll his eyes. “God, Logan, I swear she didn’t say a word-“

“It doesn’t matter,” Logan interrupted. Alec fell back a bit, confused, but before he could open his mouth, Logan continued. "It doesn't matter, because they're not yours." When Alec still looked confused, Logan clarified. "The twins? They're not yours, they're hers."

Where had he heard that before? From her lips. She couldn't really believe that crap could she? Alec drew away, realization blooming.

His voice was stiff. "Is that what you told her? Is that how you convinced her to marry you?"

Logan leaned in, his blue eyes sharp behind his thin glasses. “I’m the one that’s been here for Max these past months. Not you. And I’m the one that’s going to be here for her kids…. Not you. Me.”

"You?" Alec scoffed. He'd been Max's second in T.C. for a full year. He'd left T.C. for a different kind of stand almost two years ago. He wasn't the same youth that had let them heap all their shit on him right after Manticore. He was, however, the same man, that could see through all the bullshit, just like he'd been able to back then. And Logan was a fool for not realizing that. "You? Logan, you're territorial and possessive on a good day. What makes you think you could ever love any children of mine?"

"Because they're not yours." Logan repeated, his head cocking to the side, able to present a condescending air without changing his expression. Alec was struck by the urge to punch Logan in his smug, high-class mouth.

"Bullshit," Alec spat. "Maybe you spoon-fed that crap to Max, and maybe you even tried to believe it yourself, but we both know it doesn't work that way. What happens when she has the kids, Logan? What happens when you see some of me in them? Maybe you'll try, but you'll never really be over it. You'll always hate them a little bit, and part of you will despise her a little too. And it goes without saying that you'll always hate me. That'll make it a little difficult for you when I keep popping up to see the kids that you keep trying to tell yourself aren't mine." He shrugged, glanced away, couldn't help the little bit of snarkiness that felt like a comfortable old pair of shoes he was stepping back into. "Just think of how awkward Thanksgiving will be."

When had he stopped caring what Logan thought of him? Probably when he'd started caring what Max thought. Maybe when he'd left T.C. and grown up. Come to think of it, maybe he'd never cared, and had only ever tried for Max's benefit.

Logan watched him, still stiff. He relaxed a little bit, softened, and shrugged, like he accepted the smallest bit of truth within Alec's statement. But he backed it up with facts of his own. "I'm not the complete villain you're making me out to be, Alec. I do love Max. I've been here for her and I will take care of her."

And he meant it, Alec could see that plainly enough.

Maybe that was true. But it didn't change anything. Alec wasn't going to slink off into the darkness just because Logan cared for Max. He sighed, brought a hand up to his head, rubbed tired eyes. "Max doesn't love you, Logan."

"But she doesn't love you, either." Logan responded in a hard voice. "Sometimes I don't think-" He trailed off. Alec could see the statement roiling in the other man's mind. Sometimes, Logan knew, just as surely that Alec knew, that Max wasn't entirely sure what love was. But Logan would never admit something like that out loud, especially to him.

They stood in silence for a few long moments. He didn't know what made him reveal it to Logan. The man should be his rival, but- "I think I should move back."

Logan glanced up, his eyes sharpened. "Don't."

So, maybe that wasn't a revelation he should have made. Really, what had he been expecting? Logan was still human. As good and as upright as he may try to be, Logan still wanted Max for himself. Was still a strange, noble, do-goody, selfish, jealous little bastard. Alec smirked and shook his head, turning away. But Logan grabbed his at jacket, stopping him.

Alec glanced down at the hand gripping tightly at his arm. He glanced at Logan over one shoulder, his face so dark and so completely blank, it was like looking at somebody else. He looked nothing like the man Logan had known that first year after Manticore burned.

His voice was very carefully controlled, and the emptiness and the sudden rage was almost chilling. "Take your hand off of me."

He did, but Logan didn't give up. His eyes took in the slight bruising on Alec's jawline. "I take it you've gone to see Max?"

Alec thought of her familiar face, the fire burning in her eyes, the weariness and the want as he'd leaned in. Her whispered plea. He hadn't been able to decipher it. Had she wanted him to lean the rest of the way in, or had she wanted him to leave? He thought he'd known then, but after hours of sitting in quiet, now he wasn't so sure... He did know, however, that whatever it was that was between them, it wasn't completely healthy, actually wasn't even remotely healthy, and he needed to sort through his confusion. Try to figure out what the hell had happened with Casey. But Logan was still waiting, and Alec turned to face him once more. "Yeah, I went to see her."

Logan misinterpreted Alec's long pause, thought that Alec had seen what he saw. "That's not Max, Alec. That empty, tired person that wears Max's face? That's what you and your twisted relationship has made of her. She's broken, and if you come back, I don't think I'll ever be able to fix her."

She had seemed strange. Empty. At first. But then, like it always did, the fire filled her and she bled electricity into the air. He ignored that 'fixing her' shit, because he wasn't sure how to respond to it. Instead, he snorted, "Empty? Max? She's the same pig-headed, stubborn bitch she was when she came to visit me three months ago." He felt bitter just for a second as he muttered to himself. "Doesn't matter, my ass. Who does she think she's kidding?"

"What?"

Alec ignored Logan. The more he thought about it, the more he had to stand here and listen to Logan's bullshit, the less sure he was that Max's please had been a request for him to leave. The more he could see through her attempts to hold on to her apathy, the rage flaring through it all every single time. The more he realized that fighting with her was better than losing her completely. His lips pursed, his eyes narrowed. Suddenly, leaving her in the apartment seemed like it had been a bad idea. Like maybe staying and pissing her off some more would have been better for them both.

Maybe that was just wishful thinking, but Alec held on to it anyway. Maybe he was tired of being a wounded, angry, 'gloomy mother fucker' all the time. Maybe he'd just use any excuse to try and hold on to her.

There was something wicked gleaming in Alec's eyes, but something knowing, something hopeful, as well. Something that reminded Logan of the Alec that had once lived in Seattle. Maybe what Josh had told Dix was wrong. Maybe Alec hadn't really changed all that much after all.

But Alec's voice was sudden in the silence and it put Logan off guard. "I gotta go."

"I'm serious, Alec!" Logan warned him as he pushed his way past to the driver's side door of his car. "She's breaking."

Alec pulled open the door. And shook his head. "Max was broken long before she met me. Or even you for that matter." He paused before stepping into the car, though. "For the record... I really want to punch you in the face one day."

Logan just stared back. "Believe me, the feeling is mutual."

Alec just rolled his eyes, slipping into the car, starting the engine. Logan could have followed him to Max's apartment. He could have stood between them and tried to make Max see reason. He didn't, and Alec felt a small flare of appreciation when he saw Logan's car turn in a different direction then his own, heading away from Max's apartment rather then following Alec to it. Logan wasn't totally bad. Misguided, maybe, but at his core, he was still a good guy. Maybe he thought that Max and Alec should sort out whatever it was that they'd latched on to. Knowing Logan, he probably thought that the only way Max would be happy with him was if she got some closure with Alec. Fat chance. There'd never really be closure for them, especially now.

Now he just needed to convince her of that.

It was still night when she woke; the moon was shining through a window, and its familiar glow was more comforting than glaring morning sunshine had ever been. She was staring at the ceiling, but she was disoriented: the bed was dipping towards the right, towards a weight that should not be there. She turned and blinked her eyes in confusion at the familiar sight of Alec’s hunched, jacketed back, sitting on her bedside, facing away from her. She forgot where she was; she almost thought he was reaching for his shoes, she almost asked him to stay. He glanced at her over his shoulder, instinctively knowing she'd woken up, and she caught sight of the ring in his hand, the ring she had numbly scooped from the ground and gingerly placed upon her bedside table after he'd left. Reality came crashing back.

How long had he been sitting there?

Why did he seem so calm?

And through it all; he hadn't left? Why was he still here?

Alec watched the questions flow across her face before snorting, and wiggling the diamond ring between his fingers. “Logan just can’t let it go, huh?”

“He loves me,” She snapped, defensive, her voice still slightly groggy. She cleared her throat and pretended she couldn't hear all of their silent recriminations bouncing through the dark room. Why didn't it just sound like a ‘he loves me?’ Why did her quick glance away from him seem to add, 'something you never did.' Why did the familiar pursing of his lips and his hard eyes over his shoulder shout back at her, 'maybe I would have, it you would have let me.'

And then between them both, a slight air of anger and bitter regret, and what-if’s, just for a moment. She ignored those unspoken ghosts of emotion, and she ran thin fingers through ratty hair, wishing for a comb, wishing that she hadn't fallen asleep in her clothes, rumpling them, prayed that the slight amount of mascara she had applied this morning hadn't smeared around her eyes, wishing that she didn’t wish for those things, that she hated him enough to not care.

Her voice, when it came again, while not gentle, was at least softer. "I thought you'd gone back to Wyoming."

"No. Had to think." He glanced at the ring once more. Put it back on the bedside table with a sigh. "So I went to the Space Needle and ran into Logan instead."

Max was afraid to ask what they'd talked about. So she didn't.

Alec shrugged. "Needless to say I didn't get any thinking done. Not with Logan yapping in my ear." Alec glanced at her over his shoulder. His gaze was teasing, and she could tell he was trying to get a reaction from her, hoping that he wouldn't. She wondered how a man who was so different could be exactly the same. She sat up slowly, drew her knees as close to her body as her stomach would allow her.

Maybe she should still be mad at him, but instead she asked, "Why'd you come back?"

Because maybe he was selfish, and maybe he was sick, but what he'd thought at the Space Needle had been correct: fighting with Max was better than losing her entirely. He scratched uncomfortably at the visible lines of his barcode below his short hair. It was a nervous gesture, and one that Max recognized. There was something burning in him, something he didn't want to let out.

Her voice was clipped and annoyed. "Just spit it out, Alec."

He stood and walked away from her. He turned on her when he reached the window, the soft glow of the moon and the weak light of the streetlamp flickering around him. She shouldn't be able to his features in the darkness, especially with his back towards the light, but clear night vision was one of the better perks of being part cat, and she watched the annoyance move across his face.

He watched her studying him for a moment, before asking, "Why do you always have to be such a bitch?"

"Why do you always have to be such a pain in the ass?" She threw back.

He shrugged and silence stretched once more.

She wished she could be as angry as she'd been last week, when she'd thought he'd known and hadn't cared. Somehow, knowing that Casey had-

"I want to come back to Seattle."

Her head snapped upwards, connecting with his. "You can't." He couldn't. It would ruin everything. She was marrying Logan. She was trying to get her life back. She was trying to hate him.

He leaned back into the window, stubborn. She swung her legs off the side of the bed and crossed her arms across her breasts, just as stubborn. She glanced away, and shrugged, and tried not to be bitter. She failed miserably. "Besides, what would your girlfriend say?"

"My girlfriend?" He blinked.

"You know." She replied, her voice laced with sarcasm and all but sprung from the bed, pacing away from him. "The one that called me a whore right before telling me that you chose her over me. The one that forgot to mention to you that I was pregnant."

Suddenly, the strange conversation he'd had with Max in the underground hallway three months ago was taking on whole new meanings. Jesus. The more he talked to Max, the more he was the one that looked like a jack ass. His lips moved automatically before his brain did. "Casey, my girlfriend? That's gross, Max."

Max blinked, and in her confusion forgot to sound spiteful. Gross? That was a... strange way to put it. She turned back towards him. "Well, if she's not your girlfriend-"

Alec's hazel eyes refocused and connected with hers, but he still seemed slightly guarded about the subject. "She's not my girlfriend. She's my friend," Those green-gold eyes gazed down a perfectly straight nose at her. "One I've been taking care of since we were kids."

And it hit her like a ton of bricks. Christ. How had she never noticed before? Was it because she'd only talked to Casey that one time, and afterwards, she'd been so angry at Alec, she could barely see straight? It was plain now, though. Casey's familiar golden eyes had stared disdainfully at her over the length of her perfect, straight nose. The one that Max had wanted to punch until it was completely flat. The platinum hair had distracted her, had masked the similarities, but god, replaying the very satisfying slap Max had laid on the woman, the stupid cow even had Alec's high cheekbones.

"She's your sister." It was almost accusing, and the relief that it brought was almost overwhelming. She tried to tell herself that that didn't change anything but who the hell was she kidding? "Why didn't you ever tell me?"

He rolled his eyes, his arms dropped back to his sides. "We were cooked up in a petri dish, Max. I don't think the term 'sister' is very aptly applied in this case." He looked away, his eyes darkening. Especially considering the rather vital bit of information Casey had kept from him.

"Besides," he tried to cover it. "Think about it, if I'd tried to tell you I had a sister, how would you have reacted back then? You probably would have tried to tell me I didn't even understand the concept of a family."

Unfair, but maybe it was true.

Still... the encounter Max had had with the woman was taking on a whole new tint. The woman had been defensive, and as angry as she'd been in that small room three months ago, Max had still recognized that Casey had been grasping, trying to hold onto Alec. She'd thought, at the time, it was because Casey was the neglected girlfriend that saw Max as a threat for Alec's heart. But that wasn't it. Max was a threat because Casey was just another broken toy that didn't want to lose the only family she had, the brother that had always taken care of her.

But that didn't change the fact that she was a self-righteous bitch that needed to be taken down a few pegs. A lot of pegs. Maybe kicked down the pegs, and a flight of stairs as well.

Alec pulled out of his own darkness to watch the outraged, angry emotions play across Max's face. His voice was gentle. "What did she say to you, Max?"

Anger surged and Max stood, moving away from him, straightening her hair as best she could, twisting it over her shoulder. "It doesn't matter."

"It does matter." He followed her, calm but insistent. "Especially if it wasn't true."

"But it was true," She whirled on him. "She was right. You left, Alec. There's not a statement on earth that isn't as true as that was."

What could he say to that? It was true, wasn't it?

“You betrayed me.” She continued flatly, her arms hanging, almost forlorn, by her sides. “You were my friend and-“

“Are you still going on about that?” His face twisted and he closed the distance between them. "Jesus, Max, that was two years ago! When are you going to get it?"

She advanced on him as well, because this was something more important than Casey. This was something she'd been waiting for for a long, long time. “Maybe when you finally have the decency to explain it to me!" It'd been eating her for two years, and the sickness couldn't be denied any more. "I think I deserve an answer, Alec, after all this time. Why did you do it? I trusted you.”

He frowned down at her in the soft darkness. What was there to say? That was so long ago... and he'd always told himself that she could never understand, but with her standing before, demanding an answer, so obviously betrayed... She deserved an answer, she always had, and he'd always been too much of a coward to give it to her. He sighed, thrust a hand through short hair that didn't even remotely hinder his fingers. “With or without me, change was coming, Max. And if I hadn’t been the one to lead it, transgenics would probably still be based out of Terminal City, and that day would have been very, very different.”

Her face descended into shocked disbelief and rage. “It would have been different if you hadn’t chased Levi down! If you’d come to me first and let me know what was going on before breaking his neck!“

He broke in, his voice rising in anger. “Levi and his cronies wanted you dead! Maybe I took care of it the only way I knew how.”

Her small hand connected with his larger shoulder and he took a steadying step back. “What, by killing him? By leading a massive fucking revolt against me?!”

He was silent, frowning, history obviously eating him behind his dark eyes.

"Well?!" She demanded. She shoved at him again, and his patience frayed.

Before she could shove him again, push him off the deep end, he snapped. "Fine. You want the truth, Max?"

"It'd be nice for a change." She huffed.

His angry voice snapped through the room, was almost like a slap to the face.

"The truth is, I didn't kill Levi."

Max backed down, deflated, and couldn't feel anything other than confused. "Wai- What?"

He scowled. "You know how I knew Levi was coming after you? Because he came for me first." Alec shook his head, his eyes still blazing. "C'mon, Max. He knew if I was alive there wasn't a chance in hell that he'd be able to get close enough to you to hurt you... Only Casey snapped his neck before he could pull the trigger that was aimed between my eyes."

She fell abruptly still. What do you even say to something like that? Max sure as hell didn't know.

Alec shrugged. "There was a body. There was a city on the brink of revolution, and I had two options. Hand Casey, my half-sister, and a woman that had just killed a man for me, over to a fucking mob and try to grab you and run, pretty unlikely considering how damn stubborn you are and the fact that you were waiting with baited breath for Logan to propose to you... or take credit for ending a fucker that deserved it, spout some anti-Max, anti-Ordinary, 'the revolution isn't coming soon enough' bull-shit, and slowly redirect them, get them away from you, back to a life that they all claimed they wanted."

All of that, and through her shock, the only thing Max could think to ask was, "Does Mole know?"

"Are you fucking kidding me? That scaly bastard helped me toss the body in front of all of Levi's dumb fucking 'generals.' He practically sold the entire story to them."

She shook her head. Her lips were dry. She forced words to form. It was like... like finding out Santa Claus didn't exist; like she'd believed a lie for two years. “That... just... That couldn't have been your only choice."

"That was it, Max." He seemed solid and immovable, like a statue, like a stone monolith that wouldn't bend to her soft denial. He didn't want to admit it, but it was almost like he couldn't help himself. "Casey got it wrong when she thought I chose her by leaving. That's not who I chose." His eyes flashed for a moment, seemed soulful just for a second, and then went back to their typical hardness.

"Don't put this on me." She whispered. "You never had to leave."

"Well, what was I supposed to do, Max?" His exasperation frayed her patience. What the hell could he have done? The answer seemed obvious to her.

"You could have stayed with me!” She retaliated. “You could have fought by my side.”

“Against hundreds?” He laughed in disbelief. He had to pace away from her, come back in annoyance. “Jesus, Max, do you not understand how bad it really was?! It was like the fucking French Revolution all over again! The masses wanted blood; they were caught in up in Levi’s fucking propaganda frenzy, they thought the only way to get rid of you was to put your head on a goddamn spike. If you hadn’t been so busy chasing your fucking cure, maybe you would have noticed!”

It was true, wasn't it? In and out of town, dividing her attention between the cure and the caged populous, she'd never even noticed the ones prowling back and forth behind the fence, burning with hatred and the desire to be free. All this time, and she'd thought they'd been Alec's tigers... They hadn't been his at all. But... it was all so overwhelming, she didn't know how to react. So she reacted the only way she knew how. “Don't blame this on me!" Her hand caught his shoulder again.

He caught her wrist and pulled her closer, scowling in annoyance. “Stop fucking pushing me, already."

"I would if you weren't such an idiot!" Two years. Two fucking years. The loss, the thoughts, the questions... Her other hand came up, pushed his other side.

He caught that hand too. "Quit it!"

Both her hands were caught, her rage was wild, based on years of loss, and she didn't know how to act. "God, I hate you!”

"Well, believe you me, sometimes the feeling is mutual!”

She could feel the skin of her wrists bruising under the force of his hard fingertips. Her voice broke a little bit as she gazed up at him. “How could you leave me?”

His voice was still angry, frustrated. “I don’t know.” And he pulled her the rest of the way in to him, and just held her tightly, refusing to let go. Not that she fought him. She just kind of stayed there for a moment, almost limp, almost like the broken toy he knew she was. That was before her spine firmed like steel, she wrenched her wrists from him, and before he could shoot something at her, something caged and defensive, her hands gripped his jacket and she tugged his mouth down to hers. Her hands tightened in his collar as she arched against him, as his hands came to her waist, gripped tightly, almost desperately, and held her as surely, as closely to him as he could get her.

It was going all too fast. Her fingers were pushing off his heavy leather jacket. Sure hands were pulling her shirt from her body, sliding over the smooth skin of her back. Amber sparks were exploding behind her eyes every time he drew a ragged breath against her lips, every time her tongue slid against his. Time was skipping in strange ways, weaving around them, only available in warm flashes of connection; his hands on her waist, her fingers sliding under his shirt, pulling the offending garment up and away from his body, his mouth moving over her neck and her gasps into his ear. Time resumed though, uncertainty flicked through her eyes as she sat on the bed before him, gazing up at him.

"I'm not really sure where to go from here," He laughed softly, glancing down at her stomach. She didn't either, so she just leaned forward, let her eyes fall shut as her forehead connected with his abdomen, her eyes shutting. He sighed, his hands slid through her hair, glanced across a barcode. She'd lit the fire, and now she struggled to contain it, trying to calm her breathing.

Her voice was muffled. "We'll never work out."

"I know." He lifted her face to meet his. His lips twisted a bit as he caught her gaze. "But somehow I think that joint custody between your zoo and mine... Somehow I think that'll work even less." He thought of his kids, growing up in new Manticore, growing up behind T.C.'s barrier. The thought of either option turned his stomach, and hers as well, if that expression was any indication.

He stepped away from her, grabbed for his jacket and his shirt. She just accepted it with a kind of weary resignation. He paused in the doorway, glancing back at her. "For what it's worth, these last three months..." He trailed off, hesitant.

She buried her face in her hands, like she couldn't be seen to admit it. Her voice was harsh. "I know. I missed you too."

He smiled a bit before he turned back into a soldier. He almost didn't want to say it... but how could he not. "Max, you know what we've been doing."

Hunting down the Familiars. Her face darkened as she glanced up. Yes, she knew.

His voice was solemn in the darkness. "They're coming for you, Max. I don't know why now. Maybe they're tired of waiting on the government to finish the job. Maybe they never expected that the politicians in D.C. would be content to just leave you in a cage and forget about you. I don't know. All I know is that they're getting closer every day."

She knew what he was saying. He wanted her out of Seattle. He wanted her to come with him. She didn't say anything back. There was nothing to say. They both knew she wasn't going anywhere. He almost started to leave, but-

"Alec..."

He paused once more. But she couldn't say it, couldn't ask it. His eyes flicked towards the nightstand, towards the ring waiting, and he answered her unspoken question. "Don't do anything stupid before I get back."

God, he was such an asshole.

They both knew he hadn't really needed to answer her unspoken question, are you coming back, anyway. It was dual-sided. Maybe Alec always left. But, on the other hand of it, he always came back as well.

And if nothing else, Max had finally gotten her explanation.

But what the hell was she supposed to do with it?

And where the hell could he possibly be going? She thought of the shock on his face when she'd let it slip that it was Casey that she'd told. The betrayal. She figured she probably knew where he was going, and it was just as well, because she didn't know that she could face Logan in the morning if Alec was still sleeping in her bed. Christ, she was betraying him again.

Her head sunk into her hands and stayed there well after Alec's car hit Seattle's city limits. Well after the pre-dawn started to tint the air, and Alec glanced in his rearview mirror to stare hard at himself and question, for the first time, his inability to hit a woman that hadn't hit him first.

Z is for Zoo 3B

2009-10-26T01:56:26Z

She made dinner. She didn't eat it. She started to fill up the bathtub, but eventually just turned off the faucet and walked away while the tub was still half empty. She ended up just lowering herself to the couch to wait for him.

She woke up to find him staring down at her, the most neutral expression she'd ever seen on his face. She blinked at him once, twice, and then his mouth opened and his tone was almost conversational.

"I could fucking very well kill you."

What?

She scowled and struggled to sit up. Despite his palpable rage, he started to offer her help, she could see it in the twitch of his hand, but her face twisted into a scowl: she could get up on her own, thank you very much. His lips twitched, too, as he took in the stubborn set of her jaw, but his eyes fell upon the pregnant swell of her stomach, the source of her gravitational issues, and his eyes went narrow once more. He spun and walked away from her as she sat the rest of the way up. When he turned to glare at her once more, she was staring blandly at him, still sitting upon the couch, waiting.

But Alec was at a loss. He was choking on the rage, but unsure of how to release it, or even where to begin.

He was here.

She was here.

Now what?

It occurred to Alec he hadn't really thought this through when he'd been racing down the steps of that ratty old motel. The only things he felt like doing, being happy to see her, choking the life out of her, in that order, he couldn't very well do either of those things.

The silence stretched like an empty eternity between them. Max broke first, but her voice seemed strangely empty, as empty as the silence had been. It didn't crack through the room. It didn't have any of her fire.

"What do you want?"

It wasn't a question so much as it was a veiled 'get the hell out' but it made Alec pause anyway. What did he want? Once, he'd wanted her. Still did, if he was being honest, which he wasn't. Besides, why bother with honesty when she didn’t want him; had never really wanted him. He wanted answers. Answers to questions that his mind was too blank to ask. He wanted… He wanted… God, he wanted to be as angry at her as he had been thirty seconds ago.

Max must have gotten tired of him standing there in her living room, mulling over a question that she undoubtedly thought should be easy. She stood up, without any of the obvious effort that it felt like she was expending, and her voice was harder, angrier, and why hadn’t he been expecting the rage? She’d told him she’d never wanted to see him again, he should have been expecting… But behind all the rage, there was something small, lost, and hopeless. Her enraged voice cracked through the room, and the little lost soul hunkered within it. “What do you want, Alec?”

He drew into himself, defensive, and his face hardened. It was only with great effort that he kept his voice stony, when all he wanted to do was shout at her. If nothing else, at least she'd sounded like herself that time.

“You should have called me.”

The rage flared and faded and she was just tired once more. She turned her back on him, and walked to the window, to stare out into a night that suddenly seemed colder. “Sorry,” She didn’t sound sorry, she sounded bitter, and not nearly as apathetic as she thought she was. “I was busy." Busy dealing with all the work and exhaustion that having twins, on top of still trying to run T.C., meant.

He took a step towards her turned back, and the anger built once more, struggled to regain the headway it'd lost when he'd seen her face once more. The anger at being kept out of the loop, of being lied to, it came back easily enough. The anger at a woman that hadn’t cared enough to just pick up a goddamn phone wasn't that hard to find. “Well, you could have called anytime within the last three months. We both know you could have found my number if you'd wanted it."

It was the closest he would ever get to admitting that he had people in her command working for him. Or, well... he'd used to. They'd been strangely silent as of late.

If this had been a few months ago, his Max would have been enraged by even that slight admittance.

But this was not his Max. This was a Max that had transcended hatred, apparently. That apparently thought more of the grime caking the bottom of his boots than she did of the actual man within them. It scared him; it was everything he'd been frightened of when he'd been staring down at that dead Familiar in Oregon. Her eyes shut slowly, and her voice was a sigh. She'd known he'd had someone on the inside, just didn't know who, and she'd have been angry about it, but she was focusing on the other statement instead.

She could have called? How was any of this her fault?

“And you could have paged, so I guess we’re even.”

His laugh was short and disbelieving, and he was suddenly next to her, his eyes boring into the side of her face. “You’re blaming this on me?”

The corner of her mouth ticked up in something that was almost a smile, or it would have been if there’d been any humor in it. “No,” she wouldn’t open her eyes, and he vaguely wondered if she was tired, if she was empty, or if she was just pretending. “I’m blaming it on the other man that knocked me up.”

Everything within him froze. He was torn, didn’t know what to do; part of him wanted to shake her and tell her to snap out of it, the rest of him wanted to ask if… maybe he'd gotten it all wrong. Maybe she hadn’t told him because… He swallowed, and asked with that frozen face and a stiff voice, “Is it mine, Max?”

That was enough to get her attention. Her eyes popped open, her head swung to him, and for one moment, she cared enough to hate. The emotion flared within the room, brought it to life, and her beautiful face twisted and her harsh voice grated, “No, Alec, no they are not yours. They're mine.”

Despite the sharp crack of anger in her voice, it was answer enough and he relaxed, and then wondered why he relaxed. Would it have mattered if they hadn’t been his? If, over six months ago, he hadn’t been the only one that had warmed Max’s bed? That last idea, frankly, seemed so ludicrous it was almost laughable. Maybe he'd already known that and he was just relieved because that spark of rage was better than the emptiness. Proof that she wasn't as unaffected as she was trying to act. Proof, that at least right now, she was just pretending, that she was still the angry bitch he had always wanted. And then-

"They?" His eyes dipped down. She did seem pretty well developed to only be six months along. Twins? Something flared within him; something strange and protective and alive. Gillette, Wyoming and all those responsibilities waiting for him there, it all suddenly seemed like none of that was even real.

"Twins," She confirmed without thinking, and abruptly wished she hadn't. She turned away from him, from the wonder on his face that softened some traitorous part of her mind, and stalked to the kitchen to stare at food cold on the counter. He followed.

"When?"

"They don't know. Doctor Shankar says twins have a habit of coming early." The sight of the food made her stomach flip, she turned and walked past him, stopped in the bathroom doorway to stare at the cold water in the unappealing tub. He followed.

His voice was slightly more annoyed. "When, Max?"

"I told you, I don't know when they're coming." Her voice flared a bit. Even the thought of lowering herself into the bathtub was tiring. Maybe that was it. She was just tired, even if all the adrenaline in her body was telling her should be running laps, not taking naps. She turned again, and she was walking away again, and her quick trot at least got her into the bedroom before Alec's hand connected with her arms and he spun her to face him.

"Goddammit, Max, stop running away from me."

She wrenched away, anger rose. Maybe she had been trying subconsciously to escape, but a statement like that coming from him, the person that had led a revolution against her, that had avoided her for three months? Her face twisted. "Oh, that's rich."

He took a step back, his eyes went narrow. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

She took a step in and glared at him, and didn't even stop to realize that for the first time in three months, it seemed like there was actually color in the world: the green in his eyes, shot through with gold, seemed so bright, the room almost didn't seem dark. "It means I find it pretty ironic that the asshole that knocked me up and then waited three months to show up is accusing me of running. The only one that's been running from anything is you."

God, she hadn't changed at all. He took a step forward. "You're trying to blame this on me? You're the one that was so desperate to get your goddamn happy ending." The ring was suddenly in front of her face, but only for a second, because it was thrown across the room before she could even grab for it.

"Hey!" Her eyes followed its violent arc through the air. It hit the wall, the diamond catching light from a streetlamp outside the window, just for a second.

"Is your fairytale really that important to you?" Alec was scowling at her. She turned back to face him and scowled right back because she had forgotten how close he was, how easily he towered over her. She lifted her chin in defiance anyway.

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

He'd left her, again, and here he was, mad at her, again, and she wasn't even entirely sure why he was the one that was angry. Through it all, only one thing remained clear; God, he hadn't changed at all.

His next words came so far from left field, it just about blew her mind.

“You can't sweep me under the rug by marrying him, Max."

It was said so calmly, so directly, Max had to blink once just to be sure she'd heard him right. And then the deja vu hit. He was pulling this crap again? He couldn't possibly expect- Her face twisted in anger, but he almost liked it; it was better than the damn funk she'd been in when he'd first gotten here.

“This again? He’s the one that’s been here, Alec, not you!” She stepped in even closer, but only to shove him away, glaring. “So what if I do marry Logan? Where were you when I was puking my guts out? When I was too tired to get out of bed in the morning? Where were you the last three months when I was all alone?!”

“I would have been here if you would have told me!” He raged back. “All you told me was that you never wanted to see me again! I was trying to give you what you wanted!“

Told him what? She scowled, opening her mouth, but Alec beat her to it.

His face remained hard, he was looking at her like she was one of the most horrible people on earth. "When I asked 'when', I wasn't asking when the babies were due, Max. I was asking when you were planning on telling me they even existed."

Her face twisted, her confusion was plain, her voice almost soft. "What?"

"Was getting your fucking happy ending with Logan worth not telling me?" His impatience cracked through the air; he didn't want to hear her excuses. "Just tell me when, Max!"

“I already told you!" Max bit back harshly, suddenly defensive. “Three months ago!"

"No you didn't." Alec snapped back. "I'm pretty fucking sure that I would have remembered something like, 'oh, by the way, Alec, I'm friggin' pregnant.'"

She blinked in the darkness. Her obvious confusion confused him.

And then she scowled up at him and the whole world stopped.. "I didn't have to tell you. I told Casey. And seeing as how you two are such good friends, it should have gotten back to you!”

The anger froze. Alec froze. The whole world was frozen, and everything was quiet. Almost everything. Inside Alec’s head, he felt something ripping, heard something tearing.

He'd asked.

“…Did she tell you something to tell me?”

And Casey, a woman he'd known, protected, since childhood, the closest thing to a best friend he'd had, at least until he'd met Joshua, and maybe Max, she'd answered calmly.

“What’s there to say? You heard her same as me. She never wants to see you again.”

This whole scenario flipped in his head. He saw it from Max's eyes for just a second. She thought she'd gotten the message across. And instead of following her to Seattle, Alec had kept his distance in Wyoming, like he didn't want- like he actually believed that bullshit 'girlfriend' statement he'd shouted at her- God, she wasn't the asshole. He was. He almost staggered backwards; he calmed it to a step, instead, and tried not to show the shock and weakness racing through his limbs.

“You... told her?"

"Yes, I told her." Max raged. "I thought it would be fitting considering she'd just called me a whore."

The world wouldn't restart. It wasn't Max that had lied to him. It had been-

"God, Max, I swear,” He licked dry lips, blinked wide eyes. “I swear, she didn’t tell me. I thought-” He couldn't finish the thought. He'd thought she'd never wanted to see him again.

“You thought what?” Max scowled, turning her back on him. "Thought I traipsed across the fucking wilderness for a tea party?"

The anger was a cover, though. She felt weak, surprised, and she'd had to turn her back towards him to hide it. What did his expression mean? The answer seemed obvious. Casey hadn't told him... Her fingers curled, her eyes closed. The other woman's familiar golden eyes flashed through her mind, and her hands itched and all she wanted was to find that fucking woman and -

A flash of memory. His angry eyes. His voice so clear.“Don’t you ever call her that again. Casey and I go way back; much farther than you and I do.”

And then:

"He didn't choose you, Max. He chose me."

Her eyes popped open. So Casey hadn't told Alec. So what? The situation was still impossible. He was the same man that had led a revolt against her, that had recreated Manticore. Part of her mentioned that he was also the man that she had shared a bed with, that had worn down all her defenses. She quelled the thought with a clench of a fist that almost sent her nails through the skin of her palm.

Besides, she was marrying Logan, again, and from everything she could tell, Alec loved Casey.

That's what put her back on the right track. Alec loved Casey. And Casey had been right. Max wasn't the one Alec had chosen.

And like that, the violence in her clenched fists flared and was gone. He watched the fight drip out of her body. watched her slump like a broken marionette. His hand reached for her on its own accord and she must have sensed it despite her turned back because she flinched away. What did it matter, she asked herself. He'd made his choice. And she'd made his hers. “Was does it matter?" She repeated aloud. "I wasn’t even your girlfriend, remember? I’m just the girl you fucked.”

Alec's eyes hardened, his hand fell back to his side. The words, his words… “Max-“

“Go away, Alec.” She sounded exhausted again. She walked away from him. “Maybe it was three months ago, but I think I mean it more now than I did then. I never want to see you again.”

She wanted him to go, didn't want him to stay, didn't want him to break her down any farther.

Two steps forward and his hand connected with her shoulder to pull her around. Not as weary, or as broken, as she'd seemed, she spun and her fist cracked into his face. His jaw was red, his eyes angry when he turned his head back towards her to meet her defiant eyes.

"I mean it, Alec." She warned. "Go away."

His eyes dipped down to her much larger waistline, came back up and settled on her parted lips for just a moment, before boring into her own dark gaze.

"That's not going to happen, Max." Especially not now.

"What if I ask nicely?" Her head cocked to the side, her eyes hard. Her hard-ass stance, her familiar fire, it was like he was the moth and he couldn't draw away from her.

"Wouldn't help," He almost couldn't help that he leaned in. She couldn't help that her hard gaze turned uncertain, before her eyes started to fall shut entirely. But it's not as if their fighting hadn't had an effect on him. He hesitated just before his lips met hers.

She waited. And she hated. She hated him. She hated everything about him. And he still wasn't moving.

"Please," She whispered, sounding broken.

His gaze flicked upwards, away from her lips. Her hooded eyes, just barely open, were tight, tired, waiting, beginning to want. He could kiss her. They could fight and fuck and let the fire consume them. But they were both already so badly burned. And there was the twins between them. Literally. He glanced down at the swell that his hips were pressed against. He backed off, gave her the space she'd thought she'd wanted and couldn't stand now that he'd stepped away. He needed to think anyway. He spun and was gone, and Max, standing alone in her dark bedroom, was almost staggered by his sudden absence. She wasn't sure whether to be upset or relieved. She didn't feel either, because the light had left with him, and she'd been wrong. The world was still grey, she was still tired, and she wondered why, if she didn't feel anything, why her throat was closing like she needed to cry.

When had she turned into a weakling? Was it hormones? Or had she always been this weak when it came to lo- not love, but something that bore a strange, sick resemblence to it? She thought of Logan, of crying for Logan, and wondered why that loss and fear was dwarfed by this horrible, raging emptiness. The Max that had cried about a virus seemed so much more naive and immature than this Max that didn't know how to cry about a relationship that had never been a relationship and had always seemed more like hatred than anything else. If Logan was the fairytale, was pretty, dainty, single tracks of tears over a love not realized, and if Alec was the reality, was dark, nameless emotions that filled her, that kept building with no outlet, with no way to escape, except in sudden, angry bursts, she'd take the fairytale any damn day.

Being alive shouldn't hurt this much.

And she was afraid. Because even if Alec didn't know it, even if she didn't really want to admit it, when Alec had paused near her mouth, his face concerned, like he was trying to decide whether or not to close the distance... When she'd said 'please' she hadn't actually been asking him to leave. She'd been asking him to stay. She'd been asking for the amber burn like the strange, cold, colorless masochist she was. She staggered backwards, like he'd taken all her energy with her when he'd left, and all but collapsed to the edge of the bed, staring blankly at the doorway he'd disappeared through.

Z is for Zoo 3A

2009-10-25T17:14:00Z

It's practically turning multi-chapter. I break it up into smaller pieces for you guys a little. You can take a break from the drama! ^_^

Three months, alone with your anger and your loss, go slowly when all you have to warm you are the dying flames of a hatred you’re trying your best to hang on to.

In her defense, Alec was making it pretty easy to hold on to those last vestiges. Three months. Three months and not a word. Not a ‘hey, how are you,’ or even a ‘sorry about that whole ‘knocking you up’ thing.’ Nothing.

The sudden hot sear of hatred was an ache that reminded her that sometimes she missed him.

God, she was so messed up.

Alec didn’t always consume her thoughts. There were many days when she didn’t think of him at all. Some days she felt absolutely nothing. Some days, she was so apathetic about the whole situation, she wondered if she was even capable of feeling anything anymore. It helped that she was so ridiculously pregnant, she often just didn’t have the energy.

Then some days, out of nowhere, the anger and rage would spike like a knife, and she didn’t know if she should hurt something, clench her fists until her palms bled, or if she should swallow all the rage and cry it all out in angry, heaving gasps until she was empty once more.

Who was she? What was she? It was like there were two of her; something dark, pacing at the edges, waiting to come out, and something tired, something all too frail and human, that observed her anger and wondered what was the point? She was getting too tired to always be so angry. To be honest, most days she tried to not think of him at all… But that’s a hard thing, seeing as how she was six months pregnant, with twins no less, and he was the culprit behind it all.

Figures that she hadn’t even wanted one kid, but her body had seen fit to give her two.

She paused, staring at the yellow paint drying on the walls. Joshua, covered in streaks of that same shade of yellow, paused in his exuberant rolling to stare at her in concern. Her face was calm though, and after a moment he went back to his task. His eyes only flicked towards her once or twice. She just continued to stare apathetically at the wall, at a single drip of paint that was making a run for it, oozing its way towards the floor. At least for a moment. Then her face twisted and her roller smashed into the trail and spread it evenly into the rest of the paint once more.

She imagined that the wall was Alec’s face. She imagined it was every wisp of emotion she had ever felt for him. The brutal, heavy rolling of paint continued until she had to bring a sleeve up to wipe harshly at the tears gathering in her eyes.

Joshua, watching her once more, just frowned, his face uncharacteristically serious.

Three months drag by when you’re without the one you want.

Not that Alec would ever admit, out loud or even to himself, that she was the one he wanted. Even if Mole had started to affectionately refer to him as ‘the gloomy motherfucker,’ even going so far as to introduce him that way to some of the new arrivals. As for Casey? Casey was so hell-bent on acting like nothing was wrong, something obviously was. But what did it matter? Max didn’t want him, and he… he… ah, who was he kidding? He didn’t have it in him to be angry at her. The only thing stopping him from going back to Seattle and trying to act like nothing had ever happened, at this point, was his pride.

That and the way she’d looked at him.

He’d faced down her anger before. Her incredulity. He’d rolled his eyes at her self-pity, and he’d laughed aloud at her self-righteousness. But those were all sudden blasts of emotion, usually simple and one-dimensional, almost superficial. The way she’d looked at him that day, all drawn, silent, and pale, her eyes so deep and so dark… It had been something more complex. It had been like… like she’d finally found something, anything, worthy in him, and then him and his stupid mouth had smashed it before it’d even got a chance to be realized. Her look had been anger and incredulity, self-pity and self-righteousness. But it also had been vulnerability, sadness and loss, and for one small moment, Max had looked like a normal woman; one that wasn’t sure what to do with herself, or why she was even there. And he’d been so hell-bent on being angry he hadn’t even been able to decipher it all until a few weeks later.

And then what?

Try to go back to Seattle and sort it out, and pull his foot out of his mouth, and call her out for being a bitch that had kind of deserved it, only not really because he was the one that was supposed to keep a level head, even when she started rampaging, and his thoughts kept going in so many circles, Alec wasn’t sure what to think. Just knew he couldn’t be really angry at her when he was so busy being pissed off at himself.

But how could he ever go back? How could he face that again?

Yeah. So what. So he was a coward. He could admit that, if nothing else. So he didn’t want to see that kind of expression again… Or worse, find out that all his stalling had separated them beyond repair and she didn’t feel anything for him anymore, not even the usual hatred. Maybe that’s what had really frightened him about her expression. For one short moment, she’d looked so vulnerable, her soul naked in her eyes before him… and then she’d drawn herself upright and the window in her eyes had slammed shut, and Alec worried that it would never open for him again.

He’d have blamed Manticore, but that was a hard thing to do when he was so busy blaming her, and himself, and her unrealistic expectations, and his narrow-minded inability to reach for anything higher than a pessimistic reality, and maybe he blamed the universe a little bit too, but mostly, yeah, he just blamed himself.

“You thought about therapy?”

Alec frowned down at the body. He nudged it a bit, but, stubbornly, the dead Familiar refused to move, refused to give him the opportunity to unload a bullet into his fat, meaty head. He clicked the safety back on with a sigh and glanced up at the dark haired transgenic at his side, the one watching him with a little bit of wariness.

“Sorry, did you say something?”

The man schooled his features back to normal. “I said Blaze and Chicks got one holed up in a bathroom next door, but as soon as they’re done-“

The pop of gunfire through the too-thin motel walls cut the man off.

He shrugged. “Nevermind. This site is clean.”

And just in time too. The familiar vibration in his jacket pocket had begun again, and Alec nodded at the man, stepped over the body sprawled upon the ground, and pulled his phone out, flipping it open. The gun stayed loosely held in the other hand; you could never be too careful, Familiars were like cockroaches, they kept popping out from their little hidey holes when you least expected it.

“Go for Alec.”

Mole’s familiar voice seemed wary through the phone. It was usually wary these days; like Mole didn’t know how to reach him and wanted to, but he didn’t want to know what would finally make the other man snap either. “Where are you, man?”

“I’m in Oregon.” Alec was still moving through the room, glancing at unmoving bodes. He toed an arm, pushing it over, and he eyed the Caduceus on the man’s cooling forearm. Casey frowned and glanced up from her spot near the closet. She was going through the Familiars’ suitcases, looking for some leads to their next big hit. It was a good thing they’d knocked out the motel clerk before taking care of his only ‘guests.’ It afforded them a few extra minutes. A few extra minutes to find the next group of Familiars; there’d been a sudden influx lately, small pockets popping up in the Northwest, and every time Alec found another group, it seemed they were getting closer and closer to Washington. It was almost like the Familiars were slowly converging on Seattle. He frowned. It didn’t sit well with Alec, not at all.

Mole’s voice was bland, pulling him back to the conversation. “Oregon, huh? Thought you were in northern Cali.”

“Yeah, well, we caught a scent and followed it up here. So long as we don’t find another one, we should be back in a few days.” Alec glanced around the room once more before stepping through the entrance and onto the second story walkway. Mid-morning sunlight had stretched across the cracked parking lot, across the cars haphazardly parked, but had not yet reached the landing. It was autumn and he was cold. He wondered if he’d ever really felt warmth.

There was a long pause, and then the words were so deceptively light, it was like it wasn’t even Mole. “Oregon… That’s just below Washington, isn’t it?”

Alec frowned in sudden annoyance. “What, are we playing a geography game now?”

There was a short pause; Alec could almost picture the transhuman working the cigar from one side of his mouth to the other before finally pulling it out completely to impart some kind of words of wisdom.

But Alec didn’t want to hear it. “Save it. I’m not going up to Seattle.” Then, in an attempt to be the man he once was, “Do you have any idea how fucking cold it is up there?”

The sounds of movement, of items being picked through, clothes tossed aside, abruptly stilled, and the silence was overwhelming. Alec could practically feel Casey’s sharp eyes, like a golden knife, on the back of his neck as Mole came back at him.

“I don’t care if it’s thirty below zero in Seattle right now, I think you should go.”

It surprised Alec, he hadn’t been expecting it. It almost made him forget that Casey was eavesdropping. Almost, but not quite. The annoyance followed on the heels of the surprise fairly quickly. He stepped out of the way as Blaze and Chicks left the room next door and passed by, glancing at him as they entered the motel room he’d just left. Alec reached out and closed the door once they were through before continuing the conversation.

“Why is it suddenly so important that I go to Seattle. You’ve never wanted me to head up there before.”

Maybe it was the distance that gave Mole the gumption. Maybe it was the phone call he had just gotten. Maybe he was just tired of Alec acting like a gloomy mother fucker and a bastard to boot. “Maybe I think you’ve been a damn pain these last three months, and I want you to get your prickly ass up to Seattle and fix whatever drama you got going on with the Queen B.”

Alec’s laugh was short and crisp. “So says Max’s greatest fan.”

There was an awkward pause. And then finally- “Look, I’m not sayin’ I’m princess’s new champion, but-“

“The answer is no. I’m not going to the fucking Zoo.” Alec bit back sharply. There was silence, and he could practically hear the gears in Mole’s head turning through the phone. He kept talking so that Mole couldn’t fire out something that would make him go where he was too scared to be. “I’ll be back in a few days. Try not to get any more bright ideas while I’m away.” And then he hung up. And took a deep breath, closing his eyes, regaining control. He was not a man. He was a soldier. He didn’t have time for-

The phone vibrated in his hand.

He snapped in open and fairly snarled. “Mole, I told you-“

“I don’t fucking care.” Mole wasn’t playing nice anymore. “Joshua called me not even ten minutes ago and you need to get your ass up to Seattle right now.”

Alec rolled his eyes. “Why? Familiars finally drop a bomb on the Zoo?”

“No, worse.”

Alec froze, forced his heart down. “What do you mean, worse?”

There was a long pause, as if Mole was unsure of how to continue.

“Mole, tell me what the hell is going on.” Stress made his voice tight. His heart refused to restart. He didn’t want to ask, but he couldn’t help it. “Is it Max?”

The voice that came back was dark and strangely amused. “Yeah, it’s Max all right.”

His breath came out in a rush. Oh God, not Max. Not her. Everything was still all screwed up. He hadn’t fixed anything. How could he live if she had-

“She’s pregnant, Alec.”

Alec’s heart was no longer frozen. It was gone completely; there was just a sucking hole in his chest where his heart should be, and he could hear the wind rushing through his ears, attempting to fill it.

Time had stopped. How long had he been standing here? He couldn’t remember. Surely too long. He need to say something, anything. His voice was so weak, Mole had to strain to hear it through the phone, but he finally managed a, “How- I mean…”

Mole shrugged through the phone. “Dog-boy says she’s about six months along.”

Alec staggered two steps forward, reached forward and clutched at the second-story’s iron railing. Six months. Six fucking months. Three months since he had seen her. Three months since she had walked away from him. Had she known? When she’d come to see him, had she known?

The look in her eyes, the window slamming shut. God, she’d known.

And she’d left without saying a word.

Mole must have been saying something, because his voice cut through the fog. “Alec? Did you hear me? I said she’s-“

“I heard you,” He said harshly, even though he hadn’t heard a word, busy as he was struggling for his own words, for thought, for anything. “I… I gotta go.” He flipped the phone shut and just stared at it, strangely still.

A door shut behind Alec and he turned so slowly: Casey was watching him with questioning eyes.

“Everything okay?”

His mind still seemed so blank. “I gotta go.” He repeated, so simple he probably seemed like an idiot.

“Alec?” He didn’t say anything, and for one long moment, he seemed almost frozen. Then, in a sudden flurry of activity, he abruptly spun, and fairly flew down the concrete steps of the old motel. Her confused, insistent voice followed him down. “Alec, where are you going?!”

The only reply was that of a car door slamming, a motor gunning, and the squeal of the tires as he pealed out of the parking lot. Casey, still leaning out over the railing, frowned. What the hell was going on?

A dark part of her heart whispered she probably already knew.

A few states over, Mole stared at the silent phone in his hand and he sighed. “I said; she’s marrying Logan.” He dropped the phone onto his desk. Humans; they were all so screwed up, he wondered how any of them managed to get by at all.

She paused outside the open door. Not glaringly open. Slightly open. Like someone had purposefully let it fall just far enough shut to instill dread. She didn't feel dread. She didn't feel anything.

Besides, he was the jackass that couldn't pick up a phone. That had waited three months before finally showing up.

The anger brought a shock of life into her system and her flat palm connected with the door, sent it slamming into the wall.

She'd thought he'd be waiting. He wasn't. The apartment was dark, silent, he was long gone, but every one of her overdeveloped senses screamed of his presence. He'd been here, but he'd left once more.

Max dropped the plastic bag she'd been carrying to the floor, controlling the small laugh that tried to erupt at the thought. He'd been here, but he'd left once more. Why so fucking funny? Because it seemed like that might be the only thing Alec was good at; leaving.

She followed the ghost of his presence. He didn't care about the kitchen; he'd never gotten the hang of cooking for himself, and found the kitchen completely useless, save as a handy place to keep the cups and the alcohol. Or at least, that's what he'd once felt. Who knows if he felt anything anymore.

He'd gone to her bedroom first, even knowing that she wasn't there. Max's hand connected with the doorframe he had probably leaned against, his hard eyes scanning the familiar bed, the same plant that had been trying to die for over a year. Max pushed away from the doorway, turned and went into the only other room he would enter. It was completely empty. Empty buckets of paint in one corner, empty paint trays for filling, stained now by the yellow.

Whatever it was inside of her that told her Alec had been in her apartment, told her he'd been in this room the longest. Just standing in an empty room, staring at yellow painted walls. What had he seen in the bare walls that was so worth his study? Her anger was fading, no, it was gone, and she was empty, just like the room. A thought burbled; she needed to buy, beg, or borrow two cribs. And the meat in the bag in her entryway needed to go into the fridge.

And suddenly a flare of panic from nowhere. She spun on her heel, back into her own room. Her dresser seemed undisturbed, but she yanked open the top drawer anyway.

It was gone. He'd found it, and he'd taken it.

She slumped; her head connected with the hard wood of her dresser. Her bare fingers convulsed around the edge of the open drawer, and she told herself it didn't matter if he knew. He'd made his choice, and she... she'd made hers.

The ring slid across the table with Alec's hard question still ringing in the air. Joshua frowned.

"Logan's ring." It was a statement; Joshua must have recognized it immediately. But the surprise faded and the taller man stared accusingly at Alec. He ignored that question still hanging darkly in the air. "Why does Alec have Logan's ring?"

It wasn't Logan's ring. It was Max's ring; the diamond that Logan had given her once before, and, apparently, had given her once more. The simple velvet box that it had been in had gotten tossed into the gutter a few streets over as he'd been walking with a purpose, headed towards Command, intent on finding Max. He'd been so focused, so angry, he'd barely felt the curious, sometimes accusing, eyes that watched him as he marched through the city that he'd once helped run... But he'd gotten here, and maybe she wasn't here either, and Joshua was staring at him with hooded, accusing eyes.

Why had he taken the ring? Had he been ready to shout at her accusingly, for hiding her pregnancy from him, and then use the ring and all the ridiculous dreams it represented as the trump card to throw in her face? As proof of her motive maybe; she still wanted her fucking happy ending, and Alec wasn't invited, and the ring seemed to reflect that in every one of its cold, sharp facets.

Despite Joshua's unhappy eyes, Alec reminded himself that it was Joshua that had called Mole, that surely that must mean something. If he was going to get answers from anybody, it would probably be him. "When?" Alec repeated harshly.

"No!" The bark of anger made Alec draw back in surprise, and Josh continued in angry tones. "No, Alec does not get to ask the questions."

Joshua waited, to see if Alec would try to fight him. When he didn't, just stood waiting seemingly patient, obviously impatient, Joshua frowned. "Why does Alec even care if Max marries Logan? You haven't been here."

Alec seemed to shut down a little bit; the spark within him fading. Joshua tried to stoke it, tried to bring Alec back. Tried to wake him up.

Despite the hardeness, his voice almost seemed laced with a soft sense of loss. "Where have you been, Alec?"

Alec didn't take a step back, but he got a little defensive. "I've been in Wyoming." Then added, "And California, and Oregon. I've been everywhere; I've been busy."

Joshua snorted. "Oh, yes, Alec sooo busy. He has all the time in the world for the Zoo, and not a single minute for his family."

His family? Family. The only family he had now was one that he wasn't sure he wanted waiting for him in Gillette. And all of that was eclipsed by-

"The Zoo?"

"The Zoo," Joshua nodded, his eyes still narrowed. "That's what we call your Manticore, here."

Your Manticore.

Something in him, something human, it almost laughed. All those X's back in Wyoming, looking down on those still here; would they still laugh if they knew their home was being called that same term that they themselves threw around so disdainfully. The Zoo. Max had accused him of trying to rebuild Manticore; of putting all the transgenics back in their cages. It wasn't completely accurate, but maybe he had succeeded, anyway.

Your Manticore.

Maybe Gillette and Seattle, maybe they were both zoos, and all the little animals would never really know what it is to be free. Maybe they were all just trapped by their genetics in a world that hated them.

Joshua watched all the dark thoughts that Alec thought he hid so well flicker across his face. The tall transhuman shook his head. Then offered, gently; "You're still a man, Alec."

"I'm a soldier," Alec snapped back immediately, his face hardening. He didn't see Joshua's shoulders fall, ever so slightly; his eyes were scanning Command, hoping for a glimpse of her.

"She's not here. She's at home." Joshua's voice seemed closer. Alec turned, the transhuman was standing before him, dainty ring held outstretched, dwarfed between two oversized fingers. "Don't forget Logan's ring."

"Max's ring." Alec corrected, swiping it from the larger man, before spinning.

Joshua's serious voice split the air just one more time before he could reach the doorway.

"You've disappointed me, Alec."

He paused for only a moment. He glanced over one shoulder, and he didn't deny it. Joshua could see it in his eyes; Alec had disappointed Alec the most. But that's not what Alec's voice said.

"Not as much as Max has disappointed me."

Joshua's brow furrowed in confusion, and Joshua couldn't even ask Alec what he meant by that, because the door was already swinging shut behind him. He wondered, not for the first time, what had happened between them. The story he had from Max was sketchy at best; as angry as she'd been when she'd first come back, he hadn't understood many of the short clipped sentences that didn't seem connected to any other. He couldn't get a coherent story from her, and it seemed so strange that Alec wouldn't come to see her, so he finally just asked, 'Max, did you tell Alec,' one day, when she was in the grips of one of her apathetic phases that she was too shut down to realize was sadness. She'd said yes, but with Alec's anger still lingering in the air, Joshua wondered.

Joshua was struck with an overwhelming urge to lift the both of them by the scruffs of their necks and shake them. Instead he brought a hand to his head and sighed. Confrontation was better than nothing. It was him, after all, that had wrangled the number from Dix, one of the ones Max had suspected of passing tabs onto Alec, and had apparently been right about. It was him that had called the number, expecting to talk to Alec, but ended up talking to Alec's second instead. And what he heard from that side wasn't any better than anything he'd been seeing here. Alec was not Alec and Max was not Max. And Joshua was fairly certain that if not-Max married Logan for the wrong reasons, not-Alec would never be human again. Maybe that's why he'd sent Alec after Max. Maybe he was just tired of being the only one with any sense-

"Was that Alec I just saw?"

Joshua shook his head. "No, Dix. That was not Alec." It was somebody else entirely.

Vid: Awake - Bleeding Love

2009-10-22T21:50:00Z

*contains movie spoilers*

What? ...Hey, I actually LIKED that movie! :P

Meh. It's easier to work on vids than it is to sit down and write. I can fit in an hour here or 30 mins there. My creativity refuses to be stifled by work, but I don't have the huge chunks of time that it usually takes for me to work on a story. Anywho, something a little different for you.

P.S.
F*-it. I'll try to post some word-age for you guys this weekend. Keep your eyes out! ^_^

Vid: Dark Angel - Max/Alec - Bad Things

2009-10-22T16:47:51Z

Vid: Dark Angel - Max/Alec/Sam - Rootless Tree

2009-10-09T03:35:53Z

Roughly inspired by Why Them... I heard the song and my eyes gained about three sizes. I'm so glad I got it done before I go home for the weekend. ^_^

P.S. delay in campaign, YouTube just disabled my entire video. Again. Crap. Off to photobucket. Even if PB does have crappier resolution... *mopes*

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p.p.s. Suck it, Fox. ^_^

Are you f'ing kidding me?

2009-10-01T22:15:54Z

When will people learn that being smarmy and rude in reviews will never get them anywhere. Or that telling someone to update NOW shows a self absorbedness and lack of respect that almost makes my brain shut off completely.

Where am I? I'm in the military, that's where the heck I am. I honestly don't even know why I insist on leaving the anon review option on.

Good mood- destroyed.
Chance I'll be writing anything anytime remotely soon - almost nil.

Sorry; I keep telling myself to leave my rants to a minimum. But there was steam pouring out of my ears and it had to go somewhere. Sorry I made it go here.

Also, if you read this when I first posted, I apologize for the profanity. I was pretty powerfully angry, and my LJ friends don't deserve that. Because you are awesome! :) Good mood, not so destroyed after all, but it'll take a few days for me to be able to look at Word without getting a little grumpy.

Dark Angel - Max/Alec (sooorta) - The End

2009-09-27T03:32:15Z

So, it ended up a teensy bit unhappy. But hey, I still likes it. I could rewrite everything that I put on youtube, but I'll just say that in the end, Alec is just fed up. Made by request, though I took quite a bit of creative licence.

Legend of the Seeker - Richard/Kahlan - All For Love

2009-09-20T18:07:44Z

I rain curses upon YouTube!

2009-09-20T17:44:17Z

Blast! I had an awesome music video for Legend of the Seeker all made and what do they do? Disable my song after like a second. Ahh "copyright infringement," you get me every time. Remember that awesome "Animals" music video I made for Max and Alec? ...Yeah, neither does anyone else. (Screw you, I goes to PhotoBucket)

DA One-Shot: Spar (or, A Four Letter Verb For UST)

2009-08-19T01:47:46Z

Something fairly light, fairly cliche, and fairly M that's just been kind of hanging around on my hard drive since the end of OTS. Inspired by military training, oddly enough. This gleefully dances around crack without ever quite giving in.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spar
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Max hated verbs.

Which is quite alright, because verbs hated Max right back. In fact, they seemed to enjoy taunting her.

“Man, did you see that sparring session this morning? Alec totally licked Max.”

“Ha! He loves the attention. You could totally see it on his face; he was just lapping it up.”

“Yeah well, that’s what she gets. She gave him an opening and he just slid right in.”

Max had enough of verbs and their evil, mind-twisting, mental-image-calling ways. She’d also had enough of eavesdropping on this particular conversation and finally rounded the corner, looking blandly at the two X-6’s lounging in the hallway. They snapped upright when they noticed her and they shared a wary glance. She hadn’t heard them, had she?

She let them stew in fear for a few moments, before finally arching one amused eyebrow. “Scram.”

They scrammed, taking themselves as far and as fast from their Commanding Officer as their wiry little adolescent legs could carry them. Alec barely managed to avoid their barreling forms as he turned the corner.

“Woah, where’s the fire?” The two teens didn’t stop to tell him, but it didn’t matter because he’d caught sight of Max. “Oh, I see. Never mind.”

And then, as if her day wasn’t bad enough, Alec sauntered up to her and flung an arm over her shoulders. Well, at least he had his shirt on again, even if it was way too frickin’ formfitting. His shoulders were stupid, Max thought with all the sullen, vindictive force of a three year old.

“Maxie! How’s my favorite sparring partner?”

She shook him off, scowling, forcing away the memories. Memories of earlier that morning, of fighting, of grappling, of rolling around on the mat with half of TC looking on (slight over exaggeration, but that’s Max for you). “You beat me one time. Stop making such a big deal out of it.” She spun on her heel, stalking away from him.

Typically, he followed. “C’mon, Maxie, just ‘cuz I beat you fair and square…”

That’s when she had to stop, laughing in disbelief. “Fair? Fair?!” She whirled on him, her eyes narrowing as she hissed, “There was nothing fair about it!” One slim, accusatory finger came up and poked him brutally in the chest. “You cheated.”

He leaned back into his heels, smiling that stupid little cat smile, pursed lips, wicked eyes, almost a smirk but just not quite. His voice was loose and lazy, almost a drawl, as he rubbed at the spot on his chest that she had tried to send her finger through. “Did I? How so?”

She gaped at him for a moment, mouth working soundlessly. She certainly wasn’t going to say it out loud. “You… you just did and you know it!” She turned her back on him and resumed her thunderous stomp down the hallway. Thunderous because, given her facial expression, she'd have probably liked it if lightning shot from her heel every time she brought a heavy foot down. Would have liked it more if every bolt hit Alec in the face.

Alec's face was ignoring her, pretending thoughtfulness for a moment, before the man shook his head and shrugged. “Nope, don’t know what you’re talkin’ ‘bout.” Alec resumed his own slow meandering gait, tracking her to her office. She almost sputtered in disbelief, before stopping once more. It was like a rather annoying game of Red Light, Green Light, Alec noted to himself, right before she turned, folded her arms across her chest, and arched one eyebrow.

Alec contained the amusement. Oh boy. Here it comes.

“Let’s face it, Alec. I’m better than you.”

Alec snorted as some of the amusement leaked out.

She ignored him, continuing on, lofty and full of herself. “There’s no way you could have beaten me without cheating. Hence, you cheated.”

“This coming from the girl that kicked me in the balls a few short months ago?” He demanded, sauntering right up to her, looming over her. His hazel eyes flashed as they bore into hers, as he leaned in, his face far too close to hers. There was something dangerous in the air, even if his expression did remain playful. “Let’s face it, honey, if I was fighting dirty, it was only because I learned from the master.”

She could have just taken the small victory; that Alec had almost sort of kind of admitted that he may or may not have cheated a little bit but probably hadn’t. Instead, she scowled up at him. “Rematch.”

And so sealed her doom.

He backed down, backed away, with a shrug. “Whatever you say, Maxie.” The way his mouth caressed her name should have given it away.

Rematch? Bad idea.

But she didn’t realize it at the time. No, she was still all hell-bent on proving herself. Proving that she was better. That she could and would always beat him. Still… just in case, no way was she gonna let the rest of T.C. watch this time. No, instead, they made a silent, unconscious sort of instantaneous agreement and avoided the training room, speaking no more of the upcoming match and waiting for the duty day to be over. She met him over at his place, ‘cuz for some reason it’d seem strange if they went together, at the same time, to the same place… together. Especially if that 'same place' was Alec's small apartment, so far from the prying eyes of transgenics, transhumans, Logan... anybody, really. Dunno why it seemed so strange. It just wouldn’t be right, for some reason. So she barged in, and he was waiting for her, leaning at the bar next to a bottle of whiskey that he had decided not to open. There was no reason to drink when he already felt so alive.

They shoved his couch away, he gave her a stern lecture on avoidance of the TV and all other things electronic, and she sullenly promised not to break any lamps over his head. He lifted the shirt from his body with a singular, sweeping motion, and when she demanded to know what the hell he was doing, he told her he was merely trying to recreate the sparring session of earlier. She scowled, but whatever, his shoulders were still stupid. And then it was on.

How terrible.

See, the problem with real fighting is that it almost always ends in grappling. Nobody just throws punches at each other for hours on end. The idea is unrealistic, and frankly, laughable. No, eventually someone is going to get taken to the ground, and then the person with the best holds, the strongest grip, the fastest maneuvers, that’s the person that’s going to win. Maybe it's actually just the first person that has friends show up.

Or maybe it’s just the person that cheats the most.

Her shirt had ridden up in the back and she could feel the harsh sting of the carpet against her skin. She had his waist locked between her legs, which would have been better if he hadn’t had her arms pinned over her head. And just when she started applying pressure, squeezing his sides painfully with her knees, he suddenly shoved forward, into her, and her legs forcibly relaxed as a gasp was torn from her throat… which is all he needed to break her lock, flip her over, and pin her, cheek pressed to the floor, her arms held tightly behind her back.

His lips were dangerously close to her ear, his breath stirred her dark hair. “I’m winning, Maxie. Again.”

She bucked him off and he let her, and the fact that he let her made her even more angry. She glared at him over her shoulder, coming to her knees and kicking backwards, but he simply grabbed her calf and pulled her towards him, toppling her back to the ground… and once he had, once she was close enough, his hand slid quickly past the underside of her knee, over the back of a jean-clad thigh, headed towards-

She bit her lip to control the moan, instead rolling and knocking his hand away before it could reach her ass. “You wouldn’t be winning if you would keep your perverted hands off of me!”

He bit his own lip to control the wide smile, but he couldn’t control the light of unabashed glee in his eyes. “Max, how could you say that about me?” He managed to affect a look of hurt reproach. “We’re sparring. I’m not trying to feel you up.”

“Yeah right,” She muttered, sitting up and straightening her twisted shirt, her body buzzing.

He relaxed his expression, drawing back to his knees, and he rolled his eyes. “We’re grappling. Of course things will get a little close and hands on-“

Her gasp of incredulity made the fire of laughter burn brighter in his eyes. She started with a huff, “It’s only awkward because you keep-“

But he interrupted, talking right over her. “I mean, is it my fault that it’s been a while for you? That your mind keeps rolling around in the gutter?”

That bastard! She launched herself at him, and they were on the ground once more, struggling for position.

“I’ll kill you!”

He made a sound in the back of his throat, and god, even the sound sounded perverted. Need sliced through her fingers, carrying itself to her core, and she lifted him slightly, slamming him back down in an attempt to shake off the desire. He was quite possibly the most frustrating man on the face of the planet. God, this was all his fault.

If only she hadn’t fought him this morning.

The first fight had started innocently enough. Max had stomped into the training room after a particularly hellfire and brimstone sort of morning and asked Polk to find her a good sparring partner, someone that was her match, ‘cuz after another argument with Logan she needed to lay into something good. Alec had been bouncing back and forth on his toes over on one of the mats, a loose pair of blue jeans apparently his idea of work-out gear. Who knows where his shirt had gotten too. And Max had been watching him, because, well, that was what Max did. Usually she was glaring or scowling as she did it, but that mattered very little in the long run. Narrowed, angry, glaring, gloating, it didn’t matter; in the end, her eyes were on him. Which, unfortunately, someone had noticed, and that someone happened to be Polk and he’d followed her gaze and made a little noise in the back of his throat, something weighing and judging. Max had glanced at the X-5 and he had shrugged.

“Him? Max, you don’t want to fight him.”

Of course not, because she was better than him. She’d already beaten him so many times that-

“He’d wipe the floor with you.”

Max’s jaw had almost dropped open. “What?!”

Polk must have had some hint, some glimmering knowledge, of her and Alec’s relationship, because he’d arched one bushy eyebrow. “Max, there’s a reason why so many transgenics call him ‘Sir.’ He had rank on everybody. He was one of the best. Fuck, even Sandovel and Lydecker sung his praises and you know how hard it was to please-“ He’d trailed off, his eyes going distant. Max could almost see the programming, ‘Rat’, ‘Traitor’, flash through his mind as he’d remembered to whom he was speaking. Polk was one of the better guys, 'cuz he’d shaken the training away and cleared his throat. “I mean, you weren’t there, but… 494, he was-“

But Max had heard enough and was stomping her way across mats, ignoring the indignant ‘heys!’ from transgenics as she inadvertently interrupted their sparring sessions, narrowly missing more than one punch not pulled soon enough and not even realizing it.

“Pretty Boy,” It was a greeting, but there was no mistaking the challenge in it.

He’d turned slowly, affected a look of surprise, like he hadn’t already known she was there. “Max,”

“Seem a little worked up today,” She shrugged out of her leather jacket, tossed it to the side.

His eyes had flicked down, over the stretched material of a red t-shirt, over formfitting blue jeans, all the way down to her typical black ass-kicking boots. The boots were like a catalyst to cut short his heavy, lingering gaze; he’d snorted and his eyes had snapped back up immediately. “Do I?” He fell back into a starting position, stance wide, his fists coming up in readiness. He wasn’t stupid, he’d known why she’d stomped over there. Maybe another day he would have blown her off. But he was edgy and caged, and, well, to be completely honest, he was horny. So he was taking care of it the only way he could right now. Dropping other transgenics to the mat and trying to shake the electricity out of his fingertips. Sucks being in Command. All the damn military training takes over and you can’t quite bring yourself to come on to the females under you. Can’t sneak out of TC for a little Ordinary rough n’ tumble either. Maybe it had been a stupid idea, but at the time he'd thought that maybe working Max into an angry lather would get rid of some of the restless energy humming within him.

“You ready?” She’d asked, her head cocking to the side.

The rumble of his voice really should have been her first warning. Alec’s voice never rumbled. It went up, it went down, it became whiny, moody, light, bright. But it never moved like a deep thrum through her body. “I am. Are you?”

She didn’t answer, just threw herself forward.

“Well,” Polk said, watching from across the room. “This should be interesting.”

And it was. In all honesty, Polk had been expecting for it to be over quickly. That Alec would drop her to the mat, same as he’d been doing with everyone else, and be done with it. But Polk would be surprised to find that it was almost an even match. Max, despite her lack of training, her years outside of Manticore… well, she was good. They’d countered one another, moving back and forth across the mat in a syncopated dance; a hit missed, a kick avoided. If he hadn’t known better, if he couldn’t see the slight sweat starting to gather at Max’s temples, between Alec’s shoulder blades, he’d almost have thought the whole thing was choreographed.

It went on like that for far too long, though. Clearly there would be no winner if they continued to fight fair.

Which is maybe why Alec had been forced to dodge a very low, very dangerously aimed kick. He’d looked up, controlling the shock, and he'd smiled narrowly at her. “Not letting you get away with that again, sister.”

She always hated it when he called her that. Especially when there was nothing remotely sibling like in her feelings, or lack thereof, for him. She’d smiled a challenge in response, a slight nod of the head, her eyes a little bit hard, and he fell still just for a moment.

“Is this really the way we’re gonna play it?” He’d demanded.

She hadn’t realized what he’d meant at the time. In retrospect, she supposed he meant were they really going to fight dirty during a sparring season? That was probably the turning point for the entire fight. The place where everything started getting surreal. She hadn’t meant for it to get dangerous, but the only way one of ‘em could gain an upper hand, especially when they were so evenly matched, was to throw something in a little crooked, a little sideways, something a little dirty for the sole sake of winning. She hadn't known that he was a cheaty cheating cheater that was even worse than she was.

Poor, poor naïve Max had made a face. “Why are you talking?” And jabbed at his stomach, but Alec grabbed for her wrist, drew her in, and that’s when finally all the artistic hand-to-hand combat had turned into a slightly more realistic, gritty, grappling session and they went to the mat.

And when they thought nobody was looking, after a minute or so of struggling, when she was trapped beneath him, fighting to free herself from his hold… That’s when Alec’s brain decided to take a meandering walk away from the rest of his body; he couldn’t seem to focus on anything other than the fact that she was writhing underneath him, a slight sheen of sweat against her flushed skin. And before everything within him could cry ‘nooooooo, stop!’ he’d leaned in, his nose just below her ear, against her neck, and, almost like he couldn’t help himself, he inhaled.

Inhaled.

It’s not like he licked her. Not like he let his teeth glance across her skin. All he’d done was breathe her in; suck in a breath through his nose, the air rushing across her flesh, making its way into his body, then back out again through his lips, tantalizingly close to her skin, the warmed air washing across her neck.

But every nerve fiber in her body had crackled to life and her eyes had squeezed shut and something distinctly alien and animal in him must have sensed it, because he’d drawn away slowly and looked down at her… His eyes had gone dark, but by the time her brown eyes had reopened and refocused, they’d turned back to a green and gold full of control and calculation. And maybe that, that was the beginning of the end for the fight, ‘cuz Alec had finally figured out how he would be winning. That’s also when more people started gaining interest in their struggles, wandering over to watch as their own sparring sessions came to a close.

They'd rolled and she was over him, trying to force his hands over his head, down into the mat. But as she'd leaned down into him, his eyes had gone hooded and dark and his generous lips parted slightly and what the hell, was Alec giving her sex eyes? On purpose? She was trying to convince herself that his fascinating expression was wholly uninteresting when he'd broken free of her loosened grip, bucked her off, with his frickin’ hips, forcing a rush of air from her lips that sounded suspiciously like a gasp, and he was over her once more, his expression twisting back to playful.

“It’s like I’m watching a really soft porn that’s on daytime TV by mistake,” Polk mused to himself, closer now to the action. “And I can’t change the channel, or look away, because it might disappear and I’ll never get another chance to see it.”

Someone next to him made a fascinated, throaty noise in agreement.

It went on like that for a few minutes. Max struggling to break free. Alec countering with movements both sinuous and erotic. It was still sort of a dance; move and counter, give and take. It was push and pull, roll and rebound, and Max was sure that every ounce of liquid in her body had been redirected to-

“Come on, Maxie, give up.” She was pinned beneath him once more, her back against the mat, his legs caging hers, and when he'd leaned in, he was practically on top of her. Why his weight wasn’t smothering held implications she would prefer to ignore. His breath against her neck was solely annoying though, and she'd attempted a wriggle, but all it did was make him press himself harder into her. Worse, when he transferred her wrist to his other hand, holding her arms pinned over her head with only one fist in an iron-tight grip. The other went sliding across the mat, down her side, his own wrist hugging closely to the generous curves of her body. His fist unfurled and his fingers glanced across the waistline of her jeans, barely touching skin, then flattened against her hipbone, keeping her hips pressed down into the mat as he slid himself forward, his sweaty bare abdomen sliding against red cotton until she could feel the heat of his skin against her own. Somehow, his knee found a way between her clamped legs, forcing them apart.

Max whimpered.

“C’mon, Maxie,” He’d repeated, and now that thrumming voice was right next to her ear. “Give in.”

Her head had arched back into the mat, air rushing from her nostrils. And in a moment of weakness he'd lost a little bit of his careful control and his tongue had flicked out, just below her ear, to the pulse point there, tasting her. Something choked had gathered in her throat, and his fingers stayed at her hip as he shifted over her, his thigh intimately between hers, against her, and his exhale had seemed loud and forced; like he was trying to bring himself back under control. Next to her ear, his forced breath was just loud enough to bring her back to herself, just for a moment.

Max froze, eyes wide, and she finally found her voice in a moment of deep, fearful, self-preservation. “You win. I give up!”

A groan of disappointment had filled her ears. And it wasn’t Alec’s. She'd glanced up in surprise to realize that in their total consumption in the… fight… they’d been having, they’d attracted a small crowd. Alec must have realized too, because he’d quickly released her and sprung to his feet, distancing himself from her. Then he’d blinked, immediately realizing he’d won, and that stupid smirk had twisted his lips, and she couldn’t even be annoyed yet, because she was grabbing for her jacket and getting the hell out of there. The annoyance would have to come later, when her body wasn’t full of confusion and molten lava.

But here they were again, struggling on his floor, and what the hell had she been thinking? Just because they were alone didn’t mean he was fighting fair. And this time she didn't even have anyone to save her from herself.

His fingers curled into the collar of her soft, red cotton top, and as they were struggling, somehow her shoulder became bared, and somehow, he was over her and he was doing that stupid inhalation breathing thing right up against her skin. And somehow, her eyes were shutting again as her abdomen decided it wanted to power a small city judging by all the electricity crackling through it. And somehow, his hand was against her breast and she was gasping, her nails scraping against the warm skin of his shoulders. Then he was lifting her and carrying her, and the feel of the mattress against her back was almost enough to break his hold over her. Almost. Not when she heard the sound of red material tearing and she felt his teeth for the first time, just above her bra. Her hands were shaking as she went for his belt, but if they were, he didn’t notice, wholly distracted by the fact that she was going for his belt in the first place.

Contrary to popular belief, transgenics are capable of forgetting. Max, however, could live to be a hundred and five and would never, ever, forget the sound he made as she grasped him, something so hoarse and wanting that her head arched back into the pillows and her grip tightened, and she was almost paralyzed as she felt his fingers curl into the waistband of her jeans. She finally released him as he started to shove her pants off with a speed that bordered on desperate.

And even as ridiculously aroused as she was, Max started to come back to herself. “Alec-“ she breathed, her voice hitching as he glanced down, at dark underwear that was too ornate to really be for her own eyes and not anyone else's. His smile quirked, a little dangerous, and then his fingers were hooking into those, too, drawing them down slowly, giving her enough time to restart her protest full of logic and thinking and… things.

She propped herself up on her elbows, watching as he pulled her boots off her feet and tossed them across the room. Watched as he did the same with her socks, her underwear, her jeans. Watched as he stood, unzipped his pants the rest of the way, let them drop to the floor.

“Alec, we…” She had to look away as she dropped back, looking at the ceiling, as he leaned forward, eyes full of wicked delight and he crawled back over her.

“Mmmm?” It rumbled through his chest, rumbled through hers. He slid against her, and traitorously, her knees widened for him.

“We can’t do thi-” She broke off into a gasp as he slid into her, her back arching, her body offering itself up to him, deepening his first glide.

“Really? Why not?” Wicked and wanting, his voice could have killed her, but his body was doing a good enough job on its own, starting a slow, rocking rhythm that forced air from her nostrils, forced her eyes closed and her teeth around his shoulder. She had to release him with a gasp as he swore in desperation and it reverberated through her body. Very little after that could be described as 'slow.'

And from that ostentatious start, when he'd first arched into her and she'd gasped, to middle, when he was shaking and her harsh cries were exploding around him after each powerful thrust, to what she thought was the finish, when it was her turn to arch with a wail, it was all rough, explosive, mind-numbing; a small moment of surreality, though, when her body was trembling, when his grip loosened and he pressed a small kiss against her sweaty forehead. When his glide gentled and his head hung and he quaked within her before dropping down, smothering her with a weight that didn’t seem as heavy as it should.

Her limbs were heavy, weak. She was adrift in a sea of aftershocks and a strange, relaxed kind of mental quietness. When she finally came back to herself, she was blinking at the ceiling. Almost in disbelief.

“…I can’t move.”

He grunted, finally shoved himself off of her, flopping to his back and flinging an arm over his eyes. But apparently, that’s not how she’d meant it.

Max was still blinking, splayed out on the bed, unmoving. “I think you broke me.” She attempted to lift an arm. It stayed put. She wanted to blame liquid muscles on too much sparring, but...

His mouth quirked a bit below his arm. Who’da thunk that Max could ever be good for his ego? His arm dropped back to the mattress and he glanced at her, his eyes trailing across the body he’d just spent a good amount of time appreciating. He rolled onto his side and his arm hooked around her middle and he was drawing her back towards him and what? That’s weird. Alec so didn’t seem like the snuggling type.

Modified snuggling, Max realized with a shiver as his teeth nipped at the curve of her shoulder, her neck, moving across the side of her throat, his capable hand flattening and sliding against skin, across her hip, in to her thigh, and his fingers tightened and he drew her roughly against him and-

Oh. Oh.

Max hated verbs. In fact, she hated language in general.

Logan was watching her with sad, pensive eyes. Guess this was his way of trying to make up for their umpteenth fight. “Heard Alec gave it to you pretty good yesterday.”

Given the fact that she didn’t actually say anything, only made a sound, it was amazing how high her tones managed to get. “Hmmm?”

And fuck it all, if it wasn’t Alec that was leaning in her office’s doorway. “Well, the story expands with retelling. I didn’t actually beat Max into a pulp on the training mats.”

Max almost breathed a sigh of release, maybe of relief, but her intake of breath must have clued Alec in, because the corner of his mouth ticked up, his head tipped to the side, and he added, “Although, some of it might be true. I’m pretty sure she did beg…” His eyes slid up and caught hers, and her intake of breath got caught in her airway and refused to come out. He added, almost as an afterthought when Logan turned to look at him a bit strangely, “For mercy. Right, Maxie?”

“Who begged?” She demanded, after she’d kicked Logan out. When they were scrambling out of clothes, at once trying to pull material off of themselves and off of each other and it was amazing with all the flailing of hands that anything actually managed to get done.

“That would be you,” He grinned, and she didn’t get a chance to protest because his hands hooked beneath her naked ass and he lifted and spun her and they all but collided with the desk, falling back onto it. Max, annoyed, refused to give him the upper hand. So it was with a good lock and a powerful twist that Alec heard a desk lamp crash to the floor, found himself on his back, blinking up at Max leaning over him, her palms pressing down into his chest. And a little thrill coursed through her as a dangerous smile twisted her lips, as a little flash of panic flared behind his eyes. She bit her lip, her eyes went a bit hooded as she sank onto him, as his head cracked back into the desk and his fingers squeezed her hips.

So, maybe verbs weren’t all bad.

"Who’s begging now?"

Z is for Zoo, 2B

2009-08-14T02:32:45Z

All the baseball bats are belong to me.

Probably just because I don't want you to beat me with them. Part 3 is brewing.

Alec didn't always appreciate Mole's wry sense of humor. Especially when he came home, after another extremely satisfying, extremely confusing, weekend, and found Casey leaning against the wall next to the door, just on the inside of his office. Casey was his friend, he'd been looking out for her since they were kids, but he didn't particularly want to share the details of his private life with her, especially when it came to Max. Max had always been a strange, nebulous kind of entity, floating in and out of his reality, and parts of him wanted to keep her all to himself. Plus, he was a little worn out, and he didn't really feel like dealing with this right now. He glanced at Casey out of the corner of his eyes, but it didn’t slow his walk towards his desk. Not even when he reached the thing, and Casey’s bland voice reached his ears.

“I know you’re sleeping with her.”

Alec paused, just for a moment, before shrugging out of his jacket and tossing it across the desk. He turned to her, leaning against the desk’s hard edge, his arms folding across his chest as he waited for her to continue.

“You can’t seriously expect me to believe that you’ve had pressing business in Seattle every other weekend for the past six months,” She finished blandly.

Alec just continued to stare at her, but his stare, the stare of a soldier, she'd been around it for years and it hardly unnerved her, not the same way that it unnerved Max. She wouldn't back down, so finally he just shrugged. “And? So what if I am? There some rule somewhere that says I can’t have a lady friend?”

“Max is no lady,” Casey threw back, “and she sure as hell isn’t your friend,”

This is why he hadn't wanted to deal with this. Sometimes Casey acted as if she was the only woman, really, the only person, that he was allowed to associate with for any long period of time. Sure, she was okay with any number of Alec's casual flings, but start throwing the 'friend' word around and she got wound tighter than a republican at a Green Peace meeting. “You don’t even know her,” Alec frowned in response.

“Do you?” Casey challenged. “This time last year, didn’t she want to knife you in the face?”

This time last year, he’d pressed a kiss against her lips on the top of the Space Needle and she’d answered his consuming, ravaging desire with her own... at least until she’d come back to herself and remembered what they were supposed to feel and opened a door into his forehead.

“Look,” He sighed, turning back to his desk. “I get that our relationship is a little unconventional-“

“Unconventional?!” Casey exploded, pushing away from the wall, her golden eyes flashing. “She hates your guts! And last time I checked, you hated hers right back!”

Alec just stared at his desk. Maybe that had been true at one point… Actually, that last part had probably never been true. Angry, maybe, but Alec had never really had it in him to hate Max back… But lately, where Max was concerned… Sometime, somewhere, somehow… it’d all started changing.

He was waiting for her when she got in. She looked at him in curiosity, her head cocking to the side, taking in his small smirk and and his hazel, hungry eyes. Before she could say anything, he lunged forward, swept her up, carried her into the bedroom, and tossed her on the bed.

And she couldn’t help the small laugh that bubbled out. Her eyes widened, she pressed her lips together, looked away, and promptly tried to pretend it hadn’t happened.

Alec had paused, still hovering over her, his hand outstretched, halfway to her jeans.

“Did you… Did you just laugh at me?”

“No,” She lied, and tried to make her eyes annoyed. She failed. The corner of her mouth quirked and she forced it back into something more neutral and less telling.

“You are laughing at me!” He straightened, glaring down at her.

“What?” She sat up, shrugging, twisting long hair over her shoulder. “It’s not my fault your caveman theatrics amused me.”

His eyes narrowed, his lips twisted. “Caveman, huh?”

She shrugged again.

His smirk was wicked. “Oh, you are so paying for that.”

She shrieked as he pounced.

And afterwards, she'd looked at him a little strangely, her head pillowed on top of his arm. He couldn't place the expression; it was one he'd never seen before.

"What?"

But whatever it was, it passed, her face went cloudy and she looked away. "It's nothing."

Sometimes it was still angry. Occasionally it was amusing. Usually it was nothing short of amazing. He told himself it was always just sex, so what did it matter if it never was tender? And he tried to pretend that he didn’t know that one wrong misstep and it’d all come tumbling down once more. He always had to be careful what he said, careful what he brought up; really he tried to keep talking to a minimum to avoid the possibility of her remembering that she was supposed to despise him. He didn’t want it to go back to the way it was before, he liked that she looked at him with more than loathing. He liked when her breath came faster, and her eyes went hooded, when she arched upwards, stopped avoiding his kiss, and just gave all of herself over to him… and only to him. More than anything else, sometimes Alec loved that he didn't have to share her with Logan.

But it all had to tumble sometime. And for Max, it came sooner than for Alec.

She was ravenous, but food held no interest for her; not when she was puking it up after every meal and the acid reflux was like fire. She was moody and tired and Gem was looking at her with sympathetic eyes and Joshua’s nose kept twitching, like he knew too. The only one that pretended obliviousness was Logan. And only because he was on a mission.

“They’ve been hiding under our noses all this time.” Logan was frowning down at her as she went through the folder with cold, clammy hands and a heart that was freezing. His eyes narrowed. “I take it that Alec never mentioned that detail to you.”

“How…” She wanted to ask, how did you know that sometimes I come home and Alec is waiting? What did it matter though, because somehow, someway, everyone seemed to know. Instead she shook her head and dropped the folder back to the table. “How did you even find them?”

“Someone was bound to notice the activity eventually. I mean, the place was supposed to have been burned out. Really, he’s just lucky that the Familiars never thought to come snooping around.” He tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice, tried to ignore the way her brow furrowed and her hand glanced across her flat stomach.

Max stared blankly past him. He willed her to look at him; to remember that Alec was the one that had taken leadership from her, that had carted over half of the transgenics back into the Wyoming wilderness. That Alec was the one that was attempting to rebuild Manticore.

Max didn't look at him, but that didn't mean that she wasn't very rightfully angry. She hadn't busted everyone out of Manticore just so they could choose to go back! And given her anger, and she finally knew where to find him, how could she possibly wait another two weeks until he came to see her again? She needed answers now. And by God, she was going to get them.

She parked her recognizable bike far back in the treeline and walked the rest of the way to the gate; she didn’t recognize the guard. The guard recognized her, or at least her face, because he started in wariness, and his M-16 lifted just a hair. It was almost like the old days.

A VA hospital, my ass. What kind of hospital needed armed guards?

“Designation?”

She didn’t even slow down. “453.”

The X-4 just frowned. “Let’s see a barcode, honey.”

She abruptly spun, lifting her hair, showing the expanse of clear skin at the nape of her neck. She turned again, smiling sweetly, sarcastically. “I’ve got a husband, a kid, and a house in Canada. I don’t exactly walk around with lines on the back of my neck.”

It was a conundrum; she could see the thought processes rolling across the guard’s face. Somehow she doubted that this was a scenario he had been prepped for.

“Look,” she sighed. “I’m just here to see 494. We met once, in Seattle, a few years ago, and I need his help with something.”

“With what?” The guard asked in suspicion.

“That’s for him to know, not you,” Max replied in boredom. He continued to eye her for a few moments before stepping into a small building near the gate, undoubtedly to call her in on the radio. He came back after only a few minutes to unlock the gate and gesture her in with the muzzle of his semi-automatic.

She wasn’t even a few more steps inside when a X-6 materialized by her side.

“Max?”

His unblinking eyes, and his well-kept clothing, his groomed hair, and the way he couldn’t keep the surprise from his voice. Dalton; she barely recognized him, she’d never seen him so put together before. Still, she stared blankly, uncomprehending, and after a moment he shook it away, and straightened. He almost looked… disappointed. Had he missed her? Or had he wanted news on Gem and on Eve? Didn’t matter, because he nodded at her.

“453? Alec's in a meeting. I was told to show you to a briefing room while you wait.”

Well, that was fast. He spun and started trotting quickly across the training yard. Max followed at a leisurely pace, doing her best not to keep her eyes focused on the back of his head instead of gawking at her surroundings. The place looked remarkably unchanged; there were transgenics sparring and working out together, groups scattered all across the yard. It seemed strange with none of the trainers’ voices in the background, raised in anger. Some of the buildings still had smoke stains, and not all of the windows that had been blown out had been replaced, but overall, it seemed like many of the effects of the fire had already been dealt with.

Dalton was waiting impatiently for her by a door and he just rolled his eyes when she didn’t pick up the pace. Good to know he hadn’t changed too much.

He led her down a long hallway, to another door, and then down a flight of stairs, into the cooler underground. Max was surprised, thinking that by ‘briefing room,’ he’d meant one of the old second story class rooms. Guess not. Manticore leadership had been awfully fond of the basement for some reason; not the side with PsyOps and the transhumans, naturally. They had their own little underground enclave, complete with large, bunker-like offices and briefing rooms; Max only knew because she’d been marched through it on her way to Renfro’s little slice of hell many a time. She doubted that most of the other transgenics had even known this area'd existed until they’d returned with Alec.

Dalton went down a long corridor and glanced at her before pushing open a door. He paused, looking into the room, and the person already waiting in one chair. After a moment, he just nodded at Casey and gestured Max in, closing the door behind her.

They were alone.

“453?”

Max kept her face impassive.

Casey just rolled her eyes, lifting her feet onto the oblong briefing table, settling back into a plush leather chair and folding her arms across her chest. Unlike the labs and the barracks, and everything else, this ‘managerial’ haven must have been untouched by the blast that had killed so many transgenics. Figures the uppers would put a safety net in place for their own skins in case someone actually did try to cauterize the site.

“You don’t fool me, you know.”

That caught her attention; she stopped scanning the room to look at the blonde once more.

Casey nodded. “Max.”

She didn’t even bat an eyelash. “It’s Sam, actually.”

“Please,” Casey dropped her feet abruptly, sitting back up. “why would 453 trek all the way from Vancouver just to chat with Alec? I knew it was you as soon as they made the radio call.”

Max just stared blankly at the other woman. Then she shrugged, giving in. What did it matter if prissy knew who she was?

“I take it Alec knows it's me, then.”

“Of course he does,” Casey scoffed.

“And what, he sent you to run interference?” Max demanded, stepping more fully into the room.

Casey shrugged noncommittally, and Max didn’t know what to make of it, so she just glared at the woman.

They stayed like that for a minute, Max glaring, Casey staring blandly back, until the blonde couldn’t contain it anymore.

“He doesn’t love you, you know.”

Max started out of her glare, and frowned in surprise. “Excuse me?”

“Alec,” Casey shrugged. “He doesn’t love you.”

Max just arched one cool eyebrow. “I’m sorry, is that supposed to hurt my feelings?”

“Feelings? See, that’s the problem with sex.” Casey ignored her, continuing, “Sex is always messy. People’s emotions get jumbled up. They start feeling things that aren’t really there.”

“What is this?” Max asked in dark amusement. “Now you tryin’ to tell me that we're confused and that Alec loves me or that I think I love Alec? News flash, he led a revolt against me. We're not exactly best friends. So make up your mind and spit out whatever it is you're trying to say.” Max didn’t even want to know how Casey had known that she was sleeping with Alec. Had he told her? Did he talk about Max to this platinum enigma? Max hated not knowing who the hell this girl was.

“I’m just warning you to be careful of that line that you two are tiptoeing,” Casey shrugged. “You never know when things will start to get,” Her golden eyes flicked up and down across Max’s frame, her perfect nose wrinkled. “Messy.”

So maybe she'd didn't know her, but Max was finding it ridiculously easy to dislike her. She kept her voice bland, though. “Thanks for the tip.”

“You want another one?” Casey’s face hardened and she stood from her chair. “Sex, to Alec, is never messy. Sex, to him, is always just sex. Nothing else.”

“Oh, I get why Alec sent you to stall me, now.” Max folded her arms across her chest, her face bland. “He wanted you to talk me to death.”

“Maybe he wanted me to give you a message,” Casey stalked up to Max, her eyes darkening.

Ah, now little girl wanted to play? Puh-lease; Max had dealt with Ordinaries that were better at cattiness then this girl. She rolled her eyes. “What, that besides the feline parts in X-5 DNA, there’s a healthy heaping of ‘bitch’ as well?”

Casey’s eyes flashed, her face twisted in hate. “Better to be Alec’s bitch than just another one of his whores.”

Max’s hand cracked against the girl’s pale cheek. The room echoed with the sound of the slap for a long moment, and then Max’s voice, deceptively light, filled the silence. “That was just a warning shot. Call me a whore again, and we’ll see what kind of damage I can really do.”

Casey’s hand came up to press against her high, reddening cheekbone lightly; she looked a little shocked. “You… you hit me.”

“Slapped, actually.” She kept her voice light. Max refused to give this bitch the satisfaction of seeing her angry. “If you want me to really hit you, that can be arranged, too.”

Casey’s hand dropped back down, her eyes narrowed. “You can play the tough girl all you want. It won’t change the facts; you're nothing to him, nothing more than a fuck."

"Well aren't you Miss Positivity."

Max's continuance of not caring was obviously frustrating the taller woman. "Don't you get it? You're just a conquest! The girl that he couldn't have; he's going to get tired of you and-"

"Seriously," Max interrupted. "When are you going to get interesting?"

Casey's attractive face... not quite as attractive when it was ice-cold. She drew herself up, and glared down at Max. "Fine, act like you don't care. I know better, even if you won't admit it. Nothing will change the fact that Alec didn’t just leave Seattle without an explanation and take all the transgenics with him." Max's eyes narrowed in wariness. A cruel light lit within golden eyes as Casey continued. " Alec left without an explanation and he took me with him. He didn’t choose you, Max. He chose me.”

Max didn’t know the details. She had no idea what this girl’s relationship to Alec was. But even so, the statement… it hurt a little bit. She hadn't been worth an explanation, had she? Isn't that what had always bothered her most about the whole damn thing? God, what was she even doing here? Max blinked, and was faced with the realization that she didn’t want to spend even one more second breathing the same air as this cow.

“When you see Alec,” Max said blandly, “tell him he knocked up his whore.”

She watched as everything within Casey imploded, as the girl fell still in shock. Max whirled on her heel, and stomped out of the room. The anger, so powerful, was finally allowed free rein, and the door slammed, loud and satisfying, behind her.

Alec did his best to not trot too quickly down the long hallway. His steps faltered and failed, however, when he saw Max storming out of the briefing room.

“Max?”

She turned to him, her eyes red and glaring, before spinning and stalking off down the hallway.

“Max!”

She didn’t know how he crossed the distance so quickly, just knew that his fingers curled over her shoulder, he spun her and stepped in, her back hit the wall, and she was trapped by him. “Let go of me,” She hissed up at him.

“No.” He replied blandly. His eyes slid across her cherished, hated, familiar face. “You seem angry.”

She shoved him away. “You think?!” He eyeballed her for a moment before taking another step back, leaning into the opposite wall. When his voice came again, it was more tired than anything else.

“Alright. I’ll bite. Why are you angry? And what are you doing here?”

Max stared at him for a moment, like, are you serious?! She shook it away, scowling at him. Why was she angry? Because he had sicced his pitbull girlfriend, or whatever the hell Casey was, on her. And on top of that, he was running a fucking war against Familiars out of Manticore’s old buildings! Not that she was gonna admit to that first part, though.

“Why do you think? Why wouldn’t I come here? You’ve recreated fucking Manticore, Alec!”

“No, I haven’t.” His voice was dark, defensive. Of course he was defensive; sometimes even he was worried that he was crossing some kind of invisible line. He struggled with that every damn day.

“You’re running military ops out of Gillete, Wyoming.” She threw back scathingly. “Excuse me if I fail to see the difference.”

His eyes narrowed, he refused to budge from his spot by the wall, and he gave her all the excuses that he stayed up at nights telling himself. “I’m not forcing people to stay here, Max. There’s no bars on the windows, no machine guns pointing inwards. I saw empty buildings that transgenics were familiar with, comfortable with, that no one has looked at in years, and I capitalized on the opportunity.”

She was still a little shell-shocked, amazed that he could even attempt to defend himself. “Are you stupid? Of course they’re comfortable here! This was their prison for most of their lives!”

He frowned, and opened his mouth-

But she continued angrily. “You think you helped them by leading them out of Seattle? All you’ve done, at the end of the day, is exchanged their old cage for an even older one.”

He scowled. “This is what they chose, Max. This is what they choose, everyday.”

“Of course!” She shouted back. “That’s because they’re not the wild tigers, Alec!” He started in surprise. Maybe part of him was just shocked she even remembered him talking about that, over a year ago. She tried to calm her voice; it was strained, but at least she wasn’t shouting anymore. “They’re not the wild tigers. They’re the ones that were born in captivity, the ones that don’t know any better.”

He stared at her in surprise. She shook her head and muttered, “And you call Terminal City ‘the Zoo.’”

His face descended into stone, his voice harsh and biting. “So, you’ve got it all figured out then, huh? Well bully for you. You came all this way just to throw that at me?”

She scowled at his cutting tone, his cold eyes. This, this was the man that was to be the father of her child? “Maybe,” She raged, and remembering Casey’s gloating stare, her vile tongue, added, “Why don’t you ask your other whore why I’m here?”

“My other-?” Alec blinked in confusion, straightening. Before his eyes narrowed in cold anger. “You mean Casey?”

“That is the girl you sent to stall me, right?”

Sent to stall-? He dismissed it. He seemed oblivious to her blasé tone, took two large steps towards her, and towered over her. “What is this? Your attempt at jealousy, Max?” He leaned in, his angry breaths, clenched teeth, close to her face. “Don’t you ever call her that again. Casey and I go way back; much farther than you and I do.”

Max ducked away from him, backing away. “So I heard. That’s why you chose her over me, right?”

Alec was still slightly confused, still misreading her entirely, and he stalked after her. “What, you think that whole Levi thing was just a simple case of Max versus Casey? Wake up, honey! The world doesn’t revolve around you!”

Max didn’t understand the Levi reference, but she didn’t like his tone, and she was already angry to begin with. Especially when he was getting mad at her when all she was doing was throwing Casey’s words into his face. She spun and her pace quickened. He reached for her, and maybe if he’d caught her, maybe it would have gone differently. But she slipped out of the way and she reached the door before he could reach her. It was all he could do to scowl angrily at her back. And he was still too angry, too defensive and caged and confused about the Casey thing , too surprised to be caught on his home turf, and he lashed out, shouting after her. “Why are you acting like this? You’re not my girlfriend! You’re just the girl I fuck.”

She paused in the door way, turned and looked at him with a pale face. She blinked at him, once, twice, and that horrified face, like he’d just confirmed every terrible thought she had ever had about him, it made something within him flag. He kept his shoulders square; she was the one that needed to come correct, not him.

Finally, her face hardened.

“Don’t ever come back to T.C.” She prided herself on the small things; her voice didn’t waver, her chin lifted with strength she didn’t really feel. “I never want to see you again.”

The door slammed shut behind her and he was staring blankly at the wall, part of him wondering what the hell had just happened, part of him wanting to go after, the rest of him just mad in that way that only she could get him. He scowled and spun, heading back down the hallway in the opposite direction. He reached the doorway pretty quickly and almost yanked it off its hinges.

Somehow, he wasn’t surprised to find that Casey was still waiting for him.

“What the hell did you say to her?”

“What, me?” Casey replied in shock to his rage. “What the hell did she say to you?”

He scowled. “Like you couldn’t hear everything that just happened.” What was she even doing down here?

Casey paused for a long moment, and then shrugged, looking away. “I’m sorry. I was curious; I’ve never spoken to her before.” She looked up and shook her head. “Lemme tell you, you sure know how to pick winners.”

Alec paused as well, ignoring her statement to take in the pink skin over her cheekbone. “What… Casey, did Max hit you?”

Casey shrugged again. “Girl’s got serious issues.”

Alec almost seemed livid. “God, that is so- I just-“ He paced for a moment in one direction, then again in the other. “I almost want to go after her and-“

“Why?” Casey interrupted. “So you can shout at each other some more? I think you said everything that needs to be said, Alec.”

Alec stopped mid-pace, turning to frown at her. He shrugged unhappily after a moment. He almost turned and stalked out. Instead he paused again, and grudgingly asked, “Did Max… Well, you heard her. Did she tell you something to tell me?”

“What’s there to say?” Casey demanded. “You heard her same as me. She never wants to see you again.”

Alec’s eyes sparked once more. “And that’s fine by me!” He turned, stalking out of the office, and the door rattled with the force of the slam.

Casey swallowed, her fingers coming up to probe at her red cheekbone. She slumped back into a chair, her eyes closing in weariness. She’d… she’d done the right thing. And she hadn't even really lied. She couldn’t tell Alec. If she told Alec… he’d choose Max. He’d choose Max for the wrong reasons. Her eyes firmed, her hand dropped back into her lap. She hoped that Max was intelligent enough to take care of the situation. If she had the baby, and Alec ever found out… Casey wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know how far Alec’s loyalty would stretch.

Max made the long drive home, alone. Made her way through T.C., alone. Climbed up an old stairwell and let herself into a cold apartment, alone. Slumped in the corner by the door, slid down the wall, and buried her head in her arms. And as she did so, her beeper went off.

She hated that a part of her hoped… She angled its face to meet her eyes. Just Logan… probably calling to see if she made it back to Seattle okay. Well, she’d made it back to Seattle.

But how would it ever be okay?

She ripped the pager from her belt, throwing it across the room, and not even the simple rage of the act could keep the harsh sob from escaping her throat. It was over. It was all over. Why couldn't she have just kept hating him?

Z is for Zoo, 2A

2009-08-14T00:50:37Z

LJ hateses my verbosity.
----------------------------------

His kiss had been burned into her brain, and nothing could remove his brand. Not even when she kissed another man, six months later, and vowed that she would stop stalling the wedding, even though, she insisted, she hadn’t been stalling. She just wasn’t… ready.

But could she ever be ready, what with Alec’s kiss, a memory of gold, Alec’s betrayal, an epitome of black, and her so focused upon a man that was not the man that she should marry?

Logan was tired of waiting, so she supposed she had to be.

“Dix called.”

Alec was leaning over his desk, knuckles against an oversized map, and he didn’t bother to look up at the hiss of oversized doors or the familiar voice, intruding upon his space. He frowned, his eyes rapidly scanning the hand-drawn map below his fists.

Mole continued anyway, leaning there near the large doors. He almost sounded apologetic. “It’s over, man. She’s getting married."

Alec gave no indication that he’d heard. He tapped the left side of the map with his finger. “I need you to put another work crew on the western wall. I’m tired of that fucking hole.”

Mole just frowned. “Did you hear me? I said-“

Alec straightened from his lean, fixing his second with a dark stare. “I heard you. Max and Logan are finally celebrating their epic love before all of God and creation.” He rolled his eyes, swiped the map from his desk, and rolled that as well. “Did you hear me? I want that blast hole taken care of.”

Mole just stared blandly at his commander. “You don’t fool me, you know.”

Alec didn’t reply, just sat down into his well-padded chair, frowning up at the transhuman. They stared each other down for a long moment, before Alec finally gave in, shrugging in what appeared to be disinterest, tapping his rolled map against the desk in boredom. “Fine, you want me to act like I care?” Alec straightened, almost perky. “When’s the wedding? Are they writing their own vows? Are they going to release doves? You know my heart just melts thinking about it.” Alec released a sicky sweet, sarcastic sigh, batting thick eyelashes.

Mole snorted in something close to amusement, straightening and crossing to his friend’s large desk. “The wedding's next week. Also, your bitterness is giving you away. It’d be more believable if you weren’t trying so hard to be an ass about it.”

“I was actually trying to be a dick.”

“Well, you’re better at being a smart aleck. Stick to what you know.” Mole shrugged, leaning into the side of one of the black leather chairs sitting before Alec’s desk. Maybe it was pointless, but Mole offered it anyway. “They’re still living in the Zoo.”

That made Alec frown. “What, still? I’d have thought that Logan would have made her move out by now… How is that guy surviving the toxins?”

“Transfusions?” Mole shrugged. “How the hell should I know? Dix just called, told me they’re tying the knot, and gave me the latest info on a Familiar attack. Didn’t exactly give me a rundown on all the happenings since the last one.”

Alec shook his head, relaxing back into his chair. “Another Familiar attack, and they’re playing at weddings?” He glanced sharply at his second. “Any losses?”

“Nah, but Dix tells me that Logan recognized one of the Familiars when she was slithering her way out of T.C.. Brown, or Browning, or something like that. Supposedly she was just appointed as the liaison between Seattle and D.C.; to keep the government up to speed on all the transgenic doings, or some bullshit like that.”

“Like those transgenics do anything besides sit around and look pretty.” Alec looked away.

“And distract everybody from the fact that over half of T.C.’s former population is missing,” Mole pointed out.

“That too,” Alec was frowning, swiveling back and forth in his chair. The map tapped his chin thoughtfully. “So, the new liaison is a snake-worshipper.”

“Wouldn’t doubt that the Cult will feed false information through her to get D.C. riled up,” Mole shrugged. Alec paused, and nodded after a moment. Maybe that was the real reason Mole had come in to bother him. Mole had liked Max well enough to begin with, but by the time they’d left, things had been getting pretty heated. And he’d never been nearly as close to Max as Alec had once tried, and failed, to be. Another Cult member in a position of authority, however… This was something that needed to be taken care of.

“I suppose this means we should send a team out to Seattle.”

Mole nodded. “I can have them ready in a couple of hours.”

Alec frowned, like Mole had known he would. “No, no, I think I’ll take care of this one myself. Besides,” He stood, and offered the transhuman a lopsided smile. “I should go pay my respects to the happy couple.”

Mole shook his head, and offered a bland, “Mazel tov.” Then he paused, just for a second. “You may want to let Casey know that you’re leaving this time; she won’t like it if you try to run off to see Max without telling her.”

“I’m not going so I can see Max, I’m going to take care of business,” Alec scowled in all seriousness, and maybe he believed that, but Mole didn’t, not for a second.

“Still-” Mole started with a shrug.

“Casey’s not the boss of me,” Alec interrupted warningly, tossing the rolled map onto the desk. “And the sooner she gets that, the happier she’ll be.”

Mole just shrugged again. “Whatever you say, boss.” He didn't much care for Casey anyway; sometimes he wondered what kind of hold that girl had over Alec that he was always sticking up for her, letting her get away with bitchiness that could put even Max to shame. That could have been it, he could have just left it at the shrug and walked out, but Mole eyed Alec up and down. Alec didn’t notice, he was too busy frowning broodingly at his desktop. Which means he was startled when Mole’s bland voice split the air.

“You remember when you used to be fun?”

Alec stared for a moment before letting out a small, self-deprecating laugh. He brought a hand up to scratch embarrassedly at the back of his neck. “Not really… That bad, huh?”

“I used to think Max was depressing.” Mole smirked as way of an answer.

“Man, Max broke out in 2009.” Alec joked with a haunted kind of smile, “She couldn’t work up even half the gloominess I could produce on an off day.”

“Hey, pal, try livin’ in a basement for the first thirty years of your life; then you can talk to me about gloom.”

It would have been funnier if it weren’t all true.

The stood in silence for a few moments before Alec’s tired voice moved softly through the large, underground room that resembled a bunker and really, probably was, in form if not in style.

“Sometimes it’s just easier to be the soldier, you know?”

Mole nodded after a moment, leaning back into his heels and folding his arms across his chest. “Yeah. I know.”

A few states over, Max was dealing with her own kind of executive command meeting. Or, well, trying to. Gem was tapping her foot impatiently; she wanted to get back to Eve. Luke was still talking excitedly about the new microprocessor he’d installed in one of Logan’s computers. Even Dix, techno-whiz that he was, was struggling to pay attention. Max had given up ages ago. What was there to listen to? Status report? Unchanged. New arrivals? Unchanged. Departures? Unchanged. Relationship with Seattle P.D.? Unchanged. Trannie hating hicks throwing molotovs across the chainlink? Well, they’d cleared out, but they’d probably be back next week when the Weekly World News spun up another false report on the Transgenic Threat.

Her eyes went distant. She really needed to get a hold of Sketchy. Try and straighten him out, see if he couldn’t get his boss to stop printing that trash.

Really, she needed to stop having these meetings altogether; should just start telling people not to bother unless they did have something new to report. She was getting tired of hearing the same old things over and over again. Well, now that almost all of the X-4, X-5’s, and X-6’s were gone, at least she was no longer hearing that they were always low on food, low on cash, low on ammunition, housing, water, and milk… Didn’t have enough of a populace for any of those to be a factor anymore. Cut to the skeletal crew that she had now, she was actually managing to maintain livable conditions. Not ideal conditions, but livable.

She snapped back to attention to realize that Luke had paused to take a breath. She jumped on the opportunity. “Anyone else?” She sat up straight in her rickety old swivel chair. Luke opened his mouth, but Max beat him to it. “No? Good. Meeting adjourned.”

Luke seemed a little disappointed, but everyone else fairly bolted out of the small meeting room on; everyone had somewhere else they’d rather be. Max glanced over her shoulder and caught Gem’s eyes, just as the redhead was about to slip out the door. The woman offered Max a small smile of support, before shutting the door gently behind her.

Max had asked her once, months ago, why she’d stayed when almost everyone else she knew, including her adopted kid brother Dalton, had left.

“It sucks,” Gem admitted. The honesty had hurt Max a little bit, but she’d clamped her mouth shut and made herself listen. “I really did want to go. Especially once Dalton got it in his head to leave… you know how he worships Alec… But with Eve? I didn’t know where they were going or what they were planning. How could I carry my daughter off into the unknown? At least here, I can stick to what’s safe.”

Stick to what’s safe. Wasn’t that usually kind of an insult? Max had left it at that, because she didn’t want to know if Gem had known beforehand that Alec was leading a revolt against her. And she must have, because Max had asked who the hell ‘Levi’ was and she got an unexpected answer, if not all the details. To be completely honest, Max didn’t want to know if any of those left behind had known what was going down; didn’t know if she could remain friends with people who didn’t have the decency to give her a heads up. Really, Joshua was the only one she was certain that hadn’t known… she could tell from his mournful howls the night Alec had left, almost a year ago. Alec must have known that Joshua would tell Max, would choose Max, would do everything in his power to protect her and keep their 'family', his words, not hers, together... After all, he’d always chosen Max in the beginning, why would it be any different two years later?

Still, remembering how she’d had to shove aside her own hatred while frantically trying to soothe her large friend… Sometimes Max didn’t know which made her hate Alec more; the fact that he’d stabbed her in the back, or that he’d never even given Joshua a chance… Joshua had loved him like a brother…

Max snarled and pushed away from the table, standing so quickly that the old chair flew backwards and flipped to its back. She turned to look at the decrepit old thing, watched one wheel still spinning crazily. What the fuck did it matter? Her boot lashed out, slammed into the chair, and it went sliding across the floor and crashed against the wall, next to the door. Joshua was here with her, where he belonged, and Alec… Alec could go to hell.

Amber flared across her vision. A flash of a dark night danced through her mind; Alec staring at her with burning eyes, defeated eyes, like he didn’t know what else to do, but he had to do something, and he took one full step, his hands buried in her hair, and-

Max’s eyes squeezed shut, her hand squeezed into a fist, and she willed the electric memory away. When she opened her eyes, her face was grim. If she saw him again, she’d-

“Everything okay?”

Her eyes snapped towards the door and connected with concerned blue. Logan was there in the doorway, one hand still on the knob, and from the question on his face, he must have been standing there long enough to see her freak out on the desk chair.

“Long day,” She muttered in response, and left it at that.

“Sure,” He wasn’t buying, but her face remained impassive and she wouldn’t sell anything else, so he had no choice but to let it go. He came in gently, shut the door softly, and dropped a folder on the careworn tabletop. She used it as an excuse to change the subject.

“What’s this?” She asked, picking the thing up, starting to leaf through it before Logan even opened his mouth. It wasn’t an Eyes Only case, as she’d thought, it was a dossier on-

“Miss Browning, newest liaison to Washington D.C.” He leaned over her shoulder. “I’ve been working on it the last couple of days with Dix’s help. I think it’s safe to say that I was right and she is definitely one of the familiars that came across the fence last week.”

Max frowned, looking at a picture of the dark-haired woman in her officious business suit, smiling pleasantly next to the mayor of Seattle. Yup. It was definitely her alright, even if she did look slightly different when her face wasn’t twisted with hate. Max dropped the dossier back on the table. “Why would she be stupid enough to try and lead a team of Familiar’s into T.C.? She had to have known there was a good chance we’d get a good look at her face.”

“Arrogance?” Logan shrugged. “Maybe it was the Cult, spitting in our eye. Or maybe they didn’t think we’d catch the team before they hit their target.”

Max scowled. “It would have been nice to know what they were even after.”

“Maybe nothing,” Logan shrugged again. “Maybe they were just trying to rile us up; poke at us through the bars of our cage.”

“This isn’t a cage,” Max snapped back, suddenly moody. “This is our home.”

Logan eyed her a little strangely. “It’s just a saying, Max.” When she didn’t say anything, he shook his head. He gentled his tone, and his hand glanced across her shoulder, pushing away a long strand of dark hair. “Hey you,”

It startled her; forced her to look at him.

He searched her surprised gaze. “Only one more week.”

Max blinked. One more week?

Oh. Right.

“Course,” Logan continued with a small smile. “We could just do like I’ve been saying and elope. Head out of the city for a few days, catch some fresh air. Get it taken care of nice and quiet like.”

Max controlled her expression.

Elope?

Pass.

“You know Josh would never forgive us,” Max pointed out. “He’s all set to give me away.” No matter that he’d probably only be giving her away before a few dozen people and a couple of her closest friends, snuck in from the other side of the gates. Somehow, getting married in a simple white day dress, in the heart of the toxic confines of T.C., in the middle of a war… somehow, that scenario had never come in to her fairy tale dreams of yesteryear. Guess life never really give us what we expect… or want. Still, it may not be what she’d planned, maybe it wasn’t the Disney version, but it was still better than eloping. Running away, plain clothes, no witnesses; I mean, where’s the romance in that?

For one fleeting moment, Max wished she were 18 again. That all she had to think of was her n’ Logan, busting up drug rings, tip-toeing around the romantic ideal of a relationship without actually giving in to the mundane reality. Things had been so much simpler back then. All she’d wanted was a happy ending.

She glanced down at the diamond ring on her finger.

She’d gotten what she’d wanted. Right?

Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrongwrongwrong.

“What are you doing here?”

He’d snuck in on her. Again. And just like last time, she wasn’t prepared to face him, didn’t know how to handle him. She needed more time; she was still too angry. And even worse, the memory of his kiss still left her on fire, and she didn’t know if she could do this without craving the burn.

She’d come home from her short, yet exhausting, conversation with Logan, and it’d been him, Alec the betrayer, sitting in her open window, one boot propped up on the sill, waiting for her. He ignored her angry demand, leaning into the window frame and gazing around the small place.

“Nice digs,” He glanced around. “Kinda small. And only one toothbrush in the bathroom?” Alec tsked, shaking his head sadly. “Who’s got the bad oral hygiene, you or Logan? Hopefully Logan. Otherwise I’m gonna have to invest in some mouthwash.”

She ignored the mouthwash statement, because she wasn’t really sure how to respond to it. She stuck with the easiest response and said with a scowl, “Logan doesn’t live here. He’s still living at Sandeman’s.” She shrugged out of her jacket, tossing it across the couch.

Alec seemed surprised. “Why?” He thought for sure that they’d have shacked up as soon as she’d gotten her magical, fairy tale ring. As soon as he was gone.

Max really didn’t want to say. She didn’t want to tell Alec that Logan wasn’t living with her because the man could get more stuff done on the other side of the fence. He needed to be able to come and go as he pleased. He wasn’t one of the animals in the zoo, he was just one of the caretakers.

Also, he’d given in to the societal demand of money; he couldn’t keep Eyes Only running on a wing and a prayer. Especially once Max’s own funds started decreasing, when she couldn’t afford to spot him a few thousand here and there anymore.

But Alec was not part of her life, and he didn’t need to know any of that.

“Why?” Max threw back. “That’s none of your business.”

“Fine,” He shrugged. “I’ll find out on my own, then.” He stood, stretching.

What, was he keeping tabs on her? The idea was as annoying as it was outrageous. “What are you doing here, Alec?”

Her exasperated demand made him pause, mid-stretch, and glance at her in surprise. “Me? I’m here on business.”

She came around the couch. The anger, being so near him again, well… now that the surprise had worn off, it was building like a slow fire, something familiar and warm. Maybe it wasn’t actually anger, at all. Or maybe it was, and somehow, somewhere, she’d gotten it all twisted and she wasn’t able to separate the hate from the desire.

“What kind of business?” She ripped off dark driving gloves; gloves she no long needed but couldn’t seem to break the habit of wearing. Alec watched her toss them away with dark, amused eyes.

“What kind of business?” Alec mocked, mimicking her earlier tone. “That’s none of your business.”

They stared at each other from across the living room. There were so many things she could ask, could demand. What was he doing here? Where had he been? When would he give her an explanation? Maybe explanations were only for friends, and since they weren’t even that, not any longer, maybe she shouldn’t want one. Maybe she should just hate him. To hate him would be the easiest, and safest, route.

When Max’s voice came again, it was harsh, and it killed Alec’s sarcastic smile. “I know who Levi is. Or I guess I should say, was.”

Alec took sauntering steps towards her, and forced his smile back onto his face, even if it was a trifle bitter. “Do you, now? Someone fill you in on all the gory details, Maxie?”

“Don’t call me that,” She snapped back, refusing to budge from her spot on the tan carpet. “And yeah, I heard enough.” She glared at him and practically spat, “Was it worth it?”

“Was what worth it, Max?” Alec cajoled. “Was it worth breaking that fucker’s neck? You have no idea how worth it it was.”

Max could have taken two steps forward and decked him in the face. Instead, she snarled, “What, it wasn’t enough to just betray me? You had to kill someone to do it, too?” And before Alec could shoot back a response, Max took him in, all of him, and scowled. “What the hell are you wearing?”

“Clothes,” He threw back. One more step and he’d be before her, too close to her.

“Looks more like a uniform,” She finally managed to take a step back, eyeballing his dark t-shirt, black boots, green B.D.U. bottoms.

“I was in a hurry. Didn’t have time to change.” He shrugged. Another step. Max started to get worried.

“Don’t you touch me,” She warned.

“What are you going to do, Maxie?” Alec smiled slowly. “Push me off a building? Slam a door into my face?”

No, but she did throw a punch at him, and she hated how it felt like a last ditch effort. She hated that it’d been six months since they’d last fought, but he knew her moves well enough to grab her wrist and pull her in tight. She hated that it’d been a year since Alec had killed another transgenic and led a mutiny against her, but she was unable to resist when he lowered his lips towards hers. She hated that he stopped scant millimeters from her mouth, and that his breath was warm and smelled vaguely of mint. She hated that he’d paused, that he wasn’t kissing her despite the fire in her belly, her nails in his back, and every nerve-ending in her body screaming in desire.

His words were a murmur that washed across her lips. “Don’t marry Logan.”

Max blinked. And ripped away. “What?”

He just stared at her, his face bland once more. Maybe he hadn’t meant to say it. But he had said it, and she couldn’t ignore it.

“What do you mean, don’t marry Logan?” And in a small part of her wondered how he’d known… She scowled up at him, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. “How did you even know I was marrying Logan?”

Alec rolled his eyes and played it off. “You guys have been engaged for what, a year? You’re bound to tie the knot eventually. You can’t delay it forever, Max.”

“Who says I’m the one delaying it?” She lied. “And besides, when I do marry Logan, I don’t see how it’ll be any of your business.” She must have accepted his statement, and he relaxed for the moment. Seems like Dix was safe from Max’s wrath for a little bit longer.

“Just trying to look out for you, Maxie.” Alec shrugged, walking past her. He paused, looking at her over one shoulder as his hand connected with her front door’s worn handle. “You think your problems are solved because you cured the virus?” He shook his head. “If you marry Logan, your problems are just beginning. We don’t belong with them, Max.”

“Blah, blah, woof, woof.” She rolled her eyes. “I’ve heard your song and dance before.”

“I’m serious,” He shrugged. “It’s not just about danger. We really don’t belong with them.”

“Well, I guess you should be happy that you have Casey to go home to, then,” Max scowled back, pretending like she actually had an idea what Alec and Casey’s relationship might be, pretending like she wasn’t trying to draw an answer out of him. Gem might have known who Levi was, but she’d been in complete darkness when Max had asked about the platinum blonde that had shadowed Alec out of T.C.. Alec eyed her for a moment, opened his mouth, as if he might say something, might correct her, but finally he just shrugged, pulled open the door, and left her small apartment.

She should have shouted something at his back. She should have thrown something at him and told him never to return. Maybe if she had, she wouldn’t have had to avoid Logan for two days. Maybe then the guilt, that she’d seen Alec again, that she’d wanted to repeat that one-time mistake of a kiss, wouldn’t have eaten her alive. Maybe Logan wouldn’t have hunted her down, cornered her, misjudged the reason for her guilt and avoidance, and demanded to know why Cynthia Browning, newly appointed government liaison, had been found dead in her studio apartment. And maybe, just maybe, if she’d been a little more hateful, Alec wouldn’t have come back, wouldn’t have been waiting for her in the middle of her living room in a dark t-shirt, and dark blue jeans, and looking so much like her Alec that she was lost from the beginning.

And maybe if he hadn’t come back, she’d have been saved from this… whatever this was. Blessing. Curse. Something in-between.

“I’m sorry,” She said in a broken voice, her hands white-knuckled around the simple bouquet. “I can’t do this.”

She escaped, and Logan chased after her, following her away from the small gathering in the center of Command, staring at them with wide-eyes. Away from the Catholic priest that had owed Max a large favor. Away from the vows, and the guilt, and the sham, and into the small office off to the side.

“I don’t understand,” Logan’s voice hounded her back.

She turned to face him and the guilt consumed her and it came up, rushed out, before she could control it.

“I slept with Alec.”

When had she lost the ability to lie?

“Don’t you lie to me! That’s why you came here, you came here to kill that woman!”

It’d been so stupid to think that maybe, just maybe, he’d just been here to see her.

He’d glared at her, his cheek red from the brute force of her open palm. “I’m running a war, Max. I came to Seattle to do what’s necessary.”

Logan went pale. He was so shocked that he barely managed a, “What? When?!”

She looked away. The bouqet was still held tightly in clammy hands. “Last week, after you accused me of having a hand in Browning’s death.”

“What, just like killing Levi was necessary? How did you even know what she was?” Max had shouted. “Who do you have working for you in my goddamn command?!”

“Maybe I have my own sources.” He’d scowled back, frighteningly calm. “Did you ever consider that?”

“It was him… He killed her.” Logan shook his head. Maybe, just for a moment, he remembered the way he’d looked at her, the way he’d accused her… Funny how I told you she’s a Familiar, and now she’s dead… but he didn’t dwell on it too long; he shifted the blame back to Max immediately. His eyes swung to her face, his accusing voice filling the small room. “Max, why didn’t you tell me he was here?”

Because she hadn’t known how. Didn’t know how to break it to Logan that she’d seen Alec again without also admitting that some dark part of her had still wanted him desperately. And then Alec had come back a second time in that same week, and she couldn’t admit it to Logan without also admitting that she’d sliced fire across his back, her cries harsh and ragged in the small space of her living room.

Logan shook his head again, like he was trying to shake it all away; maybe he was just trying to clear his head, trying to understand.

“He killed her,” Logan repeated, like he was stuck, when really, that wasn’t even the most important issue right now.

“We can’t just kill whoever we want, Alec!”

“Max, they’re insane! They want you dead. They want all of us dead! When are you going to finally see that? Why am I the one that always has to-”

Logan glanced back up at her, struggling to get back on track. He finally managed to ask the most important question.

“Why, Max?”

Why? Why, why, why? Max had been asking herself that very thing for almost a week.

She’s still not sure what started it; what prompted her to throw that first punch. Maybe it was just a year’s worth of pent-up aggression and hatred. Maybe it was six month’s worth of want and desire. Of something dark and animal, something hot and hungry, something that needed to feel him once more. That needed to hurt him once more. Maybe it’s because Logan had looked at her with accusing eyes and had spoken to her in that wary voice, like he didn’t know her, or what she was capable of; like she was the tiger that had been let out of the cage. Maybe it’s because a dark part of her had told her it would be for the best if she took care of Browning herself, only Alec had gotten there first.

Maybe it’s just because Alec had been waiting for her, because he’d come back for her before he’d left. Maybe it was because he’d looked like her Alec, and it made her angry, because he wasn’t her Alec, not anymore.

There was fighting, and there were plenty more punches thrown, and the first hint that it was getting out of hand didn’t come until she was underneath him, squirming on tan carpeting, arching her neck into his lips, and his hand was between their bodies, lowering the fly of his jeans.

The memory was too much, and Max colored, glancing away from Logan. Why had she slept with Alec? She couldn’t come up with an answer.

“I’m… not sure.”

His laughed was harsh and incredulous. “You’re not sure-“

Max knew she deserved his anger, but that didn’t make it easy to bear. “I’m sorry,” She repeated.

Logan wouldn’t give in and his voice was bitter and cutting. “Well maybe sorry isn’t good enough.”

He didn’t talk to her for almost two weeks. He’d stormed out of the office, past the wary spectators, past the waiting priest. Max had stayed in the office, unable to come out and face the questioning eyes. Joshua had rapped on the door, Cindy’s concerned voice right behind him, but not even that would make her stand from her spot next to the window, staring blankly across the room, one hand resting lightly on top of the discarded flowers at her side.

Funny that she wasn’t able to cry.

Then Logan told her that he’d been willing to forgive her the first time he’d thought she’d slept with Alec; so long as it never happened again, he could forgive her once more. After all, he said bitterly, he loved her. But Max had heard it in his voice, she’d seen it in his eyes; he’d forgive, but he’d never forget. There’d always be that black stain on her skin, that wariness behind his gaze. She’d swallowed and she hadn’t known what to say. Logan had told her to just think about it.

What was there to think about? Logan was everything that she’d thought she’d wanted. He was the Disney ending, or at least he had been when she’d been eighteen. But if Logan was the perfect prince, then Alec was the venomous villain; he was everything that she wasn’t supposed to want and everything that she craved. Alec was like a dark addiction, and she couldn’t shake his toxin. She knew, because Alec showed up with a side-arm and a grim smile, told her he’d heard the wedding was off, and at least this time they made it to the bed.

They didn’t touch afterwards. Max rolled to her side, away from him, staring blankly at the clock on her nightstand. He stared at the ceiling, arms underneath his head. The line between her anger and her desire for him was so blurred, she wasn’t sure what she felt for him anymore. But somewhere between this time and the last, between Logan’s harsh accusation, did you kill that woman, and Logan’s superior forgiveness, just think about it, somewhere she’d lost her ability to hate him. Really, to be honest, she still didn’t even really know him, so how could she hate him.

Maybe that was just a hollow excuse, a way for her to feel better about what she’d done, but did it matter, because his black boots were still at the end of her bed the next morning, and she liked it that way. He’d looked at her for a long moment before pulling his black shirt over his head, before he left without a word, and she liked that too. There was something freeing about their dark relationship-that-wasn’t. Maybe she’d always been fooling herself when she’d said she wanted Disney, or maybe she didn’t really know herself, much less what she really wanted; maybe this, this something simple, this something complicated, maybe this is just what she needed right now.

“This has gotta stop, man.” Mole was watching him warily. “You can’t drive across state lines every time you feel the need for a booty call.”

Alec was crouched, inspecting the work on the wall, pretending to pay little attention to his second. “Who says I even went to see Max? Much less slept with her?”

“You look both self-satisfied and ready to rip something apart; who else could you have gone to see, and what else could you have possibly done?”

Alec paused in his perusal, glancing up at the transhuman. Whatever he saw on the other man’s face, absolute knowing, maybe, or a ‘you’re not as sneaky as you think you are,’ it made him give in. “Just be glad I didn’t invite her back for a sleepover,” Alec snarked, standing slowly and dusting off his hands.

“Maybe you should have,” Mole shrugged. “She’s gonna figure it out eventually, and when she does, you know she’s going to descend on this place like a rabid junkie that just found a coke processing plant.”

“She won’t if she’s smart.”

“Uhhh… you do realize this is Max we’re talking about, right?”

Alec chuckled and shook his head. “She can’t stay clueless forever. She’s always been a little slow on the uptake, but usually she catches up in the end.”

“Uhhh… you do realize this is Max we’re-“

“Seriously, Mole. I got this.”

“Famous last words,” Mole shook his head, but he left it at that. Wasn’t his life. So long as it didn’t get in the way of Command, Alec could do whatever the hell he wanted in his off-hours; including sleep with his greatest enemy. And not once, in the next six months, did it ever get in the way of Command, so what did he care? Casey was another story entirely, of course, but Mole didn’t much care about her opinion, either. He didn’t like the way she always tried to have her clutching little fingers in Alec’s business. And he told her so, when she demanded to know if Alec had been leaving Wyoming to go to Washington. He told her to ask Alec himself, because he didn’t have time for her drama. And it was so worth Alec's eventual annoyance, because the Valkyrie of Ice had stomped off, her nose in the air, and Mole couldn't shake the amusement the rest of the week.

continue to 2B

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2009-08-04T04:54:17Z

I'mmmmmmmmmmmmm so weird!
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Week of the Cat: Thursday, Part Four

2009-08-03T03:50:08Z

“So, what do we do with them?” Frank asked from his seated position, breaking out into a sweat. He thought of his daughter. He thought of going home, and looking into young, innocent eyes- He blinked the image away, but he was unable to shake the melancholy.

He hadn’t signed up for this. He’d signed up to be the head of security for an up and coming member of government. And then once he’d learned the truth, he was too far in to just graciously back out.

He really, really needed a new job.

But Chang’s mind was fast, too fast for Frank, and he was frowning, pacing. “It would be easier to just kill them and dump the bodies in the bay…” Frank shuddered. Chang ignored him, finally stopping and turning to look at his head of security. “I saw the back of the girl’s neck. She’s definitely one of those transgenics. And I’m almost positive that she is the girl that’s always on the news.”

“Maybe we can just turn them in,” Frank piped up hopefully. “There’s gotta be some kind of agency in charge of dealing with this kind of thing.”

“And how would we do that?” Chang dismissed the man’s statement, and his own was scathing in response. “Call the people in charge of transgenic clean up at almost ten o’clock at night, and tell them, ‘So sorry to bother you, but I happen to be in a rather shady part of Seattle with a large number of hired guns and, by sheer coincidence, we happen to have some transgenics here. Could you come pick them up please?’” He shot his employee an annoyed look. “I don’t think so, Mr. Sturgis.”

Frank started. It’d been a long time since he’d heard his own last name. He was more a first-name basis, friendly type of guy. Chang resumed his pacing, his expensive shoes leaving tracks in the thin layer of plaster that coated the ground of this office that had never been finished being refurbished. Just another thing the Pulse had interrupted, another project that the deterioration of the country had let fall into ruin. Frank moodily wondered if the decay in his own life matched that of the building's.

On the desk, near where he was sitting, the screen on the cell phone that they’d taken from the male transgenic lit up. Chang didn’t notice. Frank surreptitiously leaned over to check the caller i.d. and vaguely wondered to himself who the hell ‘Robo-legs’ could be. He sat back up, ramrod straight, when Chang abruptly stopped mid-pace and turned to look at him. The older man, but only by a few years, eyed Frank with a heavy, weighing gaze for one long moment, before abruptly stepping forward and pulling his handgun from the holster on the inside of his well-cut suit. Chang dropped it onto the desk, near the phone, no longer flashing with an incoming call; whoever Robo-legs was, he must have given up. Chang turned to face Frank, pointing at the gun.

“Keep on eye on things here. If they get out, I want you to shoot them.”

Frank’s gaze followed his boss’s pointed finger in horror. And then he frowned, realizing that the phone next to the gun that Chang was pointing at was going off again. Robo-legs was pretty insistent, after all.

He tried to refocus on his boss, wondering if he should bring up the phone. He thought of his daughter’s eyes, instead, and asked, “Sir, isn’t that something we should leave to-“

“I said,” Chang repeated in a hard voice, “if they escape, I want you to kill them. If they really do work for Eyes Only, I hardly want them traipsing back there and letting that cyber-hacking punk know we have reason to be worried that he’s investigating us.”

Frank felt more sweat gather between his tight shoulder blades. “…Of course.” He finally forced past dry lips, and looked away from his suddenly very scary employer. What did he expect, the man worked with the mob, for cripes’ sake. It probably wouldn’t be the first, or last time, that the innocuous Jimmy Chang silenced the opposition.

His boss was oblivious to the wariness within him and loosened his tie, rolling his neck. “I’m going home.” Chang sighed. “I’ve had a long day, and I haven’t even had a chance to check on my son.” He glanced at Frank once more, and Frank wondered that a man who had just spoken so casually about killing could speak so tenderly about a child. He liked things black and white; this whole grey area with Chang was, well… Frank was beginning to think that the grey area was where everything wrong with the world took place. And least you could put a face on the obvious evil and avoid it. The grey area was where everything really went to shit.

“I’ll be back in a few hours,” Chang’s voice went hard once more. “And we’ll have a chat with these transgenics; find out what exactly it is that they know. And if we’re lucky, maybe who Eyes Only is, in the process.”

From the darkness in his tones, it sounded like it was sure to be an unpleasant conversation. Can’t wait, Frank blandly thought to himself as the dark man slid his way out of the room. The door of the office slammed shut, and Frank’s face became closed off. The transgenic’s phone was going off again, and Frank only wondered for a moment who ‘Scaly Bastard’ was, because his hand went to the inside of his own, vastly less expensive, not nearly as nice, suit. There was no holster there; merely the comforting shape of a disc he’d brought with him from the mansion. In a world of grey, Frank Sturgis, MBA, practically married since high school, father to one daughter with sunshine in her eyes, had found himself longing for something white.

“I spy, with my little eye… soooomething… white.”

It’d been a few hours; Alec was bored out of his mind.

“The speck on the concrete, above the third shelf to the right.” Her voice was tired.

“You are so good at this.” Alec replied, in the same tired vein, his eyes still closed, his head against the wall at his back.

“…I hate you.”

“No, you don’t,” He replied blandly back, refusing to break the comforting blackness that closed eyelids afforded him. “We’ve already been over this. When I was pleasantly intoxicated, remember?”

Her head rolled so she could look at him over one shoulder. His head, like hers, was against the wall, the long line of his throat arching backwards. She could just see a hint of teeth, above the high collar of the dark sweater. She looked away quickly. “I really don’t feel like hurting you right now,” She muttered. “Can we just be quiet until we figure out how to get out of here?”

“If anything, the person you should be thinking of hurting is Logan.” Alec replied blandly, before adding, “And we’ll get out of here the same way we get out of everything else.” He shrugged.

“How’s that?”

“We’ll wait for an opportunity and we’ll wing it. Like always.”

Max rolled her eyes. “And you’ll get shot, like always. Can you actually try and put a little bit of thought into it, please?”

He smiled, but his eyes remained closed. What, was he trying to take a nap? How obnoxious. His smile widened even further, as if he could sense her aggravation.

“Aww, Maxie, I didn’t know you cared.”

She muttered, under her breath, "You are so lucky my head doesn't hurt as badly as it should." If the headache had been any worse, she'd have knocked him and his yappy mouth into unconsciousness five minutes ago.

Alec finally opened his eyes and turned to watch her in all seriousness for a moment. Before his eyes crinkled. “Wanna make out?”

Max huffed in annoyance, glancing away.

“Is that a yes?”

“Shut up, Alec.”

He ignored her, turning to eye the barrier that kept them from freedom. His lips pursed, just for a second. “Hey!” The bottom of his foot pounded suddenly on the door, startling Max, “I have to use the bathroom.”

“Not my problem, pal,” Came the muffled, bored reply. “And could you keep it down in there? I’m getting tired of hearing you two flirt like two year olds.”

Max gaped. Alec scowled. They shared a glance.

“Whatever happened to thugs that minded their own business?” Alec grumped, relaxing back into the wall once more. Max just eyed him incredulously.

“Did you really think that would work?”

He shrugged. “It was worth a shot…” He eyed her wickedly. “In twenty minutes, I’m coming down with the plague or something, maybe that’ll get them in here,”

“Please,” Max rolled her eyes. “Like that ever works.”

“Also,” The guard called out, from the other side of the door, “I can still hear you. Shut up, already.” There was a grumble after that, that might have been, “I’m trying to read out here,” but they weren’t sure.

Alec eyed her. She eyed him. His eyes lit, she shook her head in something almost like amusement, and they suddenly knew how the hell they were getting out of this friggin' supply closet. Thank god for big, burly guards with not enough patience and very few brains.

“It wasn’t that bad of an idea,” Alec frowned, his voice pitching a little higher as he picked a fight. “I suppose you think your sanctified boyfriend would come up with something better.”

She gaped in surprise. That was kind of a low blow, especially after the weirdness of the morning. And even though they were only supposed to be pretending to fight for the sole purpose of getting out of here, her eyes narrowed and her mouth twisted. “Where the hell did that come from? And what the hell is it supposed to mean?”

“Oh, I think you know.” Alec sniffed in response. “You’re always actin’ like he can do no wrong… Well, this all his fault in the first place!”

“What are you, five? This isn't anybody's fault, besides Jimmy friggin' Chang's." She hissed back. Her eyes were so narrow, it was almost a squint, and her voice was scathing. "I think you just got a problem with me n’ my boyfriend!” She prided herself that she only tripped over the ‘b’ word slightly.

“Oh, you bet your transgenic ass I do, sister.” Alec scowled, and wondered when he’d started to get annoyed, too. Probably when she’d said the ‘b’ word. “Here it is, another week night, in which I could be doing something interesting… And instead, here I am stuck in another frickin’ closet with you!"

Someone pounded lazily on the lower half of the door, as if they'd reached over from a seated position. “Seriously. Two year olds. Shut the hell up.”

They ignored him, both too suddenly annoyed to pay much attention to him anyway. The air seemed heavier, somehow. “Like you have something better to do anyway.” She scowled. “You cut ties with the only two women on earth that were stupid enough to use you.”

He pursed his lips, hazel eyes sparking, and electricity crackled through his body. Like he was so goddamn undesirable. “The only two women on earth? Hardly, Max.” His frown deepened, and he looked away from her. Maybe it was only payback for the date she was goin’ on with Logan tomorrow night, but he continued angrily, “Besides, I talked to Marcy today-“

All the blood within her body froze, and Max twisted to stare at him in irritation. “You did what?!”

He shrugged, his narrow eyes lighting in glee as he eyed her once more, weighing the impact of his words. “Talked to Marcy, and from what she said, I’m thinking she doesn’t know that all our ties are cut yet.”

On the other side of the door, it had gone deathly silent, as if some latent animal instinct in the guard recognized that something big was going down. He closed the magazine slowly, scooting his chair away from the door.

Rage boiled over, her eyes narrowed, and Max Guevara saw red. “And you encouraged her, I imagine.” She sprang to her feet, put distance between them, not very much given how small this closet was, and her hands tightened into fists. She whirled on him, shouting down at him, “Are you stupid?! The whole point of me claiming you was to-“

“What does it even matter?” Alec interrupted harshly, gazing up at her. “The point is, she hasn’t given up. Probably because all of T.C. knows that you’re too blinded by your sick relationship with Logan-“

Her voice almost rose an octave. “What did you just say to me-“

Alec ignored her, his own voice rising, “-to see what’s staring you right in the face! You’ll have your magical date night with your stupid Ordinary-“

“You did not just say that again!”

But Alec pressed on, finally coming fluidly to his feet, refusing to give her the high ground. “- the week will be over, you’ll revoke your claim, and she’ll be right back on my tail! And if I had half a brain, I’d do like everyone is always saying I should do and-“

“If you say you’ll start dating her, I’ll punch you in the face right now!” Max threw back shrilly. “I’m not putting up with all this drama for nothing!”

He towered over her, glaring into her face. “And what would be so bad if I did? Marcy’s a good person; I could do a whole lot worse.” It gathered like an unstoppable force behind his lips; the coup-de-grace to their almost pointless argument. “Better her than a bitch like-“

Her gloved hands buried in his hair, tugging painfully, and he didn’t gasp, because he was too busy backing her into the shelving, his mouth moving desperately over hers. The wooden shelves creaked in unhappiness, Max’s teeth tugged harshly at his bottom lip, and he swung her around to shove her back against the bare concrete wall instead, hooking her leg around his waist, pressing himself intimately against her. She gasped against his mouth and they didn’t even hear the guard’s worried, “…everything okay in there?”, as caught up as they were.

“Ah, Jesus,” His fingers tightened on the underside of her thigh, his head arched away from her when she broke away and her warm lips moved down his throat. Christ, what were they doing? They were being held hostage in a damn supply closet that still smelled vaguely of pine-scented Lysol. But Max had reached the mark at the base of his neck, and she’d paused, shifting in want, her breath washing across the imprint of teeth and he couldn’t think of anything else; he was almost sure he could feel the hot heat of her every breath coursing through his entire body. Her hand slid down the back of his head, through his hair, her fingers, encased in leather, coming to dig into the high neck of his sweater, yanking it down and away from the mark at the base of his throat. His own breathing had gotten labored; he could practically feel the need in her, the desire to run her teeth over the mark, and that need was echoed deep within his own body. His fingers twitched convulsively. Part of him wished she would, and all of him hoped that they wouldn’t get interrupted if she did.

But it was with great strength that she moved past it, and nipped at the sensitive skin just under the claim, instead. And then again, just skirting the edges of the mark, her tongue darting out just for a moment between nips to taste his skin. Alec’s pupils expanded; his mind almost imploded as she tugged at the mark without actually touching it. Somehow, the near-but-not-quite actually made the reaction worse.

“Fuck,” when she bit down, again, harder. He told himself he couldn’t be held responsible for what would happen if she did that once more. His free hand slid down her side, he separated himself from her, just a little, and his hand slid between their bodies, grasping at the inside of the jean-clad thigh held up against him before they had a chance to find out. Everything in the world paused. Max released her hold on his neck to slowly look up at him, her breath held tightly in her lungs. He gazed solemnly back, his fingers sliding along the inside of her thigh, and he waited for her to say ‘stop.’ Her eyes widened, and she bit her lip, but she didn’t say stop, not even when his fingers slid tentatively between her thighs. Not even when his eyes darkened, fixating on her mouth and the gasp that tumbled from it, and his hand slid roughly against her once more.

Alec lowered his head into the curve of her shoulder, his eyes squeezing shut as her hands tightened in his hair, his own hand moving hard, rhythmically, against her. She arched upwards, her breasts pressing against him, and she gasped harshly into his ear, sounding like she was grasping for air. The embarrassed voice from the other side of the door sounded as if it came from a million miles away, but they heard it just the same.

“…I can hear you, you know.”

“Shit,” Alec muttered.

“We should probably stop,” Max agreed with a murmur. He glanced up at her, but her eyes were blown out, wide with desire, her full lips parted with need, and he had to bury his face into her shoulder once more. His own lips turned inwards; he couldn’t help the open-mouthed kiss he pressed into her skin. Her head arched back into concrete, her body pressed itself into his hand.

This was rapidly becoming painful. “We can stop.” He offered softly, his mouth against her flesh, the entirety of his body screaming in disagreement.

Her voice was needy, and breathy, “Please don’t.”

Which is how he found himself, against his better judgement, tugging the button of her jeans free, pulling down her zipper, and sliding his hand between satin and skin.

Max almost whimpered when long fingers slid across slick flesh. It hardly even registered that this was something that Jeri and Carter had hinted she wouldn't be able to resist; that she had told herself she absolutely could not do, that Peta had all but insisted she should do.

“Fuck,” He grunted again, his head still resting against her shoulder, his eyes squeezed painfully shut once more.

“Alec,” She whispered and he glanced up at her. His eyes darkened and with a firm yank she was pulled flush against his hard body. His hand, make that his free hand, released her leg, and came up to slide gently across her jawline, turning her lips up towards his as his other hand-

He swallowed her cry with his mouth when his fingers slid inside.

God, this couldn’t be happening. His tongue stroked hers and her arms tightened around his neck, grasping, gasping, her back arching, arching her body into his hand as his fingers began their maddening glide in and out of her wetness.

Oh god, what were they doing? They couldn’t do this. She had to- She moaned, deep in the back of her throat, as his hand tightened on the back of her neck and he deepened the kiss. His fingers were becoming rougher, his hand demanding, as demanding as his kiss, and her pants, when he pulled away with shuddering breaths, were hot against his mouth.

But why was he pulling away? He’d released her mouth, released the back of her neck, and yes, he was drawing abruptly away from her. She wanted to protest, god, please, they couldn’t stop again, not again, but he wasn’t stopping, merely turning her around, pressing her into the wall, offering himself a better angle, his angled fingers sliding faster now, and harder. Shit. God-

“Alec!” Her body tightened and spasmed and yes, right there, as he grunted in her ear, and god! He jerked the shuddering tremors into a fervor and just when she thought the world would explode into fire-

“Hey! Keep it down in there!” The guard banged on the locked door, unable to contain his mortification for any longer. “Yer kidnapped for Chrissakes! Start actin’ like it!”

There goes most of that buzz.

“Stop, stop, stopstopstopstop.” Max’s breath was still hitched, her hands were braced on the wall, and she felt her body twitching, rapidly readying for the release that’d been stolen from her only moments ago. Christ, they were in a moldy old closet, and Logan was waiting on them, and good lord, if heaven was a sensation, her eyes squeezed shut, it would totally be the flat of Alec’s tongue moving up the side of her throat. Her hips jerked, uncontrolled, against his hand.

Stop? His brain couldn’t wrap around it, the word might as well have been from an alien language. Her cry; now that was something he could grasp. Her arch and her wetness and her tightening body, that was a language he knew. Her arms coming back to wrap around his neck, that was a sign he could read. Her trembles, so close to orgasm-

“Fuckin’ rabbits!” The guard sounded beyond embarrassed. “Don’t make me come in there!”

It was sudden, but something changed within Max, he felt. A disturbance in the air. A sudden fluid calm. A resigned acceptance.

He didn’t get a chance to decipher whatever that change was, because her hand dropped down to slide up his thigh, she squeezed his hardness through the rough material of his jeans, and he had to worry about the stability of his knees. His hand jerked roughly in response, tearing a cry from her lips. The sound crashing through the small space made his teeth clench.

“Fuck,” Did he know no other words? His brain seemed disjointed, loose. Especially when she squeezed him again and he hissed. He pulled her off the wall, spinning them both so he could lean there, to forestall the inevitablity of his knees giving out, and he briefly considered how difficult it’d be to depants them both right before-

“What did I tell you?!” A key turned in a lock and the door crashed open. “Knock it off!” The large man paused, magazine still held in one hand, his eyes widening as they followed Alec’s arm across Max’s front, down into her pants-

Alec’s other arm came up and caught her under her knee as she surged upwards, swinging her other foot up, her boot catching the guard right in the torso. Alec grunted as her hand tightened around him, and the movement contracted her already tight body around his fingers. The guard flew out of the room and slammed into the wall, his head cracking painfully against it, and he slid down its bare concrete face, head lolling in unconsciousness. Alec blinked and his hand fell still as his usually quick mind struggled to keep up with what’d just happened.

Especially once she’d carefully disengaged, shuddering, and zipped up her pants, very carefully not looking at him.

Too far. They’d gone too far.

Alec blinked as comprehension took over. “You… you used me.”

Her face was red. She couldn’t look at him. “What are you talking about?”

“You wrangled noises out of me to lure the guard in here!” Was that awe in his voice, or annoyance?

“Don’t be stupid!” She wished she’d planned it that way. No, that had been a rather epic case of ‘winging it.’ “Besides, I’m the one that should be angry! I was the one making all the noises!”

As embarassed as she was, nothing had yet returned to normal; everything still felt primed. Alec leaned back, smirking slowly, and Max's blush deepened as she pretended her body wasn’t still throbbing, achingly on edge. She was sure that one more touch, his touch, and she would go crashing over it.

His voice was low, and he didn’t move, just cocked his head to the side and watched her with dark eyes, willing her to come to him. “Want me to finish that for you?”

Her mouth was dry. All the gravity in the world couldn’t keep her from taking a step towards him.

And then a familiar voice grated through her brain.

“Finish what?”

Max startled and whirled. Relaxing when she got a good look at the annoying, annoying man waiting in the hallway.

But Mole was too busy wrinkling the scaly slits in his face that passed for a nose to notice their annoyance. He eyed them in suspicion. "Why does it smell like pine trees and sex in here?"

Max colored from the tips of her toes to the roots of her hair. Alec, in contrast, seemed almost angry. “What do you want, man?”

Mole blinked. Before his eyes narrowed. “I came here to get you, and found this place teeming with muscle-bound morons, you ungrateful bastard. I just frickin’ rescued you.” He glanced at the man in the hallway, crumpled in unconsciousness. “Well,” he amended, “I helped.”

“Came to get us?” Max asked in confusion, before Alec could throw something snarky back in response.

There was a long pause. “It’s Peta.” Mole turned, stomping out of the room into the hallway.

“What happened,” Alec demanded, abruptly releasing the weirdness with Max to follow the man out of their ‘holding cell’ and focus on the more important issue. Even if his eyes did keep darting towards her red face, almost like he couldn’t help it.

“Jay and Peta got into it,” Mole scowled, already stalking off down the hallway.

Max and Alec shared a surprised look. Oh, Christ.

“Is Jay okay?” Max asked, as she and her Second fell in behind the transhuman. Her body was buzzing, her headache was coming back, but her brain was moving so fast, she hardly noticed.

“It’s not Jay you should worry about,” Mole’s voice echoed down the long hallway.

Alec’s fingers grasped the taller man’s shoulder, and he stopped him abruptly. “What do you mean, ‘it’s not Jay?’” He demanded, dread coiling through his stomach.

Mole turned to stare at him with noticeably angry eyes. It was just like everyone had always known; the scaly, hard ass, lizard-man had more of a soft spot for the shark-blessed woman than he’d cared to admit. “I mean,” he said angrily, “that somehow Clara got involved and it was enough of a distraction, to Peta anyway, that Jay used his ridiculous reflexes to break through one of her ribs and send it into her lung.”

Max swallowed, Alec’s vision hazed, just for a moment, as part of him wished he’d used the earlier opportunity to… but no, no one could know what would happen from one moment to the next and it was just as well that he hadn’t seriously damaged the other man… Not to say that he wouldn’t do it now if he saw Jay again. “Is she okay?” He asked, his mouth going dry.

“Jeri’s working on her personally. Did you really think I hauled my mutant ass all the way out here to chat?” Mole demanded, before adding, “Now, is that it or can we finally go?” He glanced down at his large, shiny watch, a gift from a redhead he'd rather not think of, anxious to get moving once more.

“Lead the way,” Alec gestured, his eyes still narrowed. Mole turned and started stomping down the hallway once more. There was silence, just for a moment, the only sound that of their quick, trotting steps. And then-

“By the way,” Mole’s voice echoed. “When I was busting my way in here, I got caught by a squirrely little guy near an office. He told me to give this to you.” A CD went sailing over the transhuman’s shoulder. Max caught it in surprise. “He gave me your cell phone, too.” Mole directed at Alec. “Said he needed a new job.”

Max shared a confused glance with Alec, before delegating it to the back of her mind; Peta, right now, was far more important.

Mole glanced at them over his shoulder. His watch read 12:01. His dry voice bounced off the walls.

“Happy Friday, lovebirds.”

Week of the Cat: Thursday, Part Three

2009-08-03T03:48:20Z

Part Three

Terminal City was a bit of a strange sub-pocket in space, capable of warping time like nothing else. Some days just dragged, dragged, dragged, no matter how busy Alec was. And then some days, like today, well, they were over in a blink of an eye, leaving him to wonder, ‘what the hell did I do all day?’ It wouldn’t have been so bad, but now that meant he had to haul ass to make it to Logan’s on time…

Not to say, however, that he’d done nothing all day. After his little run in with Max, he’d hot-footed it over to Oak Street, a small part of him almost hoping that someone would start some shit, that he could use it as an excuse to work out all the uncertainty and rage that was snaking through his system. Annoyingly enough, everyone was keepin’ their heads down, throwin’ him wary glances out of the corner of their eyes. Like anyone would start anything after what had happened to Jones, that muscle-bound idiot that had tried to throw a punch at Max and had gotten intercepted by Alec instead.

Then Alec's annoyance had started to stutter and stop, because somebody had sidled up and asked if everything was okay between him n’ Max.

Abruptly he’d remembered what Max had told him the previous night; that gossip had spread like wildfire, and people were anxious to find out that their chain of command was still intact… which meant that stomping around like a rhinoceros that had gotten rejected during mating season might not be in everyone’s best interest. So he’d sighed, put on his ‘charming face’ and had responded with an, “Of course.”

Having to lie about it, having to act like everything was still peachy between him and the woman that had been stupid enough to claim him when he'd been stupid enough to ask... Well, it'd made it all worse, somehow.

He’d headed back to Command after that, slipped past Max’s silent office, and had all but thrown himself into working with the night models. Peta had taken one look at his face and very deviously paired him up with Jay. As it turns out, Jay was less of a soccer player and more of a ninja; the guy was quick, extremely so. He’d managed to avoid most of the punches that Alec threw at him; not to say that Alec didn’t put the guy down on the mat once or twice, much to Peta’s carefully concealed, narrow-eyed delight. Jay only got one good hit in in a moment of distraction. By the time the match was done, Alec was pleasantly worn out and finally free from all the uncertainty that the so-called ‘fight’ with Brock and talk with Max, had filled him with.

Well, so much for that, because as soon as he’d pulled up to Sandeman’s house and saw Max’s bike already parked out front, there it was again.

Sometime, it just wasn’t even fair that you couldn’t punch whomever you wanted in the face. Especially when Alec opened the door, stepped into the living room, and Logan looked up with a frown.

“You’re late.”

“By two minutes.” Alec’s voice was hard, which was slightly unusual for him, and it made Logan start in surprise. Alec usually saved his anger and frustration for alone-time with Max or Joshua; the rest of the world was more accustomed to his snark.

Max, leaning against a bookcase, frowned at his tone, and looked away, troubled. Logan turned to attempt to share a glance with her, but she didn’t return it, instead schooling her face back into neutrality and letting her arms fold across her chest once more.

Guess it’d been too much to hope the Alec had calmed down by now. Not that the rest of her own day had gone so swimmingly, either. She'd all but hidden in her office, hoping to avoid any more scenes with Alec... She had practically felt it when he'd stomped back into Command, she could feel his presence in every single cell of her body. So when he'd stormed by her door, she'd sat very, very still, and hadn't made a sound. She'd snuck out later, thinkin' maybe she could work with the other night models and work out some of this animal uncertainty... But she n' Alec were more alike than she sometimes figured, because he was already in there, wailing on a good-looking, shark-DNA-carrying transgenic. From the way Peta was smiling, all wide-eyed and blood-thirsty, undoubtedly Alec was sparring with Jay. Alec had tensed when she walked in the door, but she didn't think he'd really noticed her... And before he could get a chance to turn and check the room, Jay had used Alec's distraction to land a solid blow to the taller man's stomach. Max had winced, and booked it out of there.

Not that it mattered, because here they were again. Together. Alone.

Well... alone except for Logan, who seemed oblivious to the way that Max and Alec were now staring at each other.

"Well, here's what we got," Logan's voice seemed loud, fairly thundering through the room. The two transgenics started and looked away from one another.

Logan started going over the details of the mission, and Alec and Max did their best to pay attention, their best to keep their sidelong glances at each other to a minimum. They must have succeeded, or Logan was really on a roll, because they left there with Logan fairly convinced that they understand all the particulars of the assignment and that everything, while not normal, was considerably better than what it had been earlier in the day when Max had walked away from him.

Alec lowered himself onto the Bandit. “Peir 7, then?” He looked away from Max, who was busy adjusting the dark riding gloves on her hands.

She didn’t ask if they should just take one bike to the docks. Seemed like kind of a moot point. She made a soft noise of agreement in her back throat, “Mmhmm,” using her dark leather gloves as an excuse to not look at him.

“And what are we looking for?”

Max looked up sharply at him. “What? Weren’t you paying attention?”

“Not really,” Alec shrugged, because it was the truth. “Were you?”

Max had been ignoring Logan’s long drawn out mission briefs since they’d first started working together, over two years ago. She had always been more about the action than she was about the planning. But she wasn’t going to admit that to Alec. “Of course,” She scowled. “We’re looking for anything shady. Logan doesn’t really know what.”

He nodded, and gunned the motor. Maybe any other day he would have used her statement as an opening to poke fun at the older man, but tonight he squashed it. Anything he could say about Logan, he knew he wouldn't be able to hide the bitterness. He went for something safe, instead, and spoke over the sudden roar of the engine, “See you over there.”

She almost wanted to call him back. She almost wanted to say ‘screw the mission, we need to talk this bitch out.’ She almost did a lot of things. In the end, she watched him ride away and wondered when she’d become such a coward… Or maybe she’d always been a coward when it came to relationships, and this week was just doing a really effective job at pointing that out to her once more.

Max got on her own bike, and followed the tail-light of the Bandit through darkness. The wind whipping around her hair, the streetlights rushing by... rather than stirring the tulmultuous thoughts, the roaring silence calmed them. It was almost… relaxing… It’d been a while since she’d just had a chance to ride the streets of Seattle. Sometimes working with Eyes Only had its advantages; sometimes she needed to get out of Terminal City and forget about the war waging on. Max took her duties very seriously, but with everything on her plate, she always felt herself tip-toeing that edge of reason; that point where everything becomes too much and you just want to huddle in a corner and tell everyone to fuck off. Her Ninja always took the edge off, and tonight there seemed to be no difference.

And maybe Alec had caught some of that lightening of spirit, because by the time they’d reached the docks, they were practically racing. And when she turned off the bike and turned to look at him over her shoulder, she’d so won, his eyes crinkled with the smile. It was like a punch to the gut, stopping her breath, and it came backed with a need to go over there, lower herself backwards onto his bike, onto his lap, angle his mouth up to meet hers, and-

Alec’s hand waving in front of her face startled her from the thought. She wondered when he’d gotten off his bike. “You still here with me, Max?”

She cleared her throat, glancing away, her face heating. “Yeah,” She muttered, and blamed her overactive imagination on the unconsummated claim… and the amount of time it’d been since the last time she’d-

Max’s eyes went unfocused once more, and Alec eyed her pink cheeks in almost amusement. “Are you sure?”

Her gaze snapped back to him once more, and her voice was almost waspish. “I said yeah, didn’t I?”

The warmth in Alec’s gaze faded back to hardness, and she almost regretted her prickly response when he scowled. “Whatever,” He muttered, turning away from her. “Let’s just get this over with.” He walked away from her, disappearing into the dark shadows of the back buildings they’d hidden their bikes behind.

Max stared after him for only a moment before making herself get off the Ninja and head off into another situation that always seemed to earn her Alec's annoyance, but never enough of Logan’s appreciation, given the way in which she always busted her ass.

They skirted through shadows, avoiding the tall lamps lighting the pier and the side of the large warehouse, the spot lights that illuminated the large, faded brown lettering that declared the building to be Pier 7 and their destination.

“Check it out,” Alec said out of the corner of his mouth, forgetting his annoyance for one moment so he could gesture at a building a few loading areas down. “See that warehouse; that’s where I got shot trying to rescue your damn mermaid.”

“I remember,” She shook her head, still hugging to the side of the building. Transgenic, after all, so how could she forget? “Try not to let it happen again.”

Her biting voice almost made him smile. “Gee, Max, you almost sound like you care.”

She ignored him, peering down the long, lit dock instead, taking in the dark, empty waters next to it. “Alec, you notice anything a little funny?”

“You mean like the fact that there’s no ship and no workers busily unloading whatever it is we’re supposed to be looking for?” Alec replied blandly. “Yeah, I did catch that.”

They shared a glance.

“Trap?”

“Maybe we’re just late,” Max shrugged. “Or maybe the boat is late.”

They mulled it over for another moment.

“Trap?” Alec repeated.

“Probably,” Max nodded. “They musta found the bugs we planted. Lemme borrow your cell phone.”

Alec dug into his jeans, offering her up his phone. She glanced at it, it hadn’t been on silent, and after turning the ringer off she offered him an annoyed glance. He just shrugged, so she let it go and punched in the familiar numbers. Alec wondered why she bothered calling the man; Logan would want them to go in and poke around anyway. More than that, he was really glad she hadn't gone through his contact list and seen what he'd named Logan.

“You can’t be sure, Max.” Logan insisted. “The boat might be late.”

Alec must have heard the older man’s voice over the line, because he snorted. Max elbowed him, keeping her attention focused on the conversation through the phone. “They could have found the bugs we planted, Logan. We could be walking right into a trap.”

Logan’s sigh filled her ear. “Max, you know your safety is the most important thing to me-“

“But you think the boat is just late.” Max interrupted in annoyance. She tried to control the huff of irritation. “Fine, we’ll go in and take a look around.”

“Hit me back if you find anything.“ Logan frowned. And then, like always, “Max, be care-“

Max flipped the phone shut, holding it out to Alec. He eyed her. “A little passive-aggressive, much?” He took the phone from her, and she ignored his statement. Alec couldn’t contain it though. He smirked. “You ever find it funny that Logan is always telling you to be careful when he’s the one sending you into dangerous situations in the first place?”

Max stepped carefully around him, still hugging to the shadows. “Please don’t start, Alec.”

Alec shrugged, his whisper close behind her in the darkness. “I was just sayin-“

“Well, don’t.” She hissed back. They hit a ladder that led to the roof soon after that, so Alec didn’t get to throw anything back. They always seemed to do that; fighting was okay up to a point, but once everything really started happening, they put on their game faces and just focused on taking care of the mission. They could always argue later; when they were in the thick of it, they preferred to concentrate on making sure there was a later. Also, Alec tried not to look up, to watch Max's ass as she climbed the ladder before him.

The roof was empty, and the door that led into the top level of the warehouse was locked with a padlock and heavy rusted chains that probably hadn’t been touched in years. They shared a glance. They were strong, but neither of them qualified as Superman.

“I’ll find a broken window,” Max rolled her eyes.

“Which leaves me to check the other side of the roof for another door.” Alec replied in answering annoyance. Splitting up was never on their list of favorite things to do, but they also preferred to get these things done as quickly as possible; they had T.C. to think of, they couldn't spend all night out here.

They started to move away from each other, and Max’s quick, “Hey,” made Alec stop in his tracks and glance back at her in question. It was grudging, like it usually was after a fight. Still, it was like she couldn't resist. “…Be careful.”

He shot her a quick smile, and even though they were bouncing rapidly back and forth between friends and foes, he offered her a reassuring, “Always.” A quick nod, and she was moving away from him.

It was probably only about five minutes later that Max pulled herself through the window that had probably been cracked open since the Pulse, at least if the rust and grime that was flaking off onto her gloves was any indication. She peered around the dark room, her hair swinging around her face. It was nothing but an old office, white sheets draped over everything. A small part of her wondered if she could come back later and score a better chair for her own office, but she silenced that voice and focused on more important things; that is, hooking back up with Alec who was also undoubtedly in the building by now. She pulled herself the rest of the way through, her feet hit the floor, silently, and she took one more precautionary glance around the room. Nothin’. She lifted herself to a ready crouch and started creeping through darkness.

She opened the door slowly, and peered down an equally empty hallway. Maybe Logan had been wrong about the shipment altogether; maybe tonight was a total bust and not a trap like they’d first thought. Wouldn't that be a pain in the ass. Max vaguely hoped that Alec was havin’ more luck than her.

“Drop it,” The man said warningly. Alec sighed, putting on the safety, lowering the gun that he’d relieved from another guard only moments ago slowly to the ground. He came back up with his hands in the air. Well. Here’s hoping Max was having better luck than him. This place was crawling with creeps. He’d had to put three down as soon as he’d walked through the door he’d found on the far end of the building, and then two more on the catwalk as he’d been makin’ his way to the ground floor. And had he mentioned that sometimes he really disliked Logan? He rolled his eyes in annoyance, ignoring the guard’s angry questions, and shot forward.

Max startled as the familiar pop of gunfire split the heavy silence and her breath caught as she whirled, peering down the long corridor.

Alec.

She didn’t even hesitate. It’s not that Alec couldn’t take care of himself… it’s just that Alec couldn’t take care of himself. She took off running down the hallway, headed towards the sound of the gunshot.

She found a set of stairs behind the door at the end of the hallway; a stairwell leading both up to the roof and down to another doorway on the second floor. This, then, was definitely the way Alec had come. She followed the trail of unconscious bodies, stepping gingerly around them with a frown. She pushed through the door at the bottom of the stairs and found another two bodies on the catwalk that led to the ground floor.

Holy crap, this place was crawling with guards. Max thought, not for the first time, that Alec just had some kind of plain, old-fashioned bad luck. Figures he’d be the one that found the route teeming with fire power.

And more than that, she was really going to have to have a talk with Logan about his powers of intel gathering. He seemed to be slipping as of late. It seemed like everything he’d given her on Jimmy Chang so far had been wrong; she was tempted to scrap helpin’ him on this case altogether. And then Alec’s voice caught her ear, and her thoughts silenced. She fell to a crouch, and peered under the scaffolding’s hand-railing, her sharp eyes rapidly scanning the large open area beneath her.

There they were, near some large, stacked wooden crates.

“C’mon, guys, can’t we all just get along,” Alec’s hands were in the air, and he was surrounded by men in dark suits with guns and didn’t this just figure. Normal Max tactics involved just blazing in there and somehow, someway, avoiding all bullets and kicking everyone’s ass…

But a safety clicked off and cold metal pressed into the back of her neck, through her long hair.

“Don’t move.”

Before she’d registered that it was a bad idea, she whirled around, her face tight. She only had a moment to glance up into obsidian eyes before the man lifted his arm into the air and the gun smashed powerfully against the side of her face.

She crumpled to the metal catwalk, unconscious.

And for a moment, Jimmy Chang let himself smile. Sometimes, it was all just so easy.

Alec was shoved into the small room, and turned in time to catch Max’s limp body in his arms. He glared at Jimmy Chang, his mouth operating angrily on its own. “Congratulations, pal. You’re just another fine example of everything that’s wrong with America.”

Chang eyed him with humorless, dark eyes. And finally he smirked a little bit. “I could say the same thing to you, trannie freak.” The heavy door slammed on Alec’s hard face, he heard a lock click into place and Chang's hard voice barking at the thug in the hallway to, ‘watch them.’ Alec sighed, shifting Max in his arms, and took a moment to glance around the room. The quick inventory of his surroundings offered him very little, and it's not like he could really consider escaping yet. He wasn’t goin’ anywhere anytime soon, especially with Max still out of it. He placed Max on the floor gently, lowering himself to sit beside her. He would wait for her to snap out of it; really, he didn’t have much say in the matter.

It only took about ten minutes for her to start stirring, to start trying to shake off unconsciousness. And then a warm hand was patting her cheek, drawing her back into reality, and she frowned slightly. Her eyes opened slowly, and she made a soft sound of protest in the back of her throat, her hand coming up to press against the side of her temple. She winced as her fingers pressed against delicate, bruising flesh.

Well didn’t that just frickin’ figure. This was so not her week.

Alec relaxed, drawing away. “Awake now?”

“What happened?” She grunted, struggling to sit up, her palm against her head. His hand grasped at her arm and he helped her the rest of the way up, helping her to lean gingerly back into the wall.

“Don’t know,” He muttered. “I was fixing to get my ass shot up when Mr. Jimmy Chang himself showed up, pressing a gun to your very unmoving head.” Even remembering it now, his heart jumped to his throat and he forced himself to remain calm. Seeing her dumped on the ground, like so much useless garbage, it had made the entire world stand still; it had made him feel... well, as the strength of the rage came pouring back, it had made him feel almost inhuman.

“Jimmy Chang knocked me out?” Max demanded, oblivious to Alec's narrowed, angry eyes. How embarrassing. For an Ordinary, the guy hit like a mack-truck. Didn’t help that he’d managed to hit her in the exact right place on her temple. She’d probably have to deal with a migraine for the rest of the night. Her hand dropped away from her head.

Alec frowned at the deep red of her temple and forced himself into calmness. It would bruise eventually, leave a nice little shiner for the world to see. And one thing was for certain, he didn't have it in him to be mad at her anymore; not after seeing her slumped in unconsciousness.

But he couldn’t resist throwing out a teasing, “Want me to kiss it, make it better?”

“Idiot,” She murmured, barely paying him any attention as she glanced across the small, stark room. Her voice was almost tired; maybe it was the headache, or maybe it was just that she was sick of being in situations like this. “Where the hell are we?”

Small was a word. Tiny was another word. The room had one light source, a suspended, swaying bulb on an old chain, the walls were bare concrete, no windows, and the empty space barely had enough room for them to sit side by side, given the empty shelving that hugged either side of the walls.

“Some kind of unused supply closet,” Alec shrugged, his shoulders moving against the wall at his back. “One guard outside the door from the sound of it. One guard with more than one gun.” Alec upgraded his sentiments; he really, really disliked Logan right now.

“Are you getting the feeling that we were right and there is no shipment?” Max muttered in annoyance, leaning back into the wall, drawing her knees up to her chest. She could feel his shoulder brush against her own. The heat of his body somehow managed to make it through both of their layers of clothing and sizzle through her own skin.

“The thought had crossed my mind,” He replied dryly, his head lolling against the wall, his eyes shutting gently. He couldn’t even call Logan to gloat; the bastards had taken his phone.

Sorry, it ended up just a smidge too long for only three parts. Live Journal is a little anal like that.
Here's part four.

Week of the Cat: Thursday, Part Two

2009-07-31T22:29:04Z

Alec had offered to man the fort so that Max could traipse off in the middle of the day and find out why Jeri was about to bust a coronary. And by man the fort, she meant he would prop his old, gross boots on her desk, like he always did, and try to take a cat nap (boy seriously loved his sleep). And there he would probably stay, hardly moving, until Max came back… Unless of course Dix or someone picked up a call on the police scanner about a trannie in trouble or Carter radioed in to tell ‘em that the Familiars were probing their defenses again. Or that he needed a snack. It had been a relatively quiet week, though, so Alec probably didn’t have to worry about playing crack mission commando. The snack call would probably be the greatest of his concerns while she was gone. Max would have slightly more on her plate, judging by Jeri’s quick, trotting pace, and frowning, troubled face.

Max was no idiot; she already had a pretty good idea what this was about. And she was proven all too correct when they reached their destination, T.C. Central’s med station, went down a long hallway, past the examination rooms, past the rooms with empty gurneys, empty beds (Max loved slow weeks), and finally down to Jeri’s messy office. The short-haired brunette loved an orderly examination room, but for some reason the most alpha of all the medics was unable to find a thing in her own office unless it was underneath three other things.

At the moment, there was only one small clear space upon the messy metal desk, and smack dab in the center of it, sat a microscope. Max sighed as Jeri swung a chair around for her.

“What am I looking for?” Max asked grudgingly, taking the seat that the shorter woman had pulled up for her.

“You’ll see,” Jeri replied cryptically. Max eyed the medic for a long moment before sighing and turning to the microscope, putting her eye up to the lens. In the right kind of dye, Max’s Anti-Logan virus appeared as a kind of purple monstrosity, almost three times the size of a red blood cell. And Jeri was right. She did see, almost immediately, what had given the medic cause to hunt her down.

“It’s smaller,” Max glanced up, frowning. Almost half its original size, in fact. She looked again.

“It’s mutated,” Jeri agreed. Then leaned in, over Max's shoulder. “I think. Not all of ‘em, though. Enough that within a few weeks, I'd stake money on all of the viruses within your blood bein' in that new, sleeker form.” What was it, a car? Max made a face, and pulled her face away from the microscope so she could glare at Jericho.

“Why didn’t you tell me yesterday?” She demanded.

Jeri looked away. Well… to be completely honest, she hadn’t actually put Max’s blood on a mount and stuck it under a microscope until this morning. She’d been so sure that the virus would be the same as it had always been that she had let other things, like putting a band-aid on a wailing mother’s relatively calm infant or getting coffee from Command and catching up on the latest gossip, get in the way.

“I was… busy?” She finally managed.

Max sighed, leaning back into the chair. Fair enough, even if it was kind of a lie. “So what does it mean?”

“I dunno.” Jeri shrugged.

“Jeri!”

“Well, I don’t!” The tawny brunette defended. “But such a radical change in its physical characteristics means that something profound happened on the nuclear level. Something really changed in its DNA.” Jeri paused for a long moment. “Either that or something about your cells, the cells that the virus needs to hijack in order to keep replicating, is seriously stunting the virus’s growth.”

Which could possibly mean that finally, after a year and a half, Max’s body was learning to fight back.

Either that or, again, the virus had seriously mutated.

Jeri had been bouncing back and forth between the two theories all morning. It was partly why she was feeling so serious for a change. She hadn’t had a good brain challenge in ages. If it hadn't been so troublesome, it would have been a little exciting.

“If it mutated,” Max was staring off into space, “is there a chance that-“

Yeah, Jeri knew where Lord Vader was goin’. Blah, blah, blah, if it mutated, was there a chance that it was less of a threat to the Evil Emperor. “That it won’t be a danger to Logan anymore? Not likely. Viruses usually mutate to become more effective, Max, not less. More effective at replicating, anyway. This is Manticore’s baby, though, so who knows. For all I know the mutation could make breathing the same air as Logan hazardous to his health. Or, it could have become contagious… You could pass anti-Logan germs to anyone you come into contact with.”

Max’s eyes reached epic proportions. “What?”

Jeri shrugged. “I’m just saying.”

“You’re just saying?” Max sat upright in her chair. “Jeri, this is kind of a big deal! I need to know for sure.”

Jeri was still all seriousness. “I’m aware, Max. Which is one of the reasons I pulled you out here. So you could take a look at it without Alec leaning over your shoulder distracting you from how big this could really be.” Like, super dead Logan, big.

Max frowned guiltily and looked away. She wouldn’t let this… thing… with Alec distract her from something as huge as her potential lethality to another human being. The fact that Logan was also technically her boyfriend was merely a side note to that. And by technically, she meant Logan was totally her boyfriend… Sort of.

“So, what, I take it you’re going to need to run some tests to be sure?”

Jeri nodded, leaning against her desk and folding her arms across her chest. “You’re gonna have to get Logan in here. I need a sample, or five, of his blood to work with. He got enough trannie juice left in him to be hangin’ out here, what with all the toxins n’ all?”

“He’s still walking.” Max shrugged, though Jeri should have already known that. Or maybe it was just that Max was the only one that really noticed the sound that Logan's exo-skeleton made. Max didn't dwell on the implications.

“I’ll take that as a yes, then.” Jeri jiggled her foot impatiently for half a moment before she couldn’t contain it. “You want to borrow my cell phone to call him?”

“What, now?”

Jeri hated a mystery. She wanted answers, “Yes, now.”

Max sighed, part of her wanting to keep the mystery a mystery. Like she really wanted to start her day finding out she was even deadlier than normal. Still… “Fine,” She said grudgingly, holding out her hand. Jeri immediately turned towards her desk, moved a stack of paper, repositioned a file, shoved aside some ace bandages, and grabbed for her cell phone.

“Your powers of organization astound me.” Max said dryly.

“Yeah, yeah.” Jeri held out the phone in one hand. “Get dialin’.”

Junior councilmen Jimmy Chang paused in his office doorway, still dialing his cell phone, and glanced up at his secretary. “Did you cancel my dinner with the Mayor, like I asked?”

She turned from the computer screen and smiled brightly in response. “Of course, sir.”

Chang nodded and moved back into his office, oblivious to the way that his secretary scowled at him as soon as his back was turned. Like she would forget to do the one thing that he’d actually trusted her with. The young councilman was positively anal about taking all of his calls personally, which left her with very little to do except push paperwork around her desk and play solitaire.

The call connected just as the door slammed shut behind him, interrupting the secretary’s self-righteous scowl.

“Y’ello?”

“Frank?”

Chang heard something crash on the other side of the phone, like Frank had just abruptly pulled his feet off a desk and taken a lamp with them, or something. One dark eye twitched in barely contained annoyance.

“Sir?”

“I suppose I don’t have to ask if you’re still out at the mansion.”

There was a long pause, as Frank tried to determine what sort of answer would get him in the least amount of trouble. “Well…”

“As long as everything is in place by this evening it hardly matters to me where you are,” Chang interrupted. He picked up a photo frame from his immaculate desk, his mouth quirking at the image of his son, caught in a one-fisted yawn. He put the photo back down and his voice hardened. “Everything will be in place by this evening, won’t it, Frank?”

“Ahhh, of course, sir-“

On his side of the line, Frank vaguely wondered if driving up to Seattle, getting all the thugs into position, and waiting until nightfall could count as ‘overtime.’ He scratched the top of his head nervously; he wasn’t stupid enough to actually ask, especially when his employer had already started talking.

“I’ll be out at the docks by nine tonight. Try not to let those brainless guerillas you hired do anything stupid until I get there.”

“Of course, sir-“

But Jimmy Chang had already hung up the phone.

Frank scowled at the phone still in his hand. “That I hired?” He sighed, snapping the cell phone shut and tossing it on the desk. He turned back to the computer monitor, ignoring the lamp, still on the floor. The almost middle-aged man stared hard at the monitor's glowing face for a long moment, reached out, and started moving the mouse absentmindedly. He sighed. “I really, really need a new job.” It was practically becoming his mantra.

“Stop breathing in my ear, you’re bothering me.” Jeri turned to frown at Max. “If you’re so wound up, why don’t you go meditate or something. Say a mantra. Anything; I don’t care, just let me finish. I’m almost done.”

Max scowled and pulled away. Logan was still shoving down the sleeve of his shirt, covering the prick in the crook of his elbow. He'd shoved it back up, again, to frown at the bruising there. Sometimes he got the feeling that Jeri had it in for him; especially the way she'd so gleefully shoved the needle into his skin. As soon as his sleeve was down, brushing his wrist once more, he turned to smile calmingly at Max, who had begun to pace in the small examination room. The small digital clock next to Jeri told him that it was just now turning 10:30. He’d been here for almost an hour; it hadn’t taken him much more than half an hour to get here, and even less than that for Jeri to collect the five vials of blood she’d wanted. Really, she’d almost pounced on him as soon as he’d walked through the door. The women had practically had the needle in hand. Maybe she just really wanted to know what was going on... maybe that's why she'd been so... enthusiastic.

“If nothing else,” Logan said wryly, having had the situation angrily explained to him by Max while Jeri had been siphoning off his blood, “at least we know that breathing the same air as you won’t kill me.”

“Great,” Max snarled, “But for all we know, I could be passing this stupid virus to every person I meet.”

“We don’t know anything yet, Max.” Logan replied reassuringly.

Is it bad, that as sad as it was, as detrimental as it had been to their physical relationship, the existence of the virus was one of the few things that really connected him to her? He felt more in control of the situation when they had the common bond of the virus to worry about. He kind of liked being able to reassure her that, one day, they would get through this, that they had something to look forward to. Not to say that the virus wasn’t horrible and he hated it, because he did, with every fiber of his being, but at the same time it had also become one of the things that bound them together.

“Good news,” Jeri pushed away from the microscope, having finished combining some of Max’s blood with her first sample from Logan. “The virus is still chugging away at 100% efficiency." She smiled, almost delighted. "It’s slowly and merrily ripping all of Logan’s blood cells to shreds; it’s actually kind of fascinating to watch-“

Jericho trailed off, realizing that Logan and Max were looking at her a little strangely.

“How is that good news?” Max demanded, having stopped mid-pace to stare in amazement at the medic.

The brunette blinked. And then, “Oh, sorry! I figured you’d take it as good news that it wasn’t, like, twice as effective or something.” Twice as effective? Dead was still dead, in Max’s book, until she realized that twice as effective meant that if she accidentally touched Logan, he could have been dead in fifteen minutes or less, instead of thirty, which seriously cut down on the amount of time she could pump him full of another transgenic’s life-saving blood. Max sighed, remembering the good ole' days when she'd had hours before she had to worry about Logan succumbing to the virus; seemed like every time they touched, that window to save him through a blood transfusion got smaller. Not that even that would be effective forever, if what Jeri thought was true. Still-

“So what does it mean?” Her arms folded under her breasts, her face twisted in unhappiness. Logan offered her a comforting smile, but she ignored it.

“Well, I need to run some more tests; splice some virus DNA, see if it’s the same length as before, make sure that the virus reacts the same way with all of Logan’s blood samples…” Jeri shrugged. “But to be honest, I’d say that it’s probably unlikely that it was a mutation after all.”

Logan and Max shared a glance. Did that mean…

Jeri nodded, answering their unspoken question. “I think your body really did find a way to stunt the growth of the virus.”

Max’s eyes widened, just as Logan was demanding out loud, “Does that mean-“

“Yes, Logan,” Jeri turned to the older man, but kept her voice very neutral, as if to impart that it wasn’t as awesome a gain as he was probably thinking. “That means that in another two years, there’s a very, very small chance that Max’s body will have rendered the virus ineffective.”

Logan turned to look at Max, his face widening into a smile-

But Jeri was continuing, insistently. “But, seriously. Really small. Not for certain. And months from now. Not tomorrow. Months. Maybe even years.”

Max was still frozen. Years? Years?! Logan sighed, oblivious to Max’s stricken face as he turned back to Jericho. “Still,” Logan frowned. “I suppose it’s better than what we could have found out, right Max?” Logan turned back to Max, but she had already pushed out of the spotless exam room. “Max?”

“Max!” She heard the door open behind her, but she kept walking down the long, white-washed and brightly lit corridor. Logan’s voice from behind became annoyed. “Max, will you wait a second.”

She stopped abruptly, turning to face him as he caught up with her. “What?”

He frowned pensively, staring at her through his thin-rimmed glasses. “This isn’t as bad as you think.”

“Were you not listening back there?” Max demanded, gesturing back down the hallway. “Years, Logan. She said years.”

“Yeah,” Logan replied, still slightly annoyed. “And what’s a few more months, maybe years, when we’ve already been waiting a year and a half?”

“What’s a few more years?” She bit back in amazement. What's a few more years?! She couldn’t last two more years!

... God, she didn’t even know if she could last two more days.

Logan sighed, part of him kind of wishing he could reach out and grab her shoulders, force her to stare deeply into his eyes and feel the force of his conviction. “Max, you know I’ll wait for you.”

It wasn’t him waiting for her that she was concerned about. Her eyes searched his, just for a moment. The words gathered force in her throat. “Logan, I…” She tried to hold them back, but the words tumbled out, rushed out, in a pained whisper before she could suppress them. “I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

Logan started, surprised. And then purposefully misunderstood. “You don’t want to fight about this anymore?”

Max sighed. “Logan-“

Logan didn’t back down. He never did. Sometimes she thought her relationship with Alec was cyclic… well, that was nothing when compared to her relationship with Logan. “I don’t want to argue about this again, Max.”

Well, didn’t she get a say, too? Why did he get to decide? She opened her mouth, tried again. “Logan…”

“Remember what I said yesterday?” Logan searched her eyes and softened his voice. “Sometimes we just need to work a little bit harder… right?” When she didn’t immediately respond, merely looked away in guilt, he added, “That’s why we’re having dinner tomorrow night, remember? It’ll give us a chance to reconnect, remind us of what’s important." She still wouldn't say anything, so he prompted again, "Right?”

Max looked off to the side for a long moment, her mouth set in a moue of unhappiness. “…Right,” She finally managed, in a soft voice. Oddly enough, for one long moment, she missed Alec.

“Good,” Logan smiled warmly in response. Then continued, in a sure voice, trying to lighten the atmosphere, “Are you hungry? I figured while I’m here, and it’s so close to lunchtime…”

But Max didn't feel like it, and it showed in every unhappy line of her hunched shoulders and browbeaten body.

“I gotta get back to work,” Max muttered, still unable to look at her boyfriend.

So he’d won, but the victory still felt a bit empty, the way she was leaving. “I’ll see you tonight then? 8 o’clock?”

“Of course,” Max nodded, turned, and started her walk out of the Med Group. Once the single, heavy door closed behind her, and her foot hit cement… well, she just had to get away from here… Now. She started off at jog, heading back towards Command, and by the time she was at the end of the street, she was practically at a full-out run.

Logan stood here in the hallway for a few moments, staring at the door she’d left through. Jeri, who’d been coming out of the examination room to hunt down some snacks and had caught the tail-end of the conversation, turned around and headed back into the room. She suddenly felt the need to watch more of Logan’s blood cells be brutally destroyed. Snacks could wait.

A few blocks away, snacks were of vital importance.

“Hey, you… kid.”

The X-6 stopped in the hallway, turning to stare at Alec with a wide-eyed 'who, me?' expression.

Alec had his arms folded across his chest, his eyes trying to impart the seriousness of the mission. “Go to mess, grab a couple of waters and a few ho-ho’s and run them out to Carter, will you? He’s in the Eastern Sector, near the back-up entrance.”

The X-6 took off immediately, probably glad of something to do. Alec shook his head and turned back to Luke. “Anything else?”

“No, that was about it.”

Alec sighed in annoyance. “How many times I got to tell you, Luke? When Carter calls in to request a snack run, tell him to buzz off. That frequency is for emergencies only.”

“He said it was an emergency!” Luke defended. Alec rolled his eyes, because Luke was just too nice of a guy.

“An emergency request for ho-ho’s? That hardly qualifies as-“ Alec’s eyes focused past Luke’s head. And widened.

“Hey,” Marcy said softly. Luke started and turned to gaze at the short red-headed woman that had snuck up behind him. Well, not so much ‘snuck’ up, as ‘walked quietly up while both men had been distracted.’

So sneaky.

Luke frowned and opened his mouth, but he felt a sudden rush of air behind his back. He turned to find that Alec was moving rapidly back towards Max’s office, regardless of the fact that he was being kind of rude.

“Alec!” Marcy huffed.

Luke turned wide eyes back to Marcy once more as Alec froze in his steps. Maybe this would be a good time to just, you know… Luke booked it out of there before he could get caught in the cross-fire.

“We really need to talk,” Marcy finished, when Alec winced and turned to look at her. He shifted and adjusted his collar, almost in discomfort.

“Marcy…” Alec laughed uncomfortably. “Heh… Wheeen’d you get here?”

“About an hour ago.” She said flatly. “I heard you were here, but the office door was locked.”

He knew, because he’d locked it, and when she’d tried to turn the handle, he’d sat very, very still, and hadn’t made a sound. “Really? Weird, must be broken.”

Marcy sighed in annoyance, and repeated in that little girl's voice, “Alec, I’m serious, we need to talk.”

Alec finally gave up, and then he too sighed. “Marcy, there’s really nothin’ to say-“

“I get it, you know?” Marcy interrupted, her emerald green eyes sliding up to meet his.

Alec’s mouth snapped shut. He glared at her in confusion; was this some kind of trick? “Get… what?” He asked grudgingly, his interest piqued.

“I’m not stupid. I know the way I acted when I was fighting with Janna… Well… I know.” She looked away from him, full lips pursing together in embarassment.

Alec was still watching her in suspicion. “Is this your way of apologizing?” He hoped she wasn’t, he didn’t have it in him to be mean to her to begin with, but this could make everything that much more diffic-

“Yes,” She looked at him once more, and nodded, her curly red hair swaying around her full, sad face. “I’m sorry about how I acted.”

Ah, crap.

“Well… thanks.” Alec tried to turn on his heel, tried to get the hell out of there, before he could remember that she was one of the nicest people he knew, and there was something wrong with him because he had strictly been interested in her for her cutesy physical appearance. He didn’t want to be reminded that everyone was always saying that Marcy was the type of girl you should settle down with. He didn’t want to restart the guilt and reconsider dating her for no other reason than the fact that it was the thing that he should do.

“Wait!”

Please just let me go back to the office, he begged her mentally, before steeling himself and facing her fully once more. “Yeah?” He asked, sounding way more nonchalant that he really was.

“This thing with you and Max…”

Oh come on, not even she could be so nice as to say something like ‘hope it works out’ or something similarly sappy-

But Marcy surprised him when her eyes narrowed, her tone strengthened, and she continued. “The thing is, I thought Max was dating Logan.”

That was unexpected. “Uhhhh-“

“And I know that you two are friends, but I had no idea that there was even a hint of anything like that between the two of you.”

Alec shifted from one foot to the other. “Well, I wouldn’t say there was nothing-“

“In fact,” Marcy continued, tapping her lips in thought. “I’ve kind of been wondering if this whole thing-“

Alec cut her off gently before she could finish the thought, and he answered her with as much honesty as he could. “Regardless of what you think, Max did claim me. And anything you could say right now, it’s just opening yourself up for trouble.”

Marcy’s head cocked to the side. “It’s pretty unstable?” Huh. If the claim was really unstable, that must mean Alec was almost equal to Max. Which meant that he was actually more alpha than either she or Janna were. Which meant he could have told either of them no at any point, and they would have had no choice but to accept it…

So, what, was he just a big coward then?

Well, actually, come to think of, if it’d just been Alec that had said no, there was no way Janna would have shoved off. Alpha females were a little strong-blooded like that. And so long as Janna had her clutches on him, Marcy wouldn’t have given up, either. Maybe the only way Alec had been able to shake Janna was by throwing a more dominant female in the mix. But now that Janna was out of the picture… “Alec-“ Marcy started to say, but frowned when she realized that it had come out in stereo sound… She’d said it the exact same time as Peta, on the opposite end of the hallway.

Alec turned to the night model near the training entrance. “I need to talk to you,” Peta said blandly, her eyes offering him a healthy dose of ‘this is me, saving your butt.’

“Right, well…” He glanced at Marcy. And for the second time that day, though the smile was more strained, he heard himself say, “Good talk.” He ambled off, maybe moving a little too quickly to really call it an amble, down the hallway towards Peta, who was busy tapping her foot in impatience. Marcy watched for only a moment before turning and walking away, the gears in her head spinning at lightning speed.

As soon as Alec got close enough, Peta snagged him by the ear and pulled him into the training room. “Ow!” Alec ripped away. “What the hell!”

“What, are you crazy?” Peta demanded. “Do you not remember that you just had one of your best friends bite you for the sole purpose of getting that girl’s talons out of you?”

“She was apologizing,” Alec defended, rubbing his ear in annoyance.

“For what? Spending copious amounts of time in bed with you?”

“For how crazy everything got,” Alec frowned in response, his hand dropping back to his side.

Peta just shook her head, the hair in her high ponytail swishing back and forth. “The girl has an agenda.”

“Who, Marcy?” Alec laughed. Yeah right. “Marcy is probably the nicest person I know.”

Peta eyed him for a long moment before responding gently. “That doesn’t mean you have to like her, Alec.”

Alec ignored her, turning to look at the transgenics, mostly X-5’s, a few X-4’s, and even a few transhumans, warming up on the mats. Changing the subject usually worked pretty well for him, so he didn’t think this time would be any exception. “Everyone here, then?”

Peta turned, her gaze becoming sharp and critical, not that she had completely given up on this subject with Alec; she would just have to revisit it later. “Almost everybody. Still waiting on a few stragglers.”

Alec frowned, his eyes sweeping across the room. “So which one is he?”

Peta pretended obliviousness, her keen eyes still scanning the various forms and stretches as the transgenics warmed up. “Which one is who?”

“Don’t think you can try and play all insightful with me and then turn around and pretend ignorance about your own life,” Alec warned. “We both know who I’m talking about.”

Peta scowled, glancing at her friend out of the corner of her eye. She said, extremely grudgingly, “He’s the one in the back corner, stretching his calf against the wall.” Alec followed her gaze to the man leaning near some crates, his foot held against the wall as he leaned in and stretched the muscles on the back of his leg. Alec frowned.

This, then, was the infamous Jay.

“Huh.”

“Huh? Huh, what?” Peta turned to frown at him in suspicion.

“The way you described him I expected him to be more… I dunno… more Neanderthal lookin’.”

Neanderthal was generally Peta’s favorite term when used to describe Jay.

Even though Jay was an average-sized X-5, 5’11 or so, with a thin, athletic build and a fairly attractive face.

“The guy looks more like a soccer player than a Neanderthal,” Alec pointed out.

“Right,” Peta scowled. “Just like Logan is more of an intelligent human being than he is a ‘stupid Ordinary.’”

Ah crap, even she had heard about that?

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Alec frowned.

“You figure it out.” Peta sniffed, flouncing off.

Alec stared after her for a moment before shrugging. Eh. Women. He had accepted long ago that he might like them, and he might get a few insights here and there (certainly more than his friend Sketchy would ever get), but he would probably never really understand them. And that was only solidified when he headed back to Max’s office, only to find that she had slipped in while he’d been in the training room, and she was sitting at her desk, head buried in her hands.

He had a feeling that this was definitely one of the times that Max would prefer to be left alone. So naturally he shut the door gently behind him. She looked up, her eyes rimmed with red and trouble. She opened her mouth-

“Yeah, yeah, you’d rather be alone,” Alec frowned, his arms folding across his chest. “Well maybe I’d rather be with you.” Her mouth snapped shut and she stared at him for a long moment before finally looking away, slouching back into her chair, eyes closing in weariness.

Alec crossed the distance, came around the desk and perched on its corner, near her. He had a feeling he knew what this was about. “So, what’s up with the virus?”

“You gonna congratulate me?” She asked bitterly. Alec’s head cocked in question, not that she could see it. Well, she could, because her eyes popped open, she sat back up, and said, almost angrily. “I’m cured.”

Two words, and the whole world stopped. For a long moment, everything in Alec’s head went silent, and the most horrific, unnameable feeling coiled through his stomach; almost like dread, but not quite, a thousand times worse. Wonder what that’s about. Alec licked suddenly dry lips, gathered strength, and forced the world to restart. It skipped and stuttered, but finally he heard the beat of his own heart once more. “Well… congratulations.” He said weakly. And then, with more surety, even if his voice was a little hard, his eyes a little dark, “When did that happen?”

“Two years from now.” Max muttered darkly.

Uhhhhh. What? Alec blinked in confusion. “…Come again?”

Max sighed and leaned over the desk once more, burying her face back into her hands. Her voice was muffled. “Jeri thinks my body is slowly suppressing the virus. And seeing as how it took about a year and half to get this far, it’ll probably take that much longer ‘til the virus might not work anymore.”

“Might? You mean, it’s not even a definite?”

Max glanced up in surprise at his relieved tone. He scrubbed the expression from his face and affected a look of neutral concern. And then he remembered he was her friend and he wanted her to be happy. He sighed, slouching, as the concern became real and his voice became gentle. “Hey, relax, Max. For all you know, there’s a Manticore scientist out there just waiting for the opportunity to work on a cure for you. There’s no definite that says you’ll be virus-ridden for another two years.”

She looked back down, through her hands, towards the desk, her eyes squeezed shut, and her muffled voice was pained. She must not have heard him, or maybe she didn't believe him, because- “I can’t do this another two years, Alec.” She glanced up at him through unhappy eyes. “I’m tired.”

Alec froze, torn, as the world slowed once more...

He didn’t particularly like when Max gazed at him like the weight of the world was crushing her soul; kind of made him feel like he needed to do something, anything... But… As her friend, he naturally wanted to make her feel better. As someone who’d loved and lost- hadn’t it only been two days ago, maybe more, the days were all bleeding together, that he’d reminded her that she was a danger to Logan? Alec stood from the desk and came down to a crouch, swiveling her chair to face him. He thought for a long moment, trying to come up with the least hypocritical and most comforting statement he could while she looked at him with expectant eyes; like somehow, he could help fix this. Finally, he just settled for the most generic honesty he could think of, his hands coming to rest on her knees.

“Max, Logan will always love you.” Max’s face started to fall, but Alec continued. “And I will always be your friend. So whatever it is that you decide…” He trailed off, unsure of how to continue. Whatever she decided, what? They’d both understand? Not likely. If Max’s future didn’t come with a spot on a pedestal for Logan, the older man was sure to throw a fit. If Max did continue with Logan, well… Alec would always be halfway convinced that she’d made the wrong decision… So what could he settle on? She’d never be alone? Because she’d always have him? He didn’t know if he wanted to put himself that far out there.

Max watched him struggle for words for a long moment, and finally her hand came up, glanced across his forehead, brushing stray hair away. Alec glanced up at her, solemn. “You cleaned off the mark.” She said softly, offering him a way out.

The corner of his mouth lifted. “Yeah, well, got tired of everyone bringing it up.”

They stared at each other for a long moment… and then finally Max cleared her throat, pulling her hand away and looking away as well. “Don’t know why I’m freaking out anyway,” Max started, and Alec took that as his cue to remove his hands from her knees. “I’m sure after tomorrow everything will be fine.”

Alec smiled in question, one eyebrow arching as his head cocked to the side. “Tomorrow? What happens tomorrow?”

Honesty is the best policy, right? Then why did Max want to lie, lie, lie? She admitted, grudgingly, “Logan and I are going to have a date night. Maybe it’ll fix all this-“ She trailed off, because Alec had sprung back to his feet, and was moving away from her, agitated. “Alec?”

“It’s nothing.” It never was nothing. He shoved a hand roughly through his hair, resisted the urge to pace the length of the room. His voice couldn’t be controlled though, and it was almost scathing. “I’m sure spaghetti with Logan will be magical. I’m sure it’ll fix all your problems.” He made for the door-

“Alec, don’t be like this-“

He glanced at her blankly over one shoulder. He could have thrown out a ‘be like what’ be even he recognized there was no hiding how spun he was. Well, if all else fails, blame the claim. “I just… With everything that’s goin’ on, I just can’t deal with this right now, Max." He looked away from her, stared hard at the doorknob his hand was resting on. "I’ll see you tonight.”

“Fine,” She replied, surprising him. A part of him had expected her to blow up in anger; in reality, she still sounded a little lost. “8 o’clock?”

“Like it ever changes,” Alec rolled his eyes before yanking open the door. It fell shut behind him, hitting the frame hard enough that it disguised the sound of Max’s head, hitting her desktop.

When was this going to get easy?

Jump to Part Three

Week of the Cat: Thursday, Part One

2009-07-29T21:09:17Z

Thursday

It was the second time in a week she woke up to warmth. Her bedroom had a bit of a draft; one she didn’t bother tracking down and sealing up because she hardly slept and so didn’t spend enough time in here for it to bother her. She usually woke up to cold sheets, rolled out of bed, and moved on. So waking up curled around a human furnace came as a little bit of a shock.

Once again, Alec had managed to flop to his back, directly to the center of the bed like the true space hog he was, and Max had somehow managed to completely roll in her sleep and wrap around him. She was tucked under his arm, her face pressed into his shoulder, and his arm was wrapped around her. His other hand was resting lightly on her knee, which was drawn up over him. Her nose wasn’t buried in her mark, seeing as how she was on the wrong side for that, so that was a good thing, but her fingers were resting lightly against it… which was... well, not so good. She pulled her hand away, let it just rest there at the hollow of his throat instead, not willing to give up on illusion for now. The illusion that she wasn’t alone, that there was someone in her life that she could just hold on to.

How pathetic.

Max did try and pull away then, tried to turn in the darkness to take a look at her clock… but as she stirred, his arm tightened around her, his hand hooked under her knee, drawing her more surely against him, and she glanced up in surprise to find hazel eyes watching her in the soft darkness.

Max wondered if he was even really awake.

“Alec?” She asked softly, relaxing into his side once more.

His head fell back into the pillows, and he murmured something, his grip on her loosening. Guess his cat wasn’t keen on her trying to leave.

“Idiot,” She muttered, relaxing.

“Bitch,” His voice was sleepy but amused.

She started in surprise, and his hand tightened under her knee once more. Like he was keeping her or something.

“I thought you were asleep,” She hissed into the darkness.

“I always knew you talked bad about me when you thought I wasn’t listening,” He murmured back. She bit the inside of her cheek as his hand slid up the underside of her thigh, across her ass, around to her hip. His head turned so he could look at her once more, and he blinked sleepy eyes. “What time is it?”

“I don’t know, if you’d let go of me-“

But his bleary gaze had focused over the top of her head, going to the light of her alarm clock’s bright face. “It’s only five in the morning, Max,” He sighed, resting back into her pillows, eyes closing once more. “Go back to sleep.”

Yeah right, she had shark DNA, she grumped to herself as his hand splayed on her back, how the hell was she going to-

Max grumbled in annoyance as the first rays of sunshine glanced across her face, her eyes tightening. She fought wakefulness just for a moment before she gave in with an unhappy sigh. She stretched slowly, her arm sliding against the cool material of the…

empty…

sheets…?

What the hell? Max's eyes popped open and her head lifted away from the pillow as she looked at the empty spot next to her. Alec was nowhere to be seen. Nor were his boots, she realized as she sat up in annoyance, the sheets pooling in her lap.

That jerk! Who was he to snuggle half the night then just up and disappear before she could?

“You left me,” She said it almost accusingly, and she wondered why.

“I made you breakfast,” He shrugged. Yeah right, as if boiling an egg, burning some coffee, and buttering some toast could count as a true culinary effort… Even if this was Alec they were talkin' about.

“You think you can spend half the night in my bed and just up and disappear whenever you feel like it?” She demanded.

Nearby, someone started choking on coffee. The two transgenics whirled, scowled at Carter, still hacking up liquid, and decided to take their conversation somewhere a little more private.

“I don’t really see what the problem is,” He followed her into her office.

“We really need to talk about this,” She frowned, but not in the normal, bitchy, you-are-too-annoying-to-live way that he was usually accustomed to.

“And that didn’t answer my question at all…”

“You running away at zero-dark-thirty is not conducive to us talking,” She explained, peevishly.

Wait, is that why she was annoyed? “I did not run away,” He frowned.

She turned on him with a scowl. Didn’t run away? Ha! He’d even had time to go home, shower, again, and change, and that was on top of the amount of time he would have had to have to stumble his way through making her breakfast! Which means he had to have left as soon as she’d fallen back asleep. The idea, frankly, made her outraged. “Crept away, slunk away, apply whatever verb you feel fits best, but any way you slice it, I woke up and your cowardly butt was gone.”

Her annoyance made him annoyed. His annoyance made him want to annoy her more. Theirs was an odd, cyclic sort of relationship. “Max, if you want to sleep with me, all you have to do is ask.”

It’s not even funny how honest that ended up sounding.

Alec didn’t have time to dwell on it, because Max was going red-faced, making little choked, stuttering sounds that meant she was going to resort to throwing things soon. Which meant that it was time for him to saunter out, whistling, because if there was anything Max hated more than dirty innuendos she had no response for, it was whistling. She was so enraged, the stapler never even had a prayer of hitting him.

But, oh crap, he had forgotten-

“What time is this thing we’re doing for Logan?” He probably shouldn’t have stuck his head back in the door. The pen that hit him in it was more aerodynamic and better aimed.

“What’s wrong with your face?”

“Huh? Oh, Max threw a pen at me.” Alec rubbed at the mark on his forehead a little absentmindedly, but hardly paused. He was intent on the far corner of Command.

“You two are so weird.” Mole shook his head and followed, falling in step next to him. “Wish you would just get it over with already.”

“I'm pretty sure I've said this before, but there’s no ‘it’ to get over with.” Alec grumped.

“I’m sorry, did you say something?” His friend replied blandly back. “I couldn’t hear you over the sound of the big fucking bite mark on your neck.”

Alec eyed Mole out of the corner of his eye and adjusted his high collar in annoyance. Like Mole could even see the thing when he had this sweater on... “I hate you.”

“I bet you say that to all the girls.” When Alec just rolled his eyes, Mole continued. “So, what time is this great Eyes Only gig going down? You need some back-up?”

“What time does anything ever go down?” Alec continued in the same grumpy vein. “Right when I’d rather be doing something else after a long day at work.”

“So around 8, then?”

“Yeah,” Alec frowned. “I’m beginning to think Logan just has his watch set on a timer and doesn’t want to change it.”

“Would explain why everything always happens at 8.” Mole nodded in agreement. He paused for a long moment, before he couldn’t contain it any longer. “Okay, so what happened?”

Alec blinked in confusion, and finally fell still. “I’m sorry?”

“Last night,” Mole frowned, also stopping, turning to face the shorter man. “After all the drinking. I don’t remember much except you said you had something to take care of and then you just kind of rambled off. Well... make that weaved off.”

Alec’s face colored beneath freckles. Why had Mole even let him leave the apartment in that kind of condition? Probably because everyone had been fairly sure that transgenics couldn't get drunk. Well, guess even their metabolism had a critical threshhold, a point at which it could simply not keep up with Mole's surely-nearly-toxic moonshine. “Nothing happened,” He muttered, turning on his heel and making his way again towards the very near, sooo close, grey couches and the much needed coffee.

He shouldn’t have gotten out of bed so early… who cares if, by staying, he would have had to deal with Max’s warmth, Max’s smell, Max’s body, pressed so closely against his-

Actually, it was probably a good thing he had left so early.

Caffeine had been put on earth for his consumption anyway.

Mole followed like the persistent bastard that he was, oblivious to Alec’s rapid descent into grumpiness. “You went to see Max, didn’t you? That’s what you usually do on Wednesday nights.”

“Not every Wednesday,” Alec protested. But he was still refusing to look at Mole, focused entirely on the Styrofoam cup he’d pulled from the stack next to the coffee machine. Which to Mole, made it a dead giveaway. Alec didn’t notice Mole’s eyes narrowing, though. He poured the coffee, every rod and cone within his own eyes trained upon the liquid he was pouring into the cup… As if by doing so, by ignoring the tall lizard man, it would make him magically disappear or something.

“No, not every Wednesday,” Mole agreed, eyes still narrowed, and by his continued existence proved Alec’s disappearing theory wrong. “Only on the Wednesdays that you two take out your sexual frustration by shouting at each other until you’re red-faced.”

Alec slammed the pot back into its cradle and turned to look at him in annoyance.

“Sorry, did I say ‘sexual frustration’ again?” Mole pursed his lips in pretend thought. “It’s weird how I keep getting that mixed up with ‘aggression’.”

Alec sighed and let it go. Mole’s blunt, give-a-shit attitude, as annoying as it could be, was also one of the reasons why Alec counted him as one of his better, and more amusing, friends; couldn’t very well go expecting the transhuman to change now… He changed the subject instead. “Speaking of aggression, what time is it? The night crew is coming in early for drills, which means I had to put the X-6’s training on the schedule for eight.” Alec took a warming sip from his cup.

“Uhhh, about that.”

Alec turned to look at Carter over his cup, his mouth still fused to the rim.

“Max gave your training lessons to Brock.”

Alec sprayed coffee all over the coffee table. If it hadn’t been so gross, it might have been a little ironic.

The door slammed open. Max glanced up. Alec was livid.

“I could kill you.”

Max blinked in confusion. “Wha- Relax, Alec, it was just a pen. The mark on your forehead isn’t even really that noticeable-“

It derailed him, just for a moment. “Wai- wha?” His hand come up to rub at his forehead. Before he remembered why he was there, his hand dropped back to his side, and he glared at her with all he was worth.

She frowned in question. “Something the matt-“

“Brock?” Alec interrupted her, angrily. And then again, in higher, even angrier tones. “I mean, Brock?!”

Max continued to stare at him blankly from her spot behind the desk. “Brock…” She prompted, as if trying to lead him into a legitimate sentence. When he just continued to stare at her like she was the anti-Christ, Max sighed in frustration. “Kinda need you to work with me here, Alec. Brock, what?”

Suddenly the livid, borderline petulant, Alec was gone, and he drew himself up to full height. His voice was hard. “You gave my X-6’s to that blonde little weasel?”

“Blonde little-“ Max started in confusion, before she caught up quickly to the situation. Crap. She had forgotten to tell him about that last night, seeing as how she’d been so… distracted. Still, like a true commander, she immediately attempted to justify herself. “Hey, waitaminute! You’re the one that was sticking up for him, saying he needed more to do around here!”

Now his voice was cold. What the hell was his problem? “When I said give him something to do, I didn’t mean give him something of mine to do.”

Max pushed herself away from the desk, growing more confused with each passing moment. Alec was usually all about trying to worm his way out of responsibilities… Actually, to be completely honest, Alec was more all about trying to worm his way out of Eyes’ Only missions… He was slightly more dependable where it came to TC and to the X-6’s…

He did kind of have a soft spot for the 6’s…

But that wasn’t the point. The point was that Alec’s sudden rage was very, very unlike him.

She stood slowly, and said as gently as possible. “Alec, is this you talking, or is this the claim talking?”

Alec’s eyes narrowed. “I told you he had a thing for you, why would you give him an opening like that?”

Guess that answers that question.

“An opening?” Max asked, confused. She crossed around the desk. “Alec, you weren’t around! I had to get someone to work with the 6’s. What was I supposed to do? Cancel it? Those little troublemakers barely have enough to do as it is.” Her voice remained level and she was making her way slowly towards him. Something in her told her that if she could just touch him, everything would be okay. She just needed to-

Alec craned his neck to look at the clock above her doorway. The second hand was rapidly approaching the 12. The kids were probably already in there, starting their warm-ups. Before Max could reach him, Alec had spun and stalked out of her office without another word, leaving her there, gaping like an idiot, hand still partially outstretched.

Her mouth snapped shut. Her hand fell back to her side.

“Well... crap.”

She only let herself wallow in self-pity, aware of the very public events that were bound to be happening, in oh, thirty seconds, before she booked it out the door, hot on Alec’s heels.

“Alec, this is a bad idea.” She trotted to keep up, her voice beginning to strain with annoyance. “Let me talk to him, let him know that I’ll find something else for him to do.”

“And since when,” Alec kept walking, and his voice was even harder, if that was possible. “have you two been on speaking terms?”

“Last night,” she said it before she really thought it through. “He stopped by the office and we bullshitted about bikes for… a… while?” She trailed off, slowing to a stop behind Alec’s immobile form. He glared at her balefully over his shoulder, like that had only made it worse, before pushing through the heavy swinging doors that led into the training room. Max sagged for a moment... And popped back up, pretending at strength, when a familiar voice swept down the hallway.

“Hey, Maxie!” Peta waved from down the hall. Her thick hair was up in a high ponytail, and she was sporting some dark capris and a matching sports bra. Her ultra-white tennis shoes seemed glaringly out of place; the fashion mistake of the century, not that Peta gave a crap. She jogged over to her commander, smiling. “Figured I’d help my favorite Second in Command with the 6’s today. It'll warm me up for later...” She glanced over Max’s morose face, and her own cheery smile fell. “Why the long face?” She glanced at the doors to her left, the doors Max was currently staring a hole through, took a quick step, pushed a door open and glanced inside. It only took one quick look for her to pull back out immediately and turn wide eyes on Max. “You did tell Brock he was only workin’ with the X-6’s for one day, right?”

“I told him all week.” Max replied morosely.

“Well... crap.”

“That’s what I said.”

“Stay out here,” Peta frowned, facing the door, squaring her tan shoulders, and steeling herself. “I’ll take care of this.” When Max started to protest, Peta just glanced at her over one shoulder. “Trust me, Max. If you’re in there, you’ll only make it worse for Brock.”

“Peta,” Max called, just as the other woman was about to push into the training room. Peta paused. “Don’t… don’t let him hurt Brock too badly.”

Peta glanced at her, again, over her shoulder, and in her olive green eyes, for a moment, Max thought she saw something. Something a whole lot like, you brought this on yourself. The Grecian looking girl seriously considered Max’s words for a long moment. And then shrugged. “No promises.”

“Peta!”

But the woman was gone, having already pushed through the doorway. Sometimes, Max forgot that Peta operated on a whole different playing field then she did; most transgenics struggled through their weird animal instincts while still attempting to operate under human guidelines. Not Peta; she seemed to instinctually understand the deepest workings of transgenic nature. Not only that, but she accepted it as well (which, unfortunately for her, more often than not got her in trouble with the transgenics who weren't so accepting of the weird jungle cats that sometimes shared their head space). Peta probably thought a little rough handling was needed to set Brock down a few pegs…

And, even worse, at the end of the day, as annoying as it was to admit, Peta would always be more Alec’s friend than she was Max’s. Undoubtedly, she would be siding heavily with Alec on this one. And, even best of all, to top it all off, she had never liked blonde Brock to begin with.

…but surely she wouldn’t stoop so low as to let Alec wipe the mat with the smaller man… Max shook her head. Of course not. Probably, not.

Well, maybe.

Max let herself pace once past the door. And then again, in the other direction. And then she couldn't take it anymore; the energy was simply overwhelming.

Adrenaline was crackling through her body and Max’s hands were clenched nervously. She abruptly fell still, mid pace, planted herself in front of the doors and stared hard at them, almost like she was trying to stare through them. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say she was resisting the urge to twitch. It was almost like the feeling she got when Alec walked into a room, only this time, it was stronger… not nearly as pleasant… and oddly enough, she wasn't entirely sure these feelings were hers. All of her anxiety seemed to be originating from behind the heavy doors in front of her. Or at least that's what she tried to convince herself. This sort of apprehension couldn't possibly be her own, could it? Max chewed her lip for one long moment, one short eternity… And as odd as it was, a thought suddenly offered itself up to her...

…What if, as unlikely as it would be, Brock actually fought back…

What if he touched what was hers?

Max pushed through the doors before she even had a chance to reconsider Peta’s warning.

The adrenaline spike she'd been cruising on had obviously been unnecessary. In fact, there was hardly anything to worry about; there wasn’t an aggressive death match going on at all. There was, however, a marked air of waiting, a current of electricity that was coursing through the room. A few people were still sparring or warming up, but most were watching the silent drama that was unfolding in the center of the mats. Most of the onlookers weren’t over 16, though, and the vast majority of them were really only pushing 14, thank goodness, so maybe news of Alec’s manly posturing wouldn’t spread too far...

Still, whatever it was Max had walked in on, maybe it wasn’t fighting, but it wasn’t exactly all hugs and puppies, either. Alec was glowering down at Brock. Brock was glowering up at Alec. And Peta was standing next to them, facing the door, glowering at anything that moved.

Not as silent as Max had first thought, she realized as she approached; Peta was using words to go along with that ‘Don’t Fuck With Me’ stare. “See, it was all just a simple misunderstanding, right?” She paused, and when neither man had said anything, she stressed it again, “Right?”

Brock was the first to look down. “Yeah, sure.”

Peta turned to look at Alec, and had to work hard to control the quirking smile when he didn’t look away from Brock, just folded his arms across his chest and said in a hard voice, “I’m sure it’s nothing that will be happening again.”

Max’s face twisted in confusion. What was that about? Had Brock talked back to Alec when he’d first walked in?

Well, duh, when didn’t Brock talk back to Alec, or to anyone with any remote amount of influence. Guy had some serious authority issues. Still, everyone was unbloodied and in one piece. Guess she hadn’t really had anything to worry about after all…

“Everything okay?” She smiled entreatingly at the small group.

Alec froze. Peta tensed. Brock turned to look at Max, his head cocking slightly. He started to open his mouth-

“What the hell are you looking at?”

Peta winced. Oh, that really, really didn’t sound like Alec. That sounded like a cat, operating Alec’s mouth. She snuck a peak; Alec’s eyes were still trained on Brock, but his arms had dropped back to his sides, and he didn’t seem to like where Brock was looking; that is, directly at Max.

But Brock was abrasive and foolhardy on a good day. On a bad day, he was reckless and kind of a jackass. Figures it would be kind of a bad day.

“Is there a rule somewhere that lets you dictate what I look at, as well?” Brock popped off, his gaze swinging back to Alec. Alec’s eyes narrowed. Brock’s eyes darted again towards Max. “Actually, you know, now that Max is here, maybe she can settle this.” Ah crap, Peta thought to herself, here it comes.

Brock turned towards Max and her deer-in-the-headlight expression. “Max, did you, or did you not, tell me to take the X-6’s for the rest of the week?”

Peta turned wide eyes on Max, her lips pressing together, and shook her head slightly; a warning for her commander to be very careful where she stepped. Alec didn’t look away from Brock. Max fidgeted. “Well, I did, but-“

Peta sighed in exasperation.

“Well, there you go.” Brock shrugged, turning back to Alec. “From the horse’s mouth; I got the X-6’s for the rest of the week. I don’t really see what the big deal is, anyway. Think of it as a mini-vacation.”

The big deal, Peta scowled, is that both she and Alec had told him in no uncertain terms to step off, and Brock had tried to play the odds, play the power game, instead of doing what he'd been told. You know, she got it, the kid was bored, he needed somethin’ to do… but at this point, he was just being an ass. Peta’s eyes darted again towards Max. And she was pretty sure she knew why… Pup had eyes for the Queen Bee, and couldn’t understand that he could never be what she needed.

But the problem now, was, that everyone was kind of painted in to a corner. Alec had told Brock to step off. He hadn’t, which was a direct challenge to him, as the more Alpha of the two and Second-in Command to boot. But Brock had de sotto gotten Max’s back up. So now Alec couldn’t shake Brock by the back of the neck without making it look like he was challenging Max’s authority. Peta wanted to go bludgeon her head against one of those crates. Sometimes being transgenic sucked. Maybe some of the humans wouldn’t consciously process all of that crap, but every single cat in the room was tensed and wary, waiting to see what would happen, with or without their human counterparts' knowing.

Alec didn’t look down or anything… his gaze just seemed to slide from Brock to Max without giving up an ounce of authority. He stepped off, undoubtedly to pull Max aside and speak to her for a moment-

Peta fought so, so hard to control the smile when Brock solved everyone’s problem by interpreting Alec’s movement as giving up.

“I guess you were telling the truth,” Brock smiled slowly. “You two aren’t mated.” Alec froze. Oh, if Brock was going where Peta thought he was going, today might be a very, very good day. “Just one-sided, then? Whose choice was that, yours or-“

Brock didn’t get a chance to finish, because Alec hauled roughly around and socked Brock in the jaw, sending him to the mat. Max gasped and took a step forward, but Alec didn’t immediately descend on the blonde, nor did Brock immediately spring up and try to tackle Alec. Peta took a small step back, her smile falling back into grim stone, realizing that it might look slightly maniacal if she continued to grin while she was standing over Brock’s fallen form.

Alec came down to a crouch and his voice was harder than Max had ever heard it. “Let’s get one thing straight.” Brock glared up at him balefully, rubbing at his jaw. Alec was hardly affected. “I am one of very, very few friends that you have. You really don’t want to continue down this path.”

He leaned further in, his eyes narrowed, his voice descended to tones meant only for their ears. Max, too far away, couldn't decipher the low murmur, but Peta listened with narrow eyes and a small smirk. “And even if it is one-sided… what makes you think she would break it? That’s not the way it works. Transgenics don’t break claims to take a step down.” Alec straightened, frowning, and that could have been it…

But Brock sat up slowly. “And what makes you think it’ll ever be anything other than one-sided? She has Logan, remember? I’m not the only one deluding myself... friend. At the end of the day, am I really the one you should feel threatened by?” His eyes flicked to Max, still standing, frozen, a few feet away, and Alec’s eyes followed.

Peta blanched. Fuck. She’d forgotten how smart Brock was. How devious. She saw the wheels starting to turn in Alec’s head as he gazed at Max; she saw the uncertainty. But he controlled it when he looked back at Brock…

And then the weird bastard smiled. “Good talk,” Alec patted Brock on the shoulder. “You think you can handle the X-6’s today? I need to talk to Max for a while.”

What the hell? Max and Peta had never been more sure that they didn’t understand men. Especially when Brock just shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so.” He worked his jaw for a moment, and then he sighed, his hand dropping to the grey mat. “I don’t actually like this job, you know… You think you could try and talk her into setting me up in a mechanic shop or something?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Alec stood fluidly, offering Brock a hand. Brock eyed it for a moment, and then grasped the other man’s forearm, allowing the larger transgenic to pull him to his feet.

“What the hell was that?” Max demanded, when Alec walked towards her, snagging her elbow and pulling her backwards through the training area.

“We share a common interest. And a common dislike.” Alec shrugged. “We bonded.”

“But, but-“

“But, what?” He paused once he’d pulled her out the wide, swinging doors. Max wrenched her elbow away from him, glaring balefully. She wanted to say, but that’s not at all what she’d been expecting to happen… She thought for sure he’d go crazy jealous and try to pound on Brock.

“What?” He repeated. Then sighed when she still refused to answer. “Alright, I get it. The weird…” He scanned the hallway for listeners, but it was empty, so he continued, “…situation, made me a little wound up. But really, Brock is no threat to me.” Alec shrugged again, like it was no big deal. “Besides, I might be a little more aggressive than normal, but I’m not the one that staked a claim. The only that has to deal with the crazy jealousy right now is you.” He pointed out. She stared at him in surprise for a second. Did he really expect her to buy that?

“No crazy jealousy, huh?” She finally lifted one eyebrow. “You wanna explain to me why you punched Brock in the face, then?”

Alec shifted from one foot to the other, before saying grudgingly, “He had it coming. Besides,” he added petulantly. “I didn’t hit him nearly as hard as I coulda.”

Uh-huh. “So, what, it was a warning shot?”

“Maybe,” Alec hedged.

“And the reason you called Logan a, quote-unquote, ‘stupid Ordinary’ was…” She prompted.

“Ah, c’mon, Max. Who doesn’t call Logan that?”

Max gaped for a moment. Alec grinned wanly. “Joking, Max. Just joking.”

Max huffed, god, he and Peta really were alike, before she turned on her heel and made her way back to her office. Her body was still buzzing with adrenaline from the near-fight, her hands were still antsy. She tried to shake it away, hard to do when Alec was hot on her tail. It’d lessened slightly when Alec had laid Brock out on the mat, but it had all come roaring back when he’d grabbed her elbow as he was making his way out of the training room… And as Alec followed Max through the door of her office, it suddenly occurred to her that all this built up energy, it wasn’t actually hers… it was his.

The door clicked shut behind him. The air in the room gained about a thousand pounds. The buzzing in her hands started crawling up her arms.

Oh, Christ. He wasn’t nearly as normal, as collected, as he’d been letting on. She turned slowly, almost dreading what she’d see. “…Alec?”

His head was cocked, and he was looking at her. His eyes were dark, and his mouth was twisted in thought. He almost looked... he looked like he wanted to devour her. And even worse, God, when he looked like that... he looked delicious.

Max swallowed. Alec took a small, sauntering step forward. Max took a hesitant step back.

“Max.” He got around to replying to her query.

“…Everything… okay?” Another small step. First from her, and then from him. Her breath seemed to be coming a little bit faster. The wariness was gone from her gaze; maybe it had never been there to begin with.

“Fine." He shrugged slowly, continuing his sauntering steps. "Just thought maybe we could use my suddenly freed up morning to… talk.” His eyes dipped down, his gaze slid across her lips. It was almost like a strange, slow kind of chase. “You know… about everything… Or maybe about tonight.”

Her pupils expanded rapidly and it never occurred to her very slowly functioning brain that he was talking about the Eyes Only mission that she had been guilted… erm… that she had volunteered for. Like he could sense the derailment of her thoughts, the breath-stopping images, he smiled crookedly, wolfishly.

Guess she had been kind of hogging the animalistic spot-light for a while; guess it was Alec’s turn again. Guess this is the part (she bit her lip when his hand came up and slid over her shoulder) where she (she was still walking backwards, and he was still following, but it was no longer so much a chase as it was an inevitability) should start running (her eyes fell shut, her head fell backwards just in time for the back of her thighs to meet the edge of the desk).

“Bad idea?” She breathed, but kept the skin of her neck open for him.

“No idea what you’re talking about-“ Alec smiled slowly and started to lean in, his lips descending to her throat.

“Hey Max!” The door slammed open and Jeri came through. The two transgenics by the desk sprung apart quickly, and guiltily, but not so fast, and not so innocent, that Jeri didn’t fall still and glance between the two of them in suspicion. “Am I… interrupting something?” Funny how she could make such a simple word like ‘something’ sound so kinky and suggestive.

“Of course not,” Max said surely, refusing to even glance at Alec who seemed busy flipping through some papers that had been on Max’s desk only moments ago. In fact, Alec was so busy with the papers, and Max had spoken so surely, that Jericho became even more suspicious, her eyes narrowing.

“Riiiiight.”

“You need something, Jeri?” Max asked, controlling the exasparation.

Jeri promptly forgot the guilty looks that had been on Lord Vader and Young Skywalker’s face… well, not completely… Given the weirdness that she had just walked in on, she really needed to come up with new nicknames for Fearless Leader and Trusty Second. But renaming Max and Alec would simply have to wait; this was definitely more important. So long as she got them renamed before the next Command meeting, that is (nothing quite like throwing out a new annoying nickname to distract Max from that pesky Heat suppressant situation).

“Yeah. I need you to come with me, Max.”

Max frowned at Jeri's solemn tone, and shared a glance with Alec. Jeri, too, glanced at Alec. And frowned.

"Hey, did you know there's pen on your forehead?"

Onward to part two

Z is for Zoo, Part One

2009-07-26T22:31:18Z

There may be three installments to this one.... which will make it a 'fuck-all' long Alphabet piece, but oh-well, what can you do. Here's the first part. I'm hoping that by posting this, it will force me to work on the end, which I have been avoiding. I do so hate to end the series. Oh well. Here's the first part of my 52nd alphabetic one-shot. Ah, how time flies.

Mmm... also M, getting slightly more M in the next installment. I blame Jacqueline Carey (which I was reading when I started this), Harry Potter (which I was mulling over when I restarted this... Mmm... Tom Felton, I would totally snog you), and a sinus infection (which has been plaguing me for the better part of a week. Grr), but my writing has been fairly dark lately.

Z is for Zoo

The flag was supposed to draw them together, unite them. And it had… the first time. On the one year anniversary of the event, during the second raising ceremony, that was when the world as she knew it ended. That’s when everything went to shit, because that’s when he left, and took almost every able-bodied X-4, X-5, and X-6 with him.

And nothing would ever be the same again.

The earlier models of the X-series, the X-2’s and X-3’s… maybe they were human on the outside, but most of them were more animal on the inside than any X-5 during the worst Heat episode. And maybe it was because of that, but they’d never been totally cohesive with the later models, the ones that had rebelled; so, of them, some left, but the majority stayed. Most of the transhumans stuck around, too. And Joshua? How could he bear to be parted from Max? Really, Joshua’s choice had seemed so obvious in advance, that Alec hadn’t risked telling the larger man what was going down on the very likely probability that he would tell Max. So really, the tall transhuman, First, Joshua, was just as surprised as she was when the day finally came.

Mole, naturally, went with him as his so-called ‘Second’. He’d given Max’s way a try… for an entire year. Nothing had come of her brilliant, inspirational speech. The government didn’t want to fight them. Hell, they didn’t need to fight them, they had the transgenics right where they wanted them; contained under the public eye, penned up in a cage, safely behind bars masquerading as chainlink fence.

They were all just tame little freaks locked up in a zoo.

Alec’s voice had been very carefully detached, not that that had fooled Mole one little bit. “It’s her own fault, anyway. Max has always been so busy helping Eyes Only, chasing after the cure, playing her twisted little back and forth game with Logan and with White.” Alec had allowed himself a small, bitter shake of the head, and Mole had nodded after a long moment. But that wasn’t all; the younger man had continued, his face hardening to impassive stone. “She’s the one that let it get this far. And now I’m the one that’s got to take the fall for it.”

Mole had just arched one nonexistent eyebrow. “And I suppose Casey had nothing to do with it.”

Alec had cocked a shotgun, staring studiously down its deadly barrel, and said nothing. It didn’t matter, he didn’t need to say anything, anyway. Really, in a way, this was as much Casey's fault as it was Max's. But he'd made his choice, and there was nothing left but to follow through.

Luke and Dix couldn’t bear to be parted from their brainchild; their precious computer systems, but if it weren’t for that, Max thinks they might have left as well.

Standing on that rooftop, staring into each other’s eyes, the flag that had been torn down crumpled in the dust between them… It was a betrayal of the worst kind. Maybe she had felt it coming, deep within her, but on the surface she hadn’t been expecting it. And one thing was for certain; she never thought it would have come from him. Him, of all people.

“If not me,” He’d looked her dead in the eye as he’d destroyed everything she’d thought she’d patchworked together. “Then who? Trust me, Max. Better me than somebody else.”

Mole, at Alec’s right hand, had hefted the shotgun, letting the barrel rest against his shoulder. Her eyes had flicked to it before going back to him. Was it really that much of a surprise? Hadn't she always been pulling him out of scrapes after Manticore? Hadn't she always said that he wasn't to be trusted?

Hadn't that all changed? Hadn't she trusted him with everything? She shook it all away.

“So what is this?” She’d demanded. Joshua was at her back, Logan at her side, and they had only stared across the roof in shocked silence. A low-pitched whine of grief and disbelief came pouring from Josh’s unhappy throat. Max had ignored it, continuing in a harsh voice, “This supposed to be your polite way of asking me to step down?” Her tense shoulders, her ready stance, had told him she was prepared to fight for her position.

“I’m not asking you anything, Max.” Alec had stared blandly back, because he hadn’t come here to fight. The outcome had been determined months ago, while she’d been busy being oblivious to the gathering storm, chasing after True Love, or Destiny, or some other kind of bullshit. “I’m telling you I’m leaving, and a few hundred of my friends happen to be coming with me.”

Max didn’t know which made her madder; the fact that leadership had been taken from her, or that she hadn’t even had a say, hadn’t even gotten to fight for it; they’d all just sort of stepped around her, like so much useless garbage… she hadn’t even gotten a chance to defend herself. And she still wasn’t entirely sure why they’d all left. She hadn’t done anything wrong! Everything had been going relatively well!

She remembered angrily shouting something along those lines at Alec’s back, remembered wanting to throw something at him; a brick, maybe, or a shoe, her engagement ring, anything. Someone in Alec's vicinity had snorted. He hadn't. He’d paused as he’d walked away from her, as her words rang through the air; she thought for sure he’d turn around, look at her over his shoulder, let a little condescending smile trip over his lips… but he hadn’t. He’d paused… and then he’d kept walking, and all of his cronies, his generals, or his squad leaders, whatever the hell he was calling them, they all just fell in behind him.

Did she really mean so little to him that she wasn’t even worth an explanation? She thought about it some nights, staring broodingly out a window and into darkness, the sound of Logan's even breathing, soft in slumber, filling the silence behind her. He'd been her friend, and her confidante, and she hadn't even been worth an explanation.

Sometimes though, when Max thought back on it, sometimes, just maybe, a small part of her was relieved that it had been him; that it was Alec that would guide those X’s that had wanted out from under her admittedly unconventional leadership. They would have left anyway, something small sometimes whispered, and maybe would have found someone worse to lead them: Alec wouldn’t war-monger, Alec would keep a cool-head. After all, Alec was one of the best tacticians she’d had. It was something, anyway.

The rest of her squashed that traitorous little voice whenever it came up. She was furious. He had betrayed her. She’d trusted him with her back, and while she’d been turned, focused on finding the cure that had made her engagement to Logan possible, he’d stabbed her in it. She wanted to tear him limb from limb and, when it was all over, grind her foot into his dust and spit on his memory. Max wanted Alec McDowall dead. Or, at the very least, broken and bleeding, groveling at her feet, begging for mercy.

Naturally, he gave her none of those things. All he gave her, the next time she saw him, was the feeling of soft lips and a memory of a hard kiss that she could not scrub away. A feeling and a memory that, despite Logan’s diamond on her finger, she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to scrub away. Logan asked in a flat voice if she loved Alec and she answered in all honesty, ‘no.’

It happened six months after he left and took the majority of the X-series with him. He just kind of… rambled in one day, like nothing had ever happened. She had less people to work with, so it wasn’t really a surprise that someone as practiced as him was able to slip past all the sentries and walk right into the ghost town that was Terminal City these days. She heard the door swing open, and something tickled the edge of all her senses, right before Joshua’s eyes lit in bittersweet happiness... so Max kind of knew it was him before she turned around. And then she did turn around, and all that rage that she’d been trying so hard to release these past few months came flaring back, lighting some kind of infernal fire within her.

“Max,” He nodded, like he hadn’t fucking mutinied and usurped her command, like they were still friends. Friends; Max wanted to spit at the word. His eyes darted downwards, connected with the ring still on her right hand, the diamond that Logan had given her shortly before they’d raised the flag and one of Alec’s cronies had ripped it back down.

Something dark and animal coiled through her body, told her to launch herself at him, to hurt him; make him bleed, make him beg. Make him pay for everything he’d taken from her.

“What the hell are you doing here?” She demanded in an angry snarl. He seemed surprised for a moment; like he hadn’t been expecting the anger. Well, what had he expected? Then he got defensive and his eyes got hard as they swung back up. Mole had told him from the beginning that there would be no coming back from what he’d done; it was probably too much to hope that eventually she would understand. Then again, Mole had also told him it was a bad idea to go back to Seattle.

"You want your crap back so bad, send one of your lackeys to get it," Mole had said around the cigar, puffing away despite the charred and faded 'no smoking' sign posted on the outside of the building. Alec had smirked and opened the car door anyway.

"It's my stuff, I'll get it. Besides, I got to meet with one of my contacts. Shady bastard wouldn't trust anyone else I sent."

Mole had finally pulled the cigar from his mouth, straightening from his lean. "Don't pretend for a second that I don't know that the first thing you'll do when you get to Seattle is go see-"

"Sorry, Mole, I'd love to stay and chat and all, but-" Alec had shrugged, slipping into the driver's side of the dark car, closing the door on all of his Second's objections. Still felt weird, sometimes, referring to Mole as his Second. Sometimes it all felt so goddamn surreal...

"It's your ass," Mole had muttered to himself, before the door next to him slammed open, almost making him jump, and the Norse Ice Goddess herself came storming out of the keep. She wrenched open the passenger car door before Alec could put the car into drive, slipped into the car, slammed the door shut, and folded her arms across her chest, staring obstinately out the window.

"Uhh, Casey-"

"Don't even start with me." She fumed. "I had to hear from Dalton you were leaving, and believe you me, I could murder you right now."

"Casey-"

"I lost you once," She still refused to look at him. "I'm not losing you again."

Alec and Mole's eyes had connected throught the windshield, just for a moment. Women. But finally, he'd just shrugged. Alec hadn't liked it, but it was easier to just let her come along. Not that any of that was relevant to the situation. Well, except for the fact that Mole had been right. Max still wasn't over it, would probably never be over it, and yet this was the first place that Alec had come. It was almost like he couldn't help himself. But he hadn't been expecting the rising anger, the rage that answered her own. Why didn't she get it? Why wasn't she over it? Did she still not know what had almost happened to her?

“You still don’t get it, do you?” Alec voiced aloud, sneering, because sneering was easier, and less painful, than admitting he didn’t want her to hate him. “I told you, better me than somebody like Levi.” She opened her mouth to throw something scathing in response, partly because she had no idea who the hell Levi was, but he talked right over her, flippant and seemingly uninterested in her and her anger. “Besides, I’m not here to see you. I came to talk to Josh, a few of my contacts, and pick up my stuff. I don't have time for this.”

Like she was so unimportant. Six months had passed, but nothing had changed. He was still in charge, she was still alone, angry, betrayed, and he was still standing before her telling her that she still wasn't worth the explanation; wasn't even worth the visit. That dark thing that wanted him to bleed took the reins. Alec had crashed into the side of an empty table, most tables were empty nowadays, before either of them really realized what she was starting with her fist. He righted himself slowly, his hand coming up and wiping blood away from the corner of his mouth. He looked at the red staining his fingertips in a kind of narrow-eyed amusement, tinged with disbelief, while her body sang in dark, thrumming release. He almost laughed. Almost. His gaze hardened, and swung up to catch hers, her own eyes still slightly unfocused, still surprised at the force of her anger, of her fist, still shocked by the dark stirrings in her body that felt a lot like some sick kind of desire. Her face firmed under his hard stare. Joshua made a sound of unhappy protest that they both ignored.

“And you wonder why everyone couldn’t wait to get away from you.” Shoulders flexed beneath dark material.

“Alec-“ Joshua protested.

Images of fire and fighting, pleasure and pain, flashed through her mind in an amber torrent that made her body crackle, that she tried to ignore, that she tried to cover with a disgusted tone. “Just bring it, Pretty Boy.”

“Max,” Joshua whined. Alec’s body tensed, readied to spring.

That’s when somebody slid out of the shadows. “Alec, we really don’t have time for this.” Max recoiled out of her ready position, surprised by the face that the shadows revealed. The somebody was somebody gorgeous, (e.g. standard transgenic fare, Max noted, controlling the roll of her eyes). She was all pale skin and lithe muscles, in a body as taut as a bowstring, too athletic to ever really be considered curvaceous. Her silvery blonde hair was tied back in a simple knot at the nape of her neck, and her neutral face couldn’t disguise the impatience burning behind large, golden eyes that seemed familiar somehow.

It registered in an instant. That day, that day that Alec had taken everything from her, Mole had been at Alec’s right, his cohorts had been at his back, but this girl… She’d been at Alec’s left, and her eyes had blazed like the sun, shining in vindication.

Max didn’t know the girl, but oh, how she hated her.

The clothes, though…

Max’s eyes swung back to Alec. His clothes were like the girl’s; dark, simple, and a far cry from the urban things he’d used to slum around Jam Pony in. Nothing fancy, nothing meant to be stylish, something simply chosen for efficiency; dark cargo pants and a black t-shirt that hugged his form, clothes that probably helped him blend with the night outside the doors. Actually, his clothes almost exactly matched the girl's, almost like they'd been issued. In fact, everything about the two people before her screamed standard-military-issue, from the top of his short hair and her careful knot, to the bottom of their identical, shiny, black boots. His hair was so short, in fact, that when he turned away from her (what, why was he turning away from her?), she had no problem seeing the black lines of his barcode. Her dark anger turned in disbelief at his arrogance. He-

Was walking away from her and the pent-up fight that was sizzling like electricity in the air. “I guess I’ll hunt you down later.” He called over his shoulder, and Max was unsure if he was talking to Josh or to her. The platinum blonde fell in behind him, and before Max could even get a good dig in, they were gone.

“Alec changing,” Joshua murmured to himself. If Max heard him, she didn’t say anything. She did turn and look at him when Joshua clarified by adding, “Changing back.”

Changing back? Into what? A soldier? That's certainly what the wardrobe malfunction was pointing towards. She turned to look at the still swinging doors, her eyes narrowing. How dare he, after everything she’d done for him.

Everything she’d done for him. In her anger and bitterness, she really believed that she’d taken him out of Manticore, that she’d let him into her life. And he’d taken everything from her. All because she’d never taken the Manticore out of him. It didn’t occur to her that she’d kicked him out of her life more times than she’d actually let him in, that every gain he’d made was because of his efforts, not from hers. Physically, she may have saved him from himself a few times, but mentally, he’d struggled in obscurity for close to two years before he caught wind of the dark rumblings gathering below Max and had diverted the massive tide of mutiny in the only way he could; by joining it.

In truth, maybe it was because he was too good at hiding himself; he always seemed so put together, how was Max supposed to know the dark teachings of Manticore were still roiling underneath? But if they were being completely honest, she had known, just didn’t know how to reach him after that one small offering, the one after Berrisford, the one he’d refused. To be honest, she didn’t know if she’d even wanted to reach him; everything with Logan was always so difficult, and she had White on her back, and she just didn’t have time-

All those thoughts crossed her mind as a confusing mass of emotion in the span of a few moments, and Max stormed out of Command before Joshua could try and talk her into calmness, before even she could really decipher what was going on in her head.

She almost went to Logan’s, despite the late hour. She went to the Space Needle instead, and froze by the chainlink that attempted to quarantine the aging structure from the public. A platinum blonde with golden eyes was lounging against a dark car parked within the fence, checking and rechecking the thirty round clip of a, go figure, standard military issue M9 in something that looked a lot like boredom. Max could have turned and left. She snuck around the back, instead. And climbed hundreds of steps to find him waiting for her.

“Had a feeling I’d find you here.”

Déjà vu.

“You didn’t find me,” Her voice was hard and empty. “I found you.”

Lips twisted and lifted. Her eyes followed the curve of his mouth as it tugged upwards. The city was an ocean of lights in inky darkness behind his back. It would be so easy to take, one, two, three steps, and shove him hard enough to send him tumbling off the edge of the skyscraper.

The unwanted, unbidden, violence of the thought shocked her from her stare, and her eyes wrenched upwards, connected with hazel eyes that were studying her. He still seemed almost amused, almost gentle, like he could read all her thoughts and understood every single one of them.

“Do you know what happens to animals when they’re locked in a zoo, Max?”

She took her first step. “When have you ever been to a zoo?” Did those even exist anymore? Did it even matter? Had anything really mattered since he’d left?

“Seen ‘em in movies,” He replied snidely. She almost took another step, but he eyed her, like he was weighing her, and added, a touch softer, “Just once, when I was nine. It was a few months before the Pulse hit.” Her step faltered and aborted, her foot came back down to connect with graffitied steel.

So many things she could say. ‘I don’t care,’ or ‘Shut up,’ or maybe even a ‘Shut up, I don’t care, drop dead.’ All she could come up with was a stupid, “Really? Why?”

He ignored her, and it was a good thing, because she could probably guess what use Manticore could have for an unnoticeable child in an already bustling area overrun with children, and she probably didn’t want to know anyway. Was it any wonder that there was darkness within him? Hadn't she always known that Manticore had broken them all before they'd even been given a chance?

“There was this tiger display,” He mused aloud, eyes going distant. There was that quirking smile again. “You could tell the ones that were born in captivity. They were all just lying around, waiting for the handout from their keepers. But one of them, he was bigger then all of the others… and he just kept pacing, back and forth, at the bars of his cage.” His eyes focused and connected with hers. His smile fell, his face became solemn. “And even though no one was allowed close enough to the cage to find out, you could just feel the anger and the rage; you just knew that if he had to go through you to be free, he’d do it in a heartbeat.”

“Well, yeah, Alec, it was a tiger.” Max resolutely forced herself to take the second step towards him.

“No, Max, he was a caged tiger. And therein lies all the difference.”

Max lifted a food to take her third step, but Alec abruptly sprang forward and his hands connected with her shoulders, sending her stumbling backwards, towards the maintenance door that led back into the relative safety of the Space Needle.

“What did you think?” He laughed, “That I’d just let you shove me off the top of this thing?”

She straightened quickly. “What? I wasn’t going to do that!” What did he take her for, some kind of murderous psychopath? Okay, so a tiny, dark part of her had offered up the idea. That didn’t mean she was actually going to do it.

“Please.” He sneered. “It was written all over your face.”

When, and why, had he started to hate her? What did it matter, because she hated him right back. But it wasn’t supposed to be like this. She ignored the soft voice inside her mind and she scowled at him. “We’re not all sociopaths like you Alec. I was going to settle for punching you in the face.”

His arms came up, lazy and loose, his hands tightening into fists. “Well come on and try then.”

She wanted to ask him where the hell his head was, what the hell was he thinking? He knew how she hated him, why would he give her the opportunity to draw blood? And why should she give him the satisfaction…

But oh, he so had this coming.

A jab to the face, that he sidestepped easily, set him up for a quick kick to the inside of his thigh. He sprang backwards, his eyes widening in shock, then narrowing in annoyance. It was almost funny, except while she was smirking, he took two long steps towards her, and Max had to duck suddenly to avoid a fist flying towards her face.

“How dare you,” She ground out. She elbowed upwards, but he batted it away with little effort. Max came back to her feet quickly, arms still defensive and ready. “What right do you have to be mad at me?” She punctuated it with a fist of her own, aimed at his diaphragm.

His face was grim as he slid out of the way, his hands grabbing at her forearm, and he used her momentum to send her spinning away from him, back again towards the edge, dangerously close. He didn’t answer her as he stalked towards her, mostly because he didn’t have one. Why was he angry at her? Because he’d been forced into leadership that he didn’t want? Because she’d never even seen it coming? He was before her now, staring down at her, face solemn, eyes angry, and still he had no reason. Was it just because she’d said yes?

It was almost ironic; she backhanded him, and her ‘yes’ ring scraped across his face, the prongs holding Logan’s rock cutting into his skin. He glanced up at her; her eyes were on the side of his face, where blood welled, and they were dark again, like they had been in Command; like there was something animal in her pacing at her edges, waiting for the chance to come out.

Let it come out then, and let it all finally be over with.

“Do I need a reason?” He smiled slowly. “You’ve always been a bitch.”

She was already next to him, she didn’t need to take any steps. Her arms came up and she shoved with all her transgenic might. He’d been prepared for it, so he only staggered two steps backwards, the first step heavy, the second step hitting nothing but air. Max’s eyes widened, and she latched onto his dark shirt before he could completely tumble off the Space Needle; before she could prove her poisonous reputation all too true, and be the cause of another transgenic’s death. They stood like that for a moment, Max’s arms taut, straining with his weight, Alec far too over the edge for her liking, one leg dangling in darkness.

“Would you please,” She huffed with effort, “Step back on the goddamn building.”

“So says the woman that just tried to push me off of it,” He scowled back, but did so quickly. His foot connecting with the solid safety of the Space Needle sent energy crackling up his spine and his body thrummed with adrenaline; his back felt slick with sweat. He felt electrified and alive, like the world was waiting and he was out of options; like something needed to happen, and it needed to happen now. He eyed her mouth for just a moment... And then it took only one more step for him to put himself dangeoursly close to her, for him to press himself against her, bury his hands in her hair, and angle her mouth to meet his own.

As kisses go, it was pretty spectacular. Heady and heated, it sent every nerve ending in her body into full tilt, crackling with fire and excess energy. She might have compared it to any number of kisses she’d shared with Logan, but at this particular moment, she wasn’t even entirely sure who Logan was. Or who she was. Or how’d she’d gone this long without kissing Alec, who seemed to be the only thing she was sure of right now. Alec, as his mouth slanted over hers again and again. Alec, as he grasped her arms, and she gasped, and he delved deeper. Alec was all she knew, all she wanted to know.

So, naturally, she needed to escape. A step away, and he followed, wouldn’t give in. She broke away, and she was shuddering and oh gross, was that her staring up at him, eyes wide, lips trembling, like she was some kind of ridiculous romance heroine? Was that her, the coward, the escape artist, taking another step away from, unable to fight him, just wanting to run, run, run? She kept stepping away, and he kept following, until the small of her back hit a doorknob, and she gasped in pain and surprise. Her hand came up behind her back, clenched tightly around the key to her freedom, just as Alec put one arm up against the doorframe, and leaned in.

Max slid out of the way and wrenched open the door, smacking Alec in the forehead, and she ducked under his arm and through the doorway before he could even finish cursing or bring his hand up to his head. She didn’t immediately bolt for the stairwell, but she did hide herself pretty well, trying to calm her breathing, slow her heartrate. It didn’t matter anyway, because Alec didn’t immediately bust through the doorway, like she thought he would. Like that was a big surprise; when did Alec ever do what she expected?

For a long moment, nothing happened, and then, finally, the door opened, and Alec stepped through, face grim, a little haunted. He scanned the darkness quickly. She held her breath, and pressed herself closer to the wall, though all of the abandoned work equipment and crates were already doing a good enough job of hiding her. Not that she was really hiding... she... just didn't want to deal with... whatever this was. He must not have seen her, because he slumped, and sighed, and started making for the exit, muttering to himself. As he passed by her, not hiding, but hidden, spot, she heard him clearly enough.

“Stupid, stupid, so fucking stupid. Mole told me not to come back to the goddamn Zoo, why the fuck didn’t I listen-”

He wrenched open the door to the emergency stairwell, and the echoing sound of his boots hitting stairs met her ears before the door even fell shut. She slumped into darkness.

And for one long moment, for some unknown reason, almost felt like she wanted to cry. She was just like him, then; stupid, stupid, so fucking stupid.

She waited a few moments before she followed him down, through the echoing stairwell, into the outside air. She opened the heavy exit door in time to see him get into the passenger side of the black sedan. The blonde woman glanced up in surprise, almost like a wary animal that had sensed a threat, and their eyes connected over the top of the car. They stayed like that for a moment, brown locked with gold, frozen in surprise, before the sound of a window being rolled down caught their attention and Alec’s annoyed voice, “What are you waiting for, Casey, an invitation? Let’s go, already,” rang out. The blonde rolled her eyes and slipped into the driver’s side, gunning the engine before Alec could notice Max. Max wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Alec, who finally noticed her in the side mirror as they were pulling away, didn’t know either.

“Where to?” Casey’s usually vibrant voice had an edge of bite to it, one that Alec didn’t feel like blunting right now. Drops of water hit the windshield. Casey scowled at them.

Alec thought for a moment. Where else was there to go? To go see Josh? Tell him sorry I put everything you knew into upheaval? Sorry I screwed up our family? Like sorry would ever be good enough.

“Let’s just meet with the contact and get the hell out of here,” He grumped, rubbing at his forehead. “I’m tired.”

Casey flicked on the windshield wipers as the rain hardened. “I hate Seattle,” Her dark mutter reverberated through the compartment. Alec stared out the window and into darkness. In honesty, he didn’t know whether or not he agreed.

Max, left alone in the sudden downpour, was staring up at a night sky balefully, blinking away water, thinking thoughts very similar to Casey’s. And then from nowhere, the memory of a kiss, his kiss, seared through her body, and everything went tight, right before everything got guilty.

“What do you mean, you kissed him?” Logan’s voice was flat. He didn’t even budge, or offer to find a towel for her, despite her rather unenchanting resemblance to a drowned cat.

Why had she told him? Stupid guilt, always getting in the way. She'd avoided Josh, and opened the door to her office, and he'd been there, and he'd looked at her, and of course it just had to pop out of her mouth.

“Wait, no, that’s not what I meant! I didn’t kiss him!” She corrected herself, “He kissed me!”

“Why?” His voice was still that deadpan, ‘you’ve disappointed me’ tone, that Max always dreaded hearing.

“Because I saved his life?” She shrugged, not as indifferent as she appeared; more caged, moody, ready to spring, ready to lash out, then she let on.

Logan blinked in surprise before he demanded, “When?”

It just kind of slipped out. “Right after I inadvertently tried to kill him.”

“What?” Logan asked, and for a moment looked confused. For a moment, Max felt confused herself. She shook it away, crossed the distance to her desk, all the while wondering why had he been waiting for her, anyway? Had someone told him that Alec had been in, is that why he was hanging out in her office, well after midnight? That must be it... After all, he had immediately seemed to know of whom she'd been speaking.

“It doesn’t matter, anyway.” She muttered darkly. “He’s left with Cassie, or Casey, or whatever the hell her name is.”

“Who?”

Max sank into her chair and swiveled to face him, her voice deceptively light. “Gee, Logan, throw a 'where' and a ‘how’ in there, and we’re well on our way to a journalistic masterpiece.”

“Wait a minute,” He shook his head at her scathing sarcasm. “Why are you mad at me? You’re the one that-“

She cut him off before he could finish the accusation that would undoubtedly lead to an even larger argument. “Hey, don’t even go where I think you’re going! I didn’t do anything wrong! This is all his fault!”

He stared at her for a long moment, his eyes guarded. She could never read him. Sometimes, Logan was more a mystery to her then Alec was. It was only further testimony, when completely out of nowhere, he asked her, “Do you love him?”

“What?” It was her turn to demand, straightening in her seat. “What the hell kind of question is that?”

Logan stood resolute before her desk. “One that, as your fiancée, I believe I have the right to ask. Do – you – love – him?” He repeated, enunciating each word precisely.

“I trusted him!” She shot back sharply, her eyes narrowing. “He was supposed to be my back-up, my Second, and he betrayed me. He took everything from me! So how the hell can you stand there and ask me something as stupid as 'do I love him?'"

He paused, his mouth snapping shut, his blue eyes narrowing. "You're always saying that..."

It was her turn to pause, her mind scanning her words. What had she even said? It'd all been a garbled outpouring of feelings, a snarling mess. Thought had hardly gone into it. "Saying what?" She demanded.

"That he took everything. What is everything, Max?" Logan's voice was relentless, his sharp, canny eyes scanning her face for some kind of answer.

She opened her mouth... and then closed it, because she didn't have an answer for him. What was everything? What had Alec taken from her? Quite a few things, obviously. Her command, a whole hell of a lot of her pride, about 7/10ths of a populace that she hadn't been sure she wanted to lead, a handful of her good friends, and a few bucketfuls of her already woefully lacking trust in people. That, and himself. He'd also taken himself away, but naturally, that hardly counted. What had he taken?

... Just... everything... he'd just taken... everything.

Logan asked, one final time.

"Do you love him, Max?"

“No, Logan,” She answered tiredly. “No, I don’t love him.”

How could she love Alec? Sometimes, she was quite sure that she didn’t even know him. But really, as her memory once more tripped across the feeling of warm lips and shuddering breaths, did she really know herself?

Further installments forthcoming. Right, off to play some Star Ocean, then. Bwahaha.
(so evil)

DA Vid - Just a Little Girl

2009-07-13T01:44:13Z

Not my happiest vid. But I likes it. :)

Just uploaded. Give a minute :)

Edit: 7/14: Erm, sorry, had some problems and had to reload it.

Hey anonymous person...

2009-07-04T16:44:31Z

I listened to that song "The End", and I loved it! Be warned though, it typically takes me between 1 and 3 months to make a video... it's a combination of ADD and a high stress career. I'll definitely work on it though.

HuZzah!

2009-07-04T05:01:22Z

AHAHAHAHAHAH! After two looooong weeks, I finally have a personal computer again! AHAHAHAHAH! Yay, so happy! ^_^