Author- Northernmoon
Rating – PG-13 for now (for language)
Pairings- M/A
Disclaimer- none of these characters belong to me, don't sue!
A/N- As always, I'd like any feedback you're willing to give. Assume that this is after A and M have a heart to heart about Ben but doesn't include any of the other drama after that.
Special thanks to chance32 for beta reading this chapter.
Chapter 8 - TestedSketchy's first words to Max as he spotted her in the alley were, "You're all wet!"
Max shook her head at him in mock sadness, "Always with the stellar powers of observation Sketch. Yeah, I'm wet, the rain'll do that to you."
Deciding to jump right in, Max started, "You and I, well, we have a problem."
Max took a moment while that sunk in and began to remove some of her wetter layers of clothing.
Sketchy watched her nervously as she stripped down to her tank top and began fixedly rolling and wringing out the thicker of her sweatshirts. He began sweating when she started to whip off what excess water dared to remain by beating the offending item continuously against the wall, perilously close to where he was standing.
Max watched him flinching out of the corner of her eye and smiled inwardly, somewhat proud that her shaking friend hadn't run back inside… yet.
"You see," Max stopped and ran a hand through her rapidly curling hair, "even though we've never been touchy feely about it, I thought that we were friends."
As Max started to pace in front of him, lost in thought, Sketchy swallowed, and tried to resist the temptation to escape while he still could. He noticed that, of its own volition, his body had started to slowly inch backwards towards the safety behind the door.
"You know, the kind of friends that are just there, no questions asked, 'I got your back'…and all."
In the portion of his mind not focussed on crawling away from the dangerously subdued creature in front of him, Max's words penetrated.
"But we are!" Sketchy interrupted.
Max locked her angry eyes on him and pounced.
"Then what…" slap
"The hell…" slap
"Was today…" slap
"About." slap slap slap
Realizing that his chance to escape was over, and actually feeling relief that Max had decided she still cared enough to beat on him, Sketchy tried to salvage his friendship.
"Max," he winced as another slap upside his head connected. "Just listen, you know I'm sorry."
Max resumed pacing and said bluntly, "That's just not good enough this time."
His shoulder's slouched and he began to remember what his life had been like without Max around. 'Not good dude' he thought, 'soooo not good.'
Max watched him with secret satisfaction as it finally sunk in. Then started again, with a bit more gentleness.
"Sketch, we all have skeletons in our closets. Well, I have a very big closet, like a huge –assed walk-in closet."
Sketchy nodded in recognition, he had always somehow known that Max had a harder life than most.
"Well, there's always the potential that something can get shaken out and come back and bite me on the ass. What happened today was not a big deal in the grand scheme of things."
A confused Sketchy interrupted her shaking his head, "Right, if it wasn't, then what are we doing here?"
Max swallowed, and maintaining eye contact, stopped in front of her friend and took both of his hands in hers.
"I just need to know that you're there for me no matter what gets shaken out."
Sketchy watched in shock and helplessness at the vulnerability in his friend's eyes. Then watched in sadness as her guard came back up. Max dropped his hands and turned her back towards him.
He stepped up beside her, reached out hesitantly and put his arm around her shoulders.
"Max, you're…well… the best person I know."
Max looked up at him doubtfully and began to shrug off his shoulder.
Sketchy tightened his hold.
"Seriously Max, I know I never said it before or anything but when you were gone, things were bad. I don't want to…I don't think I could deal through that again."
Max tilted her head up and gave him a small nod in acceptance of his words.
"Max, I know its not worth much, but I am here for you, whenever, whatever you need. I mean it."
Max moved away and wrapped her arms around herself against the chill.
She began softly, "Its not just enough for you to say it Sketch."
She looked up at the devastation on his face. "You need to use your head more or you're going to get yourself and maybe even me into some serious trouble sometime. Not this shit like today, Sketch, I mean serious trouble that we won't be able to get out of."
She reached over and lifted up his chin. "I know it's a lot to ask, you using your brains and all, but can you at least try, for me."
Her questioning gaze met his sincere one and he nodded. Max smiled in relief and pulled him into a hug.
"Max," mumbled Sketchy against her shoulder.
"Yeah?" She answered pulling away and rumpling his hair.
"This is about Rafer isn't it?"
"Rafer? I thought I just said he has nothing to do with this."
Sketchy stepped back once again from a very pissed off Max, his hands up in self- defence. "I just thought…well…with Rafer and then with the orange…"
Max laughed and her friend marvelled at her mood swings.
"Sketchy, anytime you want to bring me an orange you can. If it happens to be at Jam Pony and it feeds some strange sick perversion of y'all there to watch me eat it, I honestly couldn't care less. Don't get me wrong, I think its weird, really and truly weird, but I'll deal if some orangey goodness goes along with it."
"But…Alec said…" Sketchy stammered.
"Alec said what?" Max asked curiously.
"Well, you know, not to uh…bring you any more oranges."
Tramping down on the anger rising up at the thought of Alec denying her one of her favourite pleasures, Max took a deep breath.
'I am going to kill Alec' she thought.
"Let me deal with Alec, but really Sketch, this isn't about Alec, or Rafer for that matter. It's about you and me. I always have had your back Sketch. The question is whether or not you have mine."
"Ok," Sketchy said, "but in order to have your back, don't you think you should tell me the deal with Rafer."
Max looked at him speculatively then walked over to the step and patted the seat beside her. "Ok, but it ain't pretty and you may learn something shocking about me in the process."
Sketchy sat down close beside her eager for the story, and not just a little shocked that she had decided to share it with him.
Mentally racing to pull a story together, Max grasped at how she thought Alec would sell this one. Inspiration struck.
"This is going to surprise you Sketch, and to be honest, I'm a little embarrassed at how much I nagged you about it in the past. Oh well, call me a hypocrite, but I have experimented with recreational narcotics."
Glancing sideways, Max smirked at the dumbfounded expression on his face.
Getting into the story she continued dramatically, "Rafer was the last in a long string of very unhealthy relationship choices I made while under the influence."
"Max, I had no idea…"
"I told you you'd be surprised."
Sketchy nodded to himself as he took it in. It made a strange kind of sense. Max definitely acted weird sometimes.
"So Rafer?" He asked.
"Rii-ght. Well, Rafer was strangely appealing when I was… uh…high. It was a real turning point for me when I woke up and you know uh…came down, disgusted with myself. I made myself a promise right then and there that I would never have indiscriminate sex with a loser again."
Max snuck an Alec-inspired wide-eyed innocent look to watch Sketchy fall for her story hook line and sinker. 'This IS a little bit fun' she thought.
"Wow, so he must've been really into you."
"Sketchy, I'm not going to give you details, but lets just say that even though I was not myself and well, very and unusually easy to please, it wasn't…uh…"
Sketchy rescued her "Nuff said my friend, I gottcha. He totally sucked."
Max nodded seriously, "And not in the good way…"
He looked at her shocked for a second and then laughed patting her on the back.
"Listen I know that men have fragile egos and all but seriously you'd think he'd get a clue."
Sketchy smiled at her, "Yeah, well, look on the bright side, you must have been…well…" he hesitated, watching the dangerous look on her face, "uh…he must've had a good time." He finished lamely.
"So that's it?" Sketchy asked.
"Pretty much…you know except for the stalking, workplace harassment, entrapment and blackmailing of friends." Max smiled at him. "Honestly Sketch, he's seriously pathetic. I have no trouble ignoring the fool; everyone else just needs to stay out of this."
Seeing the doubt on her friend's face Max sighed and asked, "Have you ever seen an ass that I couldn't kick?"
Sketchy shook his head and winced slightly at the pain from Max's earlier ministrations.
Max put her arm around him, "Don't worry about me, I can take care of myself…and you if you're scared." She cooed at him.
Sketchy pushed her away insulted.
They sat in silence for a minute.
"So Max? We're okay?" He asked, holding out his arms.
Max rolled her eyes, "Yeah, we're okay, but if you think I'm gonna hug you again, you're gonna have to come correct."
"Just one more question though," He said. "Just out of curiosity, what was the name of that drug?"
"No Sketchy"
"Come on Max"
"Back inside now. And don't even think of asking me again."
"But Max…"
"Goodnight."
"Night Max."
She smiled to herself as the door closed behind him, happy enough with the outcome of their conversation.
"One down and one to go," She thought tiredly as she yawned and stretched.
While Alec watched Max from one of the broken second floor windows, Biggs stood back with Cece, his attention split between the conversation outside and his former CO.
A few times he looked to Cece for some clue to explain Alec's responses but, like a typical female, she hadn't been helpful.
Alec had started off relaxed and seriously amused but that quickly changed. As soon as Max fully confronted the Ordinary, Biggs expected that the tension over the whole situation would ease. It didn't. In fact the opposite happened.
Watching Max slapping Sketchy silly had entertained him, but when he looked to Alec to share it, he hadn't been able to get his attention. Instead he felt his own body stiffen in response to the threat rolling off of 494 as he watched the scene unfold below.
Biggs had scanned all over looking for something that he may initially have missed. 'No unfriendlies,' he thought, 'no surprise variables, not even a godamned sewer rat, what the hell is wrong?'
When he would have approached his friend, Cece grabbed his forearm and held him in place. 'It's been a while since she touched me willingly' he thought.
"Just watch," Cece said still holding his arm.
Biggs thought that Alec's expression couldn't get any colder until he saw the muscle in his jaw twitch. Looking down, he saw Max hugging the Ordinary and touching his hair.
Looking at Alec again with amazement he finally recognised the burn in his eyes as jealousy. He looked at Cece in time to catch the smirk on her face before it disappeared.
"You've got to be joking." He muttered to her under his breath and felt strangely disappointed when her answer was simply to remove her restraining hand.
By the time the Ordinary had gone inside Biggs had to acknowledge a reluctant admiration for the way that Max handled the confrontation. It bothered him on many levels that she appeared so comfortable and unaware of exposure dealing with people outside. He now saw that she had neat and tidily used this situation to determine the personal loyalty of Sketchy while at the same time laying the groundwork should it be necessary to share or filter further Intel in the future, amongst other things.
'Very smoothly done," he thought.
In fact, the only other person he knew who could have pulled that off was… currently tearing the board off the window and leaping gracefully and, surprisingly, quietly out onto the closed trash bin in the alley.
He and Cece moved to the spot Alec had just vacated and watched as two very angry transgenics circled each other in sparring position.
"I really don't understand him sometimes," Biggs turned to Cece gesturing the scene outside.
Cece looked him full in the face for a moment, then quietly said, "I know you don't," before turning back to the window.
A/N First of all thanks to everybody for the encouragement after the last chapter, sometimes I feel less secure about this story than others…you know how it is. Please keep reviewing & feel free to email me if you're more comfy with that.
Special thanks to the reviewers who were anonymous and to Brett, candyabble and kat. If you hook me up with and email, I'll thank you in person.
Next 2 chapters should be ALL Max and Alec!