Fic: Maybe You Just Missed the Sun, Max/Alec, Teen
Title: Maybe You Just Missed the Sun
Author: Impertinence
Rating: Teens
Fandom: Dark Angel
Pairing: Max/Alec
Summary: She got out and he didn't, but they both remember too much.
||
When X5-494 was four years old it learned three things.
One: American human children believe in a nondenominational creature known as “Santa Claus”, which delivers toys on the Christian (but celebrated by most agnostics as well) holiday “Christmas”.
Two: That such a widespread cultural phenomenon is, obviously, a weakness, and must be exploited.
Three: “Santa Claus” does not exist.
||
Max was five when they let her kill a man.
X5-452 was shown to a large room. Bookcases, chairs, and tables cluttered the space in front of it; the target, it had been told, was somewhere in the room. It was given a .45 and told to use lethal force.
According to Manticore records, X5-452 decimated its target in 3.81 seconds.
||
The escapees were never legends because the one soldier who tried to talk about them was terminated.
It-he-was X5-231, and he (it?) was ten years old when he (yes.) was led away from his group.
X5-494 noted the absence and kept quiet.
It was the only way to survive.
||
The escape wasn’t easy but it was the only option left.
There could be no more of this-the fighting, the killing. X5-452 could feel her mind crumbling. She did not want to go insane like many of her fellow soldiers.
But when she saw the outside world she knew how crazy she’d been to leave in the first place.
The right kind of crazy, Zack had told her.
She wanted to believe him.
||
“I never-“
“Me neither.”
Inhale, exhale. Soft breaths mingling.
“I can’t.” Max shakes her head angrily. “I-Alec, I can’t. I can’t sit here and pretend that it’s not…they didn’t even give us names.”
“I know.” Alec’s lips are soft on her hair. “We’ll find the words someday, Max.”
She thinks of trying to explain it-to Joshua, to Sketchy, to all the people who need to know the unknowable. “How?”
The smile never reaches his lips, but she can hear it all the same. “Still working on that part, Maxie.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Hey, I let you name me.”
“You thought I was going to sleep with you.” Max pokes his stomach. “Which, by the way, is never going to happen. Ever.”
“Aw, c’mon.” His hands tickle the back of her neck. “Don’t you know the transgenics have special mating times? If we don’t do it, we might die.”
“’Do it?’” Max wrinkles her nose. “I don’t have sex with twelve-year-olds, sorry.”
“So there’s a chance,” Alec says, and the answer they both know she’ll give is right there in his voice.
“Duh,” Max says, rolling her eyes.
When the kid tosses a tin can at her, Max moves to catch it. By the time she’s reached her hand out, Alec has crushed it and thrown it back at the kid.
“Projectile training,” he says casually. Max doesn’t comment.
||
X5-494 learned about chivalry when he turned thirteen.
He learned that human women expect it, and he learned how to use it against them. He learned when rape was a weapon.
X5-494 was curious about what the female soldiers learned, but his training in body language told him that it would be imprudent to ask.
||
Max was fourteen when she almost lost her virginity.
She didn’t understand much about the hows or the whys, but she understood what the boy wanted, and she was willing to give it to him. He had information on the other transgenics; it was a fair trade.
But when he held himself over her and started pushing in, she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t complete the mission.
The tears should have been more shameful than the violation would have been. She considered it a mark of her failure that they weren’t.
||
“Want me to walk you home?”
“Oh, please. I can beat you up.” Max punches him in the arm to emphasize her point.
“Well, yeah, but I heard it was the right thing to do.”
The right (human) thing.
“Okay,” Max says finally. They walk back to the apartment side-by-side.
||
X5-494 kissed a girl when he was fifteen.
It was a controlled experiment, a test of how well he would be able to reign in his base impulses. Five scientists were watching; the kiss was dry and lasted less than a second.
His superiors were pleased.
||
She never wanted to kiss a person until she met Logan.
||
Seattle winters are cold and Alec is warm. It’s a seriously crappy excuse, and Max hopes she’ll never have to use it.
“Logan,” Alec murmurs when their lips part.
Max raises an eyebrow at him.
“Oh, Jesus. That’s a disgusting visual.” Alec grimaces at her. “What I meant was-I thought you and he, I mean-“
“We can’t,” she says softly.
“Thanks to me.”
No. She moves closer, kisses him again. It’s harder this time: teeth nipping at his lips, fingers tight against her waist.
“Please,” Max whispers. Their arms tighten around each other.
Max buries her face in Alec’s neck and holds on.
||
The last lesson Manticore ever taught him was that we all are who we pretend to be.
X5-494 didn’t understand at first when X5-452 gave him his name. He thought she was an anomaly; he was sure she would be killed.
When he saw her helping the kids, strong and stubborn and stupid in so many ways, he thought: Max.
When Sketchy cracked a joke and X5-494 laughed, he thought: Alec.
We are who we pretend to be.
X5-494. Alec.
A person.
||
The soft whisper of skin against skin, quiet moans and tense sighs.
“This,” Max says. “This. It’s okay.”
Alec lets Manticore go long enough to believe.
||
End.
||
Notes: Title from "Look Up", a song by a group called Stars.
Author: Impertinence
Rating: Teens
Fandom: Dark Angel
Pairing: Max/Alec
Summary: She got out and he didn't, but they both remember too much.
||
When X5-494 was four years old it learned three things.
One: American human children believe in a nondenominational creature known as “Santa Claus”, which delivers toys on the Christian (but celebrated by most agnostics as well) holiday “Christmas”.
Two: That such a widespread cultural phenomenon is, obviously, a weakness, and must be exploited.
Three: “Santa Claus” does not exist.
||
Max was five when they let her kill a man.
X5-452 was shown to a large room. Bookcases, chairs, and tables cluttered the space in front of it; the target, it had been told, was somewhere in the room. It was given a .45 and told to use lethal force.
According to Manticore records, X5-452 decimated its target in 3.81 seconds.
||
The escapees were never legends because the one soldier who tried to talk about them was terminated.
It-he-was X5-231, and he (it?) was ten years old when he (yes.) was led away from his group.
X5-494 noted the absence and kept quiet.
It was the only way to survive.
||
The escape wasn’t easy but it was the only option left.
There could be no more of this-the fighting, the killing. X5-452 could feel her mind crumbling. She did not want to go insane like many of her fellow soldiers.
But when she saw the outside world she knew how crazy she’d been to leave in the first place.
The right kind of crazy, Zack had told her.
She wanted to believe him.
||
“I never-“
“Me neither.”
Inhale, exhale. Soft breaths mingling.
“I can’t.” Max shakes her head angrily. “I-Alec, I can’t. I can’t sit here and pretend that it’s not…they didn’t even give us names.”
“I know.” Alec’s lips are soft on her hair. “We’ll find the words someday, Max.”
She thinks of trying to explain it-to Joshua, to Sketchy, to all the people who need to know the unknowable. “How?”
The smile never reaches his lips, but she can hear it all the same. “Still working on that part, Maxie.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Hey, I let you name me.”
“You thought I was going to sleep with you.” Max pokes his stomach. “Which, by the way, is never going to happen. Ever.”
“Aw, c’mon.” His hands tickle the back of her neck. “Don’t you know the transgenics have special mating times? If we don’t do it, we might die.”
“’Do it?’” Max wrinkles her nose. “I don’t have sex with twelve-year-olds, sorry.”
“So there’s a chance,” Alec says, and the answer they both know she’ll give is right there in his voice.
“Duh,” Max says, rolling her eyes.
When the kid tosses a tin can at her, Max moves to catch it. By the time she’s reached her hand out, Alec has crushed it and thrown it back at the kid.
“Projectile training,” he says casually. Max doesn’t comment.
||
X5-494 learned about chivalry when he turned thirteen.
He learned that human women expect it, and he learned how to use it against them. He learned when rape was a weapon.
X5-494 was curious about what the female soldiers learned, but his training in body language told him that it would be imprudent to ask.
||
Max was fourteen when she almost lost her virginity.
She didn’t understand much about the hows or the whys, but she understood what the boy wanted, and she was willing to give it to him. He had information on the other transgenics; it was a fair trade.
But when he held himself over her and started pushing in, she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t complete the mission.
The tears should have been more shameful than the violation would have been. She considered it a mark of her failure that they weren’t.
||
“Want me to walk you home?”
“Oh, please. I can beat you up.” Max punches him in the arm to emphasize her point.
“Well, yeah, but I heard it was the right thing to do.”
The right (human) thing.
“Okay,” Max says finally. They walk back to the apartment side-by-side.
||
X5-494 kissed a girl when he was fifteen.
It was a controlled experiment, a test of how well he would be able to reign in his base impulses. Five scientists were watching; the kiss was dry and lasted less than a second.
His superiors were pleased.
||
She never wanted to kiss a person until she met Logan.
||
Seattle winters are cold and Alec is warm. It’s a seriously crappy excuse, and Max hopes she’ll never have to use it.
“Logan,” Alec murmurs when their lips part.
Max raises an eyebrow at him.
“Oh, Jesus. That’s a disgusting visual.” Alec grimaces at her. “What I meant was-I thought you and he, I mean-“
“We can’t,” she says softly.
“Thanks to me.”
No. She moves closer, kisses him again. It’s harder this time: teeth nipping at his lips, fingers tight against her waist.
“Please,” Max whispers. Their arms tighten around each other.
Max buries her face in Alec’s neck and holds on.
||
The last lesson Manticore ever taught him was that we all are who we pretend to be.
X5-494 didn’t understand at first when X5-452 gave him his name. He thought she was an anomaly; he was sure she would be killed.
When he saw her helping the kids, strong and stubborn and stupid in so many ways, he thought: Max.
When Sketchy cracked a joke and X5-494 laughed, he thought: Alec.
We are who we pretend to be.
X5-494. Alec.
A person.
||
The soft whisper of skin against skin, quiet moans and tense sighs.
“This,” Max says. “This. It’s okay.”
Alec lets Manticore go long enough to believe.
||
End.
||
Notes: Title from "Look Up", a song by a group called Stars.