Lash. Out.
by
Kel
Disclaimer: I do not own Dark Angel or it's characters, and gain no profit from this work of fiction.
Author's Note: This is an old fic I wrote for the Guess the Writer competition at Agora (agora(dot)suddenlaunch2(dot)com). Post Dawg Day Afternoon. Angst.
Joshua slept more than peacefully. He was out like a rock, Max observed from her vantage point, sitting next to him on his bed. She gently pushed a stray strand of hair from his forehead. It was almost as if the day's horrible events had forced his mind to shut down hard; to seek temporary relief from the pain of the death of the woman he loved.
Max and Alec had silently and unanimously agreed to spend the night at Joshua's, to be there should he need them. Max was confident that the last thing he needed was to be alone, and this had been confirmed when he had asked the two X5's to stay.
So Alec slept in the guest room, which had been his room not long ago, while Max, who did not sleep, remained at Joshua's bedside.
The house, so normally filled with Joshua's vibrance and life, seemed silent and empty. Rooms stretched for miles. Tension, pain, and grief hung around like a thick fog.
Max was beginning to suspect she could have been deaf without knowing it, when a sound from another room assured her that she was not. Max was loathe to leave Joshua to check it out, but he was so quiet and still that she felt she could risk it. She slid gently off the bed as the soft noise repeated itself. It sounded oddly like a whimper.
Max tiptoed into Alec's room, and came upon a scene that broke her heart for the hundredth time that night. Alec lay in bed asleep, the covers pulled down to his waist, tossing and turning lightly, whimpering and murmuring. Tears rolled down his cheeks. Max crept closer and stood over him. The t-shirt he wore was soaked in sweat and clung to him tightly.
Max reached out and gently stroked his cheek, attempting to comfort him. The sad, dejected, and heart-broken expression on his face was a far cry from his usual cocky grin. It was all Max could do to keep from taking him into her arms. She knew it'd be best not to wake him suddenly, as he was likely to lash out. His reaction to Joshua putting his hand on his shoulder during the big fella's first dinner party was proof enough.
Max called out his name softly, but Alec did not wake. "Alec," she called, a little more loudly this time. She received no response. "Alec!"
His features twisted in agony at his nightmare, and he shook his head sluggishly. "No . . . no . . ." he murmured, but did not waken.
"Alec!" Max kept trying, but the nightmare kept him clutched in its grasp. She patted his cheek gently with her palm. His head snapped away from her hand as if she had burned him, and then, without warning, his arm lashed out and he fastened an iron grip on her forearm. She jumped a mile and acting on instinct, she jerked it away from him.
Alec whimpered again in his sleep. "Rachel . . ."
Max froze. Her bottom lip quivered involuntarily. He was dreaming about her. Max hadn't even considered how much recent events would have brought up the memory. Her heart swelled with pity and despair for her friend, and tears slipped silently down her cheeks.
"Rachel . . ." Alec murmured again, sound barely passing between his lips. Then he snapped upright into a sitting position; awake. His breath came in short, sharp gasps.
Max flew to his side in an instant, a comforting hand encircling his arm. "Alec!" she said. He jerked the limb from her grasp and scrambled across the bed; away from her. He tried to lean back onto his hands, but they hit only air and he fell backwards onto the floor with a thud and a grunt. If it hadn't been for the dream and the pain it had obviously caused him, Max would have laughed. As it was, if just wasn't funny.
He pulled himself back against the wall and wrapped his arms tightly around his knees. "What are you doing in here?" he asked tiredly.
"I . . . you were making noise," Max told him. "Are you alright?"
"What do you think?" he growled. No mask, no smile. No energy for it.
"I'm sorry . . ." Max said. "I didn't think about-"
"No Max, you don't think at all," Alec cut in. "Every time you stand near him, every time you let him drive you home, every time you eat fucking pasta with him, you're not thinking."
"Alec," Max said. "I . . ."
"Have no idea how it feels," he finished for her.
"No?"
"No."
Max grew angry. He didn't want her pity, that much was obvious. And what pity did he deserve when he presumed to know anything about her, when he butted into her personal life? When he was such a pessimist and thought that he could drag everyone down with him every time he felt bad? "So you're saying, that when Logan's infected with the virus, when he almost dies because of me, that I have no idea how it feels to hurt the person that I love? Who loves me? I'll have you know that I am doing everything I can to-"
"To remain friends? To keep him at arms length but still have him around?"
"To protect him," Max informed him with venom in her voice.
"And what exactly have you done to protect him? Wore gloves?"
What the hell was the matter with him? Fine, if he wanted to know, then she'd tell him. "I told him I . . . I told him I was seeing someone else."
"Oh, whoop-dee-do. You're seeing someone else. Like who? Sketchy? Someone he knows can't hold a candle to 'what you two had,' no doubt."
"I suppose so, yeah," Max hissed. "I let him think it was you. You're right, he probably saw right through it."
"And he's still hovering around. You're going to get him killed. But at least you'll have one thing going for you, with that kind of-"
"No Alec, I'm not going to get him killed. I love him. And that means I'll do whatever I can to keep him alive. You know, a whole lot different from what love means to you."
Woken up by the noise of the X5's arguing, Joshua came in. "Max? Alec? What's up?" He frowned at Alec, who was staring at Max with an animalistic look of hatred.
"Oh nothing, just debating the facts of life," Max snarled, glaring at Alec.
"What facts?" Joshua asked.
"Oh, just that Alec's a pessimistic, cold blooded murderer," Max remarked snidely.
Alec snapped. In a liquid smooth movement, he lunged up from the floor at Max. Joshua's large hand wrapped around the back of his neck before he could get to her, and he slammed the X5 roughly into the wall. He held and pinned Alec there.
"Bitch," Alec hissed, glaring through Joshua as if he weren't there. "I'm not the psycho in the family, remember?" Joshua took a split-second look at Max, standing behind him. Her eyes were welling up with tears. Joshua had not heard most of what the two of them had been saying to each other, but he knew that Alec's twin was more than a sore point for Max, and Alec knew it too. "You killed him, remember?" Joshua bristled. Alec had gone too far. Joshua didn't have to look to know that tears were slipping down Max's cheeks. Alec had hurt Max. Joshua loved Max, she was his friend; he had enough. No one was going to hurt someone he loved anymore.
Alec was almost blinded with tears of rage, but even if he had not been, he wouldn't have seen this coming if Joshua had taped a neon sign to his forehead. Alec's cheek exploded in pain, and his head snapped roughly to the side. The force behind the hit had been so great that for a moment after, he had hardly felt any pain at all. It didn't take long until the entire side of his face was throbbing.
He turned his face back to look Joshua in the eyes. It was shock he felt, and it was shock he saw as Joshua slowly released him and stepped back. Max had hid her face behind her arms, the sight of Joshua striking Alec too much for her to witness. The crack of skin on skin still echoed in all their ears. Alec's eyes darted from Joshua to Max, to Joshua and back again.
Alec shut down. He glared through the two of them, a blank look in his eyes. "Yeah Max, you'll have one thing going for you. With that kind of lie, he'll know what you're doing. And at least he won't hate you. And Ben asked you to kill him. You did it because it was what he wanted. He didn't hate you." His unseeing eyes turned to Joshua. "And she didn't hate you." A tear slid down Alec's blank features. He chuckled dryly. "You two think you know anything about pain."
He stumbled dumbly out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
He was gone before Max and Joshua even thought to move.
End