Okay just a little fluffy one-shot that I cooked up while trying to think of some background for a supernatural-da fic that I was thinking bout writing….this is probably the most you'll see of it. Be nice it was written at 2 in the morning on a day when I had school the next day. I know it seems that they're kind of out of character, especially Max, but I try to make it seem that I'm touching on a deep phobia, plus aftermath of heat, everything is blurry and she's completely emotional. Also quick warning, it's a little ummm…adult in parts, but I've seen a lot worse with an M rating. Enjoy…I don't own Dark Angel.
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It had started simply. A truce, a crease-fire in the constant arguing and bickering. It wasn't that they never disagreed; rather, they learned how to talk to each other like the leaders that everyone had decided they were. It also wasn't to say that he never acted like a dumb ass just to piss her off, or that she didn't use him as a punching bag to vent her emotions on.
It wasn't just the fact that they had to work together to run Terminal City. They had both changed. Alec had been maturing from the day Manticore was destroyed. The first real decision he ever made that wasn't based solely on not being killed or the safety of his unit mates had been to save Max when he had had the bomb in his brain stem. At Manticore he had been a leader. One of Manticore's finest, perhaps not the most physically strong, but in the top class, and he could match it with speed and brains. When Manticore first went down he had tried to distance himself away from all of it, including the leadership. It wasn't long though, before his instinct drove him to try to help his fellow transgenics. And despite his failures, Berrisford and 493, he was still considered an Alpha male and one of the highest ranking officers, so they transgenics followed him.
Max finally learned what it was like to be transgenic. The others were at first hesitant to associate themselves with her because she was an '09er. To her surprise, it was Alec who talked a lot of people into trusting her. After her inspirational speech, the transgenics started securing TC, and others began flocking to them. Eventually they even had to set up another official base in Canada, this one staying more out of the public's eye, to deal with the increasing amounts of refugees. Max soon found out things about Alec and the other transgens that she never would have guessed.
First of all, Alec had been playing gentle with her the entire time. She still blushed when she thought back to the day, not long after TC was first established, when she had been beaten in a sparring match with an X-5 male that Alec had just taken down without breaking a sweat. After, seeing her state of surprise, one of the X-5 females had come over to comfort her, reminding her that even though she was pretty strong for a female, the males had been better built for hand to hand combat with higher muscle mass, denser bones, better adrenal stores, and a stronger fighting instinct, so it was unlikely that and females would be able to beat their male counterparts in a physical fight. She'd been pissed, but after a few awkward apologies she'd gotten over it, especially after being assured that the unexpected kick in the balls during their fight had if fact been as paralyzing as it had looked, so she considered it her fairly won victory.
It seemed like the more time she spent with her new family the more she became in tuned with her animal side. Some of the things she'd seen the transgenics do, like the fight she was prevented from trying to break up between two males arguing over which had the right to try to court a female first which had resulted in a concussion, 4 broken ribs, black eyes, a broken nose, a fractured radius, and lots of bruising and bleeding, would have seemed inhuman and violent to her a few years ago. But that is just what it was: inhuman. They weren't human, she accepted it. There were dark sides to their nature; but there was also good. Like the times when she felt like she was reaching her limit and some female transgenic who she hardly knew could just walk up to her and bush shoulders with her or pat her on the back without breaking stride to offer her some support through physical contact. She was comfortable with the males, and they with her, it was just seen as a part of etiquette not to initiate that sort of contact with the opposite gender unless both parties were already mated and said mates were also there.
Alec had been elected leader after a while. The chain of command was mostly male, it sounded chauvinistic, but it was necessary, because in all honesty the males really were better at leading military campaigns and supplying the city during siege. The females had their own chain of command, less organized, and existing more as an advisory committee that was almost always listened to. Max found herself as one of the female leader, but outside of the city she was in charge of negotiations with the ordinaries.
Max and Logan's relationship hadn't lasted long. She came clean about Alec, and though Logan had forgiven her, he still seemed to be overly suspicious of her going on supply runs with Alec. They had eventually found a cure, but Max was still nervous when ever she was around him. Between his constant pressure on her to continue their relationship from where they had left off before the DNA lab, his always wanting her to go on what seemed to be increasingly pointless and dangerous Eyes Only missions, and his poking around in transgenic plans when it seemed obvious that most of TC's inhabitants didn't trust him, Max found herself avoiding him and loathing any time she spend with him. She had been trying to ease him out of the relationship, realizing that she didn't want to be with someone who made her so unhappy, when she found out about Seth. Needless to say the relationship had broken off rather quickly.
Still, afterwards she found herself somewhat depressed. It wasn't that she missed him, it was just that it hurt to be so disappointed in something that she had put so much energy into making right. To her surprise, it had been Alec on the Space Needle that night, who slung an arm over her shoulder and sat beside her for a few hours in silence before falling asleep a little while before the morning meeting. It seemed odd to her how touching she found it that he trusted her enough to sleep and allow himself to be completely defenseless. After that things had started to change. They went to get drinks some nights after a long planning session. They laughed more and got to know each other. They had also each shared some of the skeletons in their closets.
Of course Ben and Rachel, Biggs and Zack, were some of the first painful subjects that were broached. But they each had deeper pains too. It didn't all come out at once. Sometimes it wasn't even spoken aloud just understood from observation, but in between the teasing they understood each other better. Max had never told anyone some of her worst memories, like when she was four and her unit was doing an extended practice mission. One of her siblings had fallen into a hidden pit and had landed on his head. She went after him, but the rope she had been rappelling down on had somehow broken and she had ended up with a broken leg. Unable to retrieve their teammate without risking capture, her unit had been ordered to continue. She watched them run away from the pit. She stayed there with the body of her sister for a good twelve hours before she was collected by the 'enemy'. She had been mildly tortured, starved and put in a room with no windows and no human contact for a few days, simulating what might have happened had she actually been captured.
She had tried to put the experience behind her, and she might have were it not for the escape. Lydecker had killed Eva and Jack, and Zack had ordered them to escape. When she fell to the floor seizing she was sure that they would follow through, leaving her. Of course Zack would never do that to his baby sister. She almost let tears of relief escape her eyes when he helped her. She was heart broken when Zack split them all up, but at least she had had Jondy with her. She wouldn't be alone. But then the ice, and the lake, and she was left again. Jondy didn't have a choice but for the next ten years she searched for her siblings praying she wasn't alone. Then when Zack showed up, only to say that he would leave her. And again, when the transgenics were stand-offish because she had escaped. She had always tried to keep people at a distance because it hurt so bad to lose them. She was terrified by how close she was getting to Alec and the others, just waiting for them to leave her.
Alec had been in a special program as a child. He had been placed into an extended operation, acting as a normal child to get used to the deep cover ops he would perform as an adult in assassinations. The small amounts of time he spent with his 'family' contrasted starkly against the brutal training at Manticore. The regiment had been stricter for those in the program because they didn't what them to be tainted by spending time in the outside. After '09 he had been pulled from the program and placed in Psy-Ops. After that he had dedicated himself to being perfect. He hated his assassinations, and most of the military campaigns, but he blocked out all the emotions he felt while on missions. He learned how to lead, and how to take care of those in his unit. And then Ben decided to start playing dentist. Again, Psy-Ops. There was discussion of putting him down, but the motion was overruled because of his past successes. He was put on the Berrisford case immediately after his release. It was destined to go wrong from the beginning; he was completely unstable from Psy- Ops and from not seeing his unit for so long.
This time in they tried a new method along with the reindoc and Psy-ops. It was common knowledge that despite any efforts made by trainers or the command, the transgenics had formed a pack society. As their leader, 494 was attached to and responsible for them all. So, between the telecoersion, they slipped in suggestions of how is screw-ups had harmed his unit. Not anything too direct, they still wanted him to be able to lead if they ever cleared him for duty again, but just images of dead unit mates that they suggested might not have died had he been better. This was followed by an intensive round of 'discouragements' for forming attachments. As hoped, it didn't stop Alec from being a good leader, or to spend hours agonizing over decisions. Rather it just made it hard for him to open up enough to form attachments with anyone new other than superficially. It also taught him to hate himself whenever he messed up. Not just big things, anything. As soon as he had time to himself, even in his sleep, he loathed himself for the things he did wrong, the things that weren't done to perfection, a fact that made Max wince when she remembered all the times she had called him a screw-up over something stupid.
So that night at Central, when Alec was working at his desk and he heard a fight outside, he really didn't have a clue what would happen. Running down the stairs he looked out the door in time to see Max push some guy away from her and in to a group of three other X-5 males saying in an exasperated and forceful voice, "But I don't want any of the you idiots, dammit!" Looking at Max Alec could tell something was wrong. It was late November, and she was only wearing a long sleeved shirt and jeans, but she didn't seem cold, and she was shifting back and forth tossing her hair over her shoulder like a nervous horse. Then it hit him like a fist in the gut, pheromones, heat.
In all honesty he didn't remember a lot from the next few days. He remembered Max running at him, trying to pin him to the wall. He remembered smashing his fist into some guy's face that wouldn't get out of his way. Everything was in fragmented pieces and floating in a haze of pleasure, the taste of blood when he bit into her lip, the way she had lowered herself onto all fours and started making a soft mewling sound as soon as she'd gotten her clothes off, waking up to find her rubbing against his leg, her nails raking across his back while her legs tightened around his waist and her eyes closed and her lips frowned in concentration, the way she had started grinning and almost laughed before sighing when he kissed that one spot right between her shoulder blade and her spine, and perhaps most vividly the tears she had running down her face right after that last time and how he had stated to kiss her cheeks before she wrapped both arms around him and pulled him as close as she could before she started rubbing her face against his chest.
Max's eyes fluttered open. She wondered why she was still asleep, she was usually up before dawn, but there was obviously light shining from behind the curtains. It wasn't until she shifted a little that her foggy mind realized what was different. She was lying half on top of a warm body, she could feel the top of said body's head against her cheek, and his face nuzzled into her neck. Lying slightly on her left side she examined her position. Her legs were tangled, with one of his bent slightly between her own, allowing her bottom half to curve closer to his. His top arm reached across her chest and was gently grasping one breast, while the other went under their bodies and was between her legs, resting against her upper, inner thigh. The thing that seemed odd to her, as she took it all in, was that she wasn't panicking. His deep breathing, the rhythmic pounding of his heart, the strong warmth of his body, and the deep, almost musky scent he was producing was soothing.
She could feel her eyelids drooping, it was so tempting just to relax and fall back to sleep, but that temptation was what put her on alert. She had never actually slept with a man, and it was starting to make her nervous. She tried back tracking, and when she put together more or less what happened she felt a wave of guilt wash over her. Why Alec? He was her friend, he trusted her, and she had thrown herself at him like she expected him to just fuck her with no consideration for his own life or desires. He wasn't like her other heat partners. He wasn't just a stranger, like Rafer. He certainly wasn't like one of the raping scumbags that she'd encouraged the first few times she went into heat. Just thinking back to some of the men she had happily let lead her into an alley when she was eleven made her shudder. She felt another pang, Alec hadn't been sleeping around as much lately, but what if he was in a relationship with one of the X-5s. She turned her head a little, deciding to get it over with and at least look at him, only to be confronted with a pair of golden green eyes.
Alec looked down her body, across the tangled limbs. Parts of her caramel skin were covered by the white sheet. It seemed strange how the simple contrast in colors combined with her warmth so close to him made him want to smile. He knew it wouldn't last; the pheromones had dissipated over the last few hours. He wondered what she would do, a few months ago he knew she would have left without a word, well, maybe a few insults and betrayed glances. And maybe then he would have been able to let her go. It would have torn him up, but maybe he could have just stood back and let her walk away, but now… now he wasn't sure.
He felt her shift and turned his head just in time to meat her nervous eyes. It hurt him, the way her body started to tense and she began to pull away. Fight the urge to pull her close, he loosened his arms and scooted away a little. Then awkward silence. He noted with some sarcasm that at least she wasn't trying to cover herself up or smack him, though looking at some of the bruises of her arms and legs he thought that he might have been okay with her doing both. Against his will, his mouth began moving, "Do you want me to leave you alone?" The words came out harsher than he meant them to.
Max looked at him, trying to wrap her mind around the question. Looking at his pleading eyes she could see that it was important but she didn't understand. Why would she want him to leave? After what she had done, did it matter what she wanted? Did he think that there was some reason she would force him to leave, she was pretty sure this was his apartment. Alec swallowed a lump in his throat, nodding a little, hardening himself against what he was sure to be condemning words. She looked at him now glittering eyes. Did he what to go? She thought, 'If he leaves what will I do?' Could it ever just go back to the way it was? Would he really leave her alone? Never, speak to her again as a friend or wrap his arm around her shoulders. Suddenly all she could see was her unit walking away from her, only Alec was with them, and she was all alone.
Alec looked at her waiting. He heard her give a small choked cry before she launched herself across the bed. Expecting a slap he was surprised to feel her wrap her arms around his chest as she had last night, before saying softly, "Please…please, don't leave me alone!" He looked down at her, his hands already starting to stroke her back before trying to sooth her murmuring to her that it would be okay, he had her.
She looked up, the tip of her nose red and tear tracks running down cheeks while her teeth chewed on her lower lip. She started again in a choked voice, "I-I'm so sorry, Alec, please…please. I'm sorry, I didn't mean…I mean, I wanted to and…the heat…I was just going to-to stay in, you know? But I was outside, and the other males…I couldn't even…all I wanted was you, and I … God I'm so sorry. Please don't leave me, even if you hate me now give me a chance to t-try…dammit! I'm so sorry." Her shoulders stated shaking again.
Alec rocked her for a few moments before whispering, "Max? Max, come on, it'll be alright. Max, look at me? Don't be sorry. It wasn't your fault. I didn't want it to be this way when you didn't even have a God-damned choice…shit! I mean I've been trying to work up enough guts to just kiss you…damn, I'm such a fuck-up. Maxie, please…I messed up bad, but it'll be okay. I'll stick around, make it better somehow." 'You god-damned idiot, look what you did, this is all your fault…" ran like a mantra through Alec head as he watched Max stare at him with glassy eyes. Her forehead crinkled a little.
"Alec…are you saying that you actually wanted me?" He would have laughed if it hadn't been for the way she was staring at him with a suddenly unreadable look on her face. He had the urge to scream, 'Of course I wanted you…want you. If I hadn't why I have let you get pissed off and take out your anger on me when you need the release. Why else would I have put four of my friends in a hospital when they tried to fight out their disputes over my earlier claim on you?'
Instead he took a calming breath and said simply, "Yeah, Max. I wanted you. At first I thought that when you finally wised up about Logan, you might just go for a one-night stand, and I'd get it out of my system, but now…I wanted it to be so much more." Max dropped her head onto his shoulder and tried to sort it all out. 'He wants me…at least he did. What do I do? How do I tell him?'
Max lifted her head, and seeing how much he was beating himself up over it, decided on the virtue of bluntness before saying, "Alec I-I think I love you. You don't have to love me, but I just thought you should know…you know, that it isn't you fault. I was out of it, but I wanted you and…" suddenly her nerve was gone, and she sat back on her heals waiting for him to say something. In any other circumstance it would have been funny to watch the emotions play across his face. Confusion, thoughtfulness, doubt, and finally hope and a little joy.
He turned to her, and with a grin that somehow reminded her of a puppy, he wrapped both arms around her to pull her tight, rolled them both over into a lying position in the bed, and kissed her. It wasn't a kiss that preluded anything else, in fact other than the length of it, it was moderately chaste, but it still burned with passion. Alec looked at her resting his forehead against hers, and asked "Max, is this really okay with you? Do you want this?" Blinking slowly, she reached out with one hand and began lightly tracing the contours of his cheek, before resting it against the back of his neck, over his barcode. "Yeah, this is okay with me."
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Weak ending, but I hoped you liked it. Review please.