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Title: The Farthest Thunder That I Heard Was Nearer Than the Sky
Author: alyse
Fandom: Dark Angel
Characters/Pairing: Max/Alec
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: I don't own Dark Angel or its characters. This is fanfiction, written for love of the show.
Spoilers: Set late Season 2, but before Freak Nation
Summary: Seattle isn't a place of extreme weather, just of extreme wetness. But tonight there's a storm on the horizon and it promises to be something.
Author's Notes: I originally started this story in March 2007, and it's taken until today before I've finally managed to finish it. I'm therefore kind of hoping that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mandragora1 thinks it's worth the wait, as I've been tormenting her with the prospect of Max/Alec almost since the beginning ::g::
The title comes from The Farthest Thunder That I Heard, by Emily Dickinson. Many thanks toaithine for the beta.
***
The Farthest Thunder That I Heard Was Nearer Than The Sky
The air is heavy, heavy as a truck
We need the rain to wash away our bad luck
- Electrical Storm, U2
Over the years since she settled in Seattle, Max had grown used to its quirks; grown used to them to the point where she'd grown comfortable with them. Too comfortable, sometimes, she thought, and the thought itched away in the back of her mind, leaving her tense and irritable with no way to scratch.
The itch was bad tonight, putting her on edge even though there were far worse places to be, especially for her. Seattle was mundane. It wasn't a place of extreme weather, just of extreme wetness. The storms that blew in from Seattle's south were like the gangs running in that area - all bluster and no muscle. The winds might carry water from Puget Sound and dump it by the bucketful over the city, but they lacked the bitter knife's edge that she remembered from Wyoming and the rain seldom froze.
There were no tornadoes, no hurricanes. When it snowed, the snow didn't lie thick and crisp on the ground, crackling beneath her feet as she ran. Instead, it skulked wetly in corners and turned to black sludge on the sidewalks, making everything dreary. In summer, the sun didn't bake the roads and the asphalt stayed firm under her wheels, and in spring and autumn the rain that fell - what seemed endlessly some months - was wet and dull and grey. But dull and grey made for a good place to blend in, even for someone as non-normal, as non-ordinary as she was.
But tonight there was an edge in the cool and still air. There was a storm gathering on the horizon and for once it promised to be something.
Max flicked her hair back and turned her face up to the sky, feeling the first droplets hitting hard against her skin. They were icy cold and, as they struck, she hissed out through her teeth. Her breath blossomed foggily and she huffed out again, this time just to see it.
The atmosphere was heavy with promise but it was the kind of promise only she appreciated. The rest of Seattle seemed to be scurrying away along the street, seeking cover from the raindrops that now fell with heavy splatters against the pavement. She ignored them, staying in the shadows but still under the sky, raising her hands a little so that the raindrops bounced off them and the hairs on her arms rose, pricking tendrils of tension.
The promise was kept; lightning flashed across the sky to the east as she turned her face up again. She closed her eyes, basking in the aftershock. She shouldn't have been able to feel it at that distance - not even with her enhanced senses - but it thrummed through her anyway. It was electric - literally - and for that split second she felt alive, every nerve, every follicle singing. Alive in a way she hadn't felt for some time. Everything - Logan, the virus, the ever increasing threat of exposure - slipped away and left nothing behind but this.
She took a deep breath, held it deep inside her, crisp and sharp and raw, before letting it go - slowly, over several beats - and watching it crystallise in the air again.
One, two, three, four...
Behind her the door to Crash swung open, a sudden burst of music and voices that almost drowned out the slow, low rumble of thunder that rolled overhead. When it swung shut again she was no longer alone.
"Huh," said Alec, peering out into the street and hunching his shoulders against a flurry of raindrops, blown into their meagre shelter as the air finally stirred sluggishly and a gust of wind swirled in their direction. "Looks like it's going to be a doozy of a storm."
A 'doozy'. She'd long since stopped ragging on him for the out of date slang that Manticore had taught him but he still came out with the odd phrase that made her roll her eyes. It may have happened less and less as he'd grown accustomed to the world outside - transgenics were nothing if not adaptable - but even so. A 'doozy'. It was definitely an Alec word - all slick and smooth and yet still not quite fitting in, not completely.
For once she kept her mouth shut, locking the sarcasm inside. She didn't want to fight with him, not tonight. Not even with the energy - electricity - singing through her. There were other things she wanted to do instead; vague, unformed thoughts she didn't examine too closely. But not fight, not tonight. Flight, maybe. Or fuck.
But that thought only brought her back to Logan, and she wasn't thinking about Logan.
Not tonight.
As if in response to his words - or her thoughts - the skies suddenly opened, the rain coming down thick and fast and hard. Raindrops bounced off the pavement, splashing back up into their little alcove, a shower from below. She shook the droplets off herself like a cat but Alec moved back, the look on his face one of comical surprise. Max smiled, sharp and feral if he'd cared to see it, amused, for once, at his antics. Every nerve ending in her body still felt as though it was singing and lately she'd been feeling charitable towards her fellow transgenic.
The same strange tension she felt seemed to be rising in Alec too - she could sense that somehow, hyperaware of him, of the way that his broad shoulders flexed as he leant forward again, keeping as much of him out of the rain as he could even as he peered up into the sky. The look on his face was now fascinated, pupils wide as he took it all in. It only served to cement that fellow feeling, especially when a droplet landed on his face and his cheek twitched, his eyes gleaming brightly as another bright flash of lightning sparked across the sky.
It was closer this time and it made her reckless.
"Hey," she said, raising her voice over the rolling thunder, riding more closely on the heels of the flash as the storm moved in on the city. Alec turned towards her, his expression quizzical. "Want to go for a ride?"
Flight, maybe. Feeling her baby eat up the miles beneath her wheels. That would serve to soothe her if anything would.
He glanced back out into the night, his eyebrows raised as he considered it. She half expected him to buckle, to smarm his way out of it, but this was Alec she was talking about. Alec who, in spite of all of his bitching, didn't back down from a challenge even - especially - when it was the smart thing to do.
It would be a little hypocritical of her to call him on it. Perhaps it was something in the genes.
When he looked back, it was to scan her face, trying to read her even as his eyebrows settled into a stubborn line that she was starting to recognise. She tried not to tense, to give anything away. The offer was casual. Flight, that was all.
After a moment, his lips turned up into that smirk that was quintessentially 'Alec'.
"Why not?" And there it was, to go with the smirk - that typical Alec challenging look, the one she knew too well. The one that said he saw right through her and most of the time liked what he saw but that he had no qualms telling her she was full of shit when he didn't.
This time it seemed as though this time he liked what he saw, no reservations.
"What did you have in mind?"
What did she have in mind? She wasn't sure - all she knew was the urge to move, to give in to the energy thrumming through her, to race, to ride, to soar. It made her restless, another itch that needed to be scratched. She scanned the horizon, her eyes automatically coming to rest on a familiar landmark.
"Race you to the Needle?"
He snorted. "Right, Max. We're in the middle of a thunderstorm and of course you want to head for the highest point around."
She flashed him a smile, all teeth and taunt. "Scared?"
He bristled, as she'd known he would, but covered it well, returning her smirk with a bright one of his own. "Think you can keep up?"
Her turn to snort. "Like I don't always kick your ass."
"Again with my ass, Max. I'm beginning to think you're obsessed."
She reached out to smack him on the arm but he'd already moved away, the reflex ingrained in him by now. He didn't even look at her as he did so. Instead, his eyes scanned the street, assessing the traffic - or lack thereof.
"How do you want to start this? Go on three or just -"
He took off suddenly, just like she'd expected him to. Manticore didn't train them to fight fair and - for all of Alec's insistence that he couldn't hit a girl - he'd learned that lesson well. Not even eight months out of Manticore could rid him of it entirely.
She knew him - and thought she was ready for him - but when he blurred it took her a split second to catch on, to adjust her stride and her speed to match his. Stupid, stupid. Like they needed any more attention. He was just lucky no one was around and she was so going to kick his ass for this. When she reached the idiot.
It was only when Alec came to an abrupt halt at the corner that she finally caught up with him, both caught off guard and caught by Alec. He wrapped one arm around her as she passed him, already starting to slow down, and jerked her sharply back against him.
He was laughing, the ass, putting her back on her feet and steadying her as he peered around the corner, warm and solid against her back.
She followed his gaze and realised why he'd stopped. They no longer had the city to themselves. There were people on the next street, people hurrying with hoods up or coats over their heads and barely aware of their surroundings in their rush for shelter, but she got it. She'd been made to be quick on the uptake and Alec, apparently, hadn't been made to be quite as stupid as she'd thought.
When she twisted her head to look at him, he was grinning at her, his eyes lit up with mischief. He was barely out of breath, despite the speed they'd both been moving at, and she felt the laughter that shook through his body where it pressed against hers. His lips were parted and with each huff of laughter water vapour puffed out, clean and white, into the night air.
She grinned back, shark-like and promising retribution. When his grip on her loosened - although his amusement didn't dim - she stepped back and held his unrepentant gaze. The rain had dampened his hair, spiking it up and flushing his cheeks, and the light from behind him seemed to hang, like a halo, around his head.
He looked nothing like an angel.
She softened her smile into something uncharacteristically sweet and watched as the amusement faded a little and his eyes widened in confusion.
"Three," she said and took off like a bat out of hell, even though she didn't have any bat in her DNA, as far as she knew.
She kept her speed this time to something approaching 'normal' and Alec did likewise. His legs were longer, eating up the streets even without his transgenic abilities, and he might even have gained on her if he'd concentrated on running rather than laughing. She grinned again even though she knew that this time he couldn't see it, caught up in the sheer exhilaration of moving, in the electricity still in the atmosphere. When the opportunity arose, she swerved, splashing him with one of the puddles now forming in the uneven streets. Her grin grew even wider when she heard his muttered curse behind her, audible to her even over the drumming of the rain.
Splashing him might not make him any wetter but it was the principle of the thing that counted, even if she wasn't entirely sure of the principles at stake.
Their bikes weren't far away from Crash, hidden somewhere safe and secure in one of the many abandoned buildings that littered Seattle. She couldn't remember which one of them had found it first - okay, she could and it was Alec - but it didn't matter because they tended to park them side by side, even if they arrived and left at different times. It felt right in a way that she didn't want to examine too closely and probably still wouldn't have been able to explain even if she had. She didn't worry about it - it was barely a blip on her radar, not with White on their heels and a virus eating away at what was left of her 'not like that' relationship.
She beat him to the bikes, although only by a fraction of a second, her shorter stature meaning that it was marginally easier for her to duck under the boards that hid the hole in the perimeter fence of the empty lot. It gave her the edge and she was damned well going to use it; Manticore hadn't made her a chump either, no matter what Alec thought or said, and she'd use whatever advantage she could when it came to dealing with him.
He was hard on her heels and, as she slowed, drew up beside her, still smiling. She flashed him a grin, magnanimous in victory, and he rolled his eyes as he leant back against his bike, folding his arms and watching her over the top of them. His ever present smirk was in place, his body language casual, but his eyes now were calm, watchful. Still amused, but there was a slightly appraising look in them that unsettled her.
But Max was never one to remain unsettled for long. Not when she could do something else instead. Carpe diem and all that crap. She took the initiative again and, again, he let her.
"Think you can keep up on that thing?" she asked, nodding rather dismissively at his Ducati. "Not like it has a great deal of power. Not like my baby." She smoothed a hand reflexively over the supple leather of her bike's seat.
He frowned. "Don't diss my ride, Max."
Diss? Oh, man. She couldn't let that little idiom slide. She smirked and opened her mouth to call him on it, but once again he beat her to the punch.
"Just because you have to ride something that big and clunky and obvious." He smirked at her again, his momentary pique over with. "Tell me, Max. Are we compensating for something?"
She cocked her hip and glared at him. "You might be."
He swung his leg over the saddle and grinned at her again, all cockiness and attitude. "Oh, I'd say not needing a ride that screams 'look at me' pretty much says I'm secure."
She waited until he'd put on his sunglasses - it was the only concession he'd make to riding semi-safely (and she didn't blame him for that one - grit in the eye at high speed hurt like a bitch, even if you were transgenic) - before she mounted her own bike. She patted it gently as she did so, a mute apology for Alec's harsh words, and scowled when Alec caught the move and his smirk deepened.
"Whatever," she said. "Just get the door and no comments about how I just like something hard and throbbing between my legs because I've heard it all before and from better men than you, pretty boy."
His laugh this time was delighted, like he wished he'd thought of it and was as amused as hell that she'd said it anyway. She let her gaze trace the line of his throat as he threw his head back, feeling vaguely envious that he could still find that kind of delight in something, even something so stupid. There'd been a time when she could, back when she could just enjoy being alive and free, even with Lydecker on her trail. Back before her life grew so damned complicated.
She gunned her engine, drawing his attention back to her. "You ready?"
She knew what the answer to that was going to be even before he said it, and let the momentary pang slide over her and away, letting it go. Biggs had been Alec's friend, not hers. She'd barely known him and if Alec was okay with invoking those memories she sure as hell wasn't going to say anything about it.
"I'm always ready, Max. You should know that." Yep. Bang on cue. Predictable, but somehow comforting for it.
She let him roll ahead of her, following slowly in his wake and waiting while he dismounted and pulled back the boards so that they could ride on out.
"So someone really said...?" he asked as she rolled past him. He anticipated a thwack on the arm - once again pulling back before she could deliver it - so she kicked out at him instead, catching him high on the thigh and grinning at him as she motored on out and he was left glaring at her back.
The lightning was still flashing across the sky and she watched it while she waited for him, idly counting the seconds between the flash and the roll of thunder in her head, calculating the distance. It would be accurate - her time sense always was, Normal's complaints aside.
The streets were deserted now, glistening wetly in the few streetlamps still working and in the flashes across the night sky. The rain had eased a little, but still formed a haze around the isolated fluorescent lights dotted here and there. She peeled one of the wet strands of hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear, turning her head to watch Alec pull the boards back into place and remount his bike.
"You want to do this on three?" he asked as he pulled up beside her, the rumble of his engine softer than her Ninja and a little less rough. "Or do you want to cheat again?"
He tensed his body, although his expression remained amused. He was obviously waiting for another of those swipes that had grown less heated and more playful the longer that they had known each other. Time to change her direction of attack.
She smiled sweetly again and again she pushed him off balance. She could see that in the way the lines around his eyes changed, slackened, even though his eyes remained hidden by his sunglasses.
"Three."
This time he was ready for her. He matched her speed as she roared along the street and around the corner, bending her body with ease to take the corner smoothly. He was right behind her, and she caught him in the periphery of her vision, just as comfortable on his bike as she was.
Something in her eased, a tension she'd lived with for so long she barely noticed it any more. Nothing to do with the storm and little to do with Alec, not really. She opened the throttle, felt that tension ease further, even as the muscles in her thighs, her arms took up the burden, keeping the power of her Ninja in check. Alec kept pace with her all of the way, matching it, one edging forward as the other pulled back then swapping places. It became more of a dance than a race and she let go, let herself fall into the rhythm of it, feeling the road roll by beneath her wheels and knowing that Alec would be with her all the way.
He seemed to pick up on it too, no longer challenging her but keeping pace, now crossing in front of her, now letting her cross in front of him. She stole a glance to the side as she passed him, taking in, in that brief moment, the focused look on his face, almost peaceful in the way that he moved with his machine.
She'd never seen him this calm, this... content. Almost happy. Like her, there was always something stirring below Alec's façade, something wary and watchful and never fully at ease, even if no one else noticed it, buying into the act.
She'd bought into the act at first, not wanting to see past what Alec projected. It had been easier - safer - that way, for her at least. Smart Alec. Someone shallow and self-centred. Someone to blame. Someone to bear all the anger she carried around inside, eating away at her because she let it, because the emptiness was more bearable.
That she should see past it now - should care whether or not Alec was happy... The thought unsettled her and so she did what she always did when unsettled - picked up the pace, forcing him to do likewise, losing herself in the rhythms of action. It still fell short of being a race, but they were moving fast enough now to force her to stop thinking and instead concentrate on the road with the same kind of single minded focus that Alec was showing.
There was only one checkpoint between Crash and the Space Needle, but it still meant that they had to slow down and deal with the kind of crap that came from living in a city under siege. She stayed silent during it, flashing her badge at the Sector Cop instead of speaking and working on projecting an air of 'it's been a long and shitty night and now I'm headed home'.
It wasn't difficult. She felt no need to talk - her whole being was now focused on riding, on just feeling, and she didn't want to lose that to extraneous chatter. Alec seemed to be of the same mind, for once not babbling inanely the way he did when he was bored and, when she stole a look at him, his gaze was distant, focused on the Needle, and his face was unreadable.
It unsettled her again and she had to fight the urge to punch him on the arm just to get a reaction, to get him looking at her even if it also meant him whining and bitching. To fight the urge to make herself the focus of his attention again, even if it came with theatrical arm rubbing and that little half-smile that gave lie to all his complaints.
She focused instead on the Needle, the outline blurring a little in the rain. It was softer now, no longer hissing and hail like, just a steady, monotonous downpour. Over the top of it, she could hear Alec breathing beside her, slow and even, so different from the slightly wheezing breath of the sector cop giving their documents a cursory glance. If she concentrated, she could almost feel the heat radiating from Alec's body, inches from hers as they stood side by side in the rain.
She stole a glance at him, watching the water sliding down the side of his face, dripping from the damp tendrils of hair hanging by his ears.
He turned his head, caught her eye. Raised his eyebrow, his expression quizzical, and she looked away again, staring back at the Needle. It was safer that way, tuning him out and listening instead to her bike clicking steadily behind them as the engine cooled, the sound as warm and steady as the rhythm of Alec's heartbeat.
There were no smart comments from either of them as the cop handed their papers back, scuttling rapidly back into his checkpoint hut; no banter or give and take as they mounted their bikes again. Just the road rolling back beneath their wheels, throwing up water as they moved in sync towards their destination, Alec a warm and steady presence by her side, half a step behind.
The Farthest Thunder That I heard - Part 2
Author: alyse
Fandom: Dark Angel
Characters/Pairing: Max/Alec
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: I don't own Dark Angel or its characters. This is fanfiction, written for love of the show.
Spoilers: Set late Season 2, but before Freak Nation
Summary: Seattle isn't a place of extreme weather, just of extreme wetness. But tonight there's a storm on the horizon and it promises to be something.
Author's Notes: I originally started this story in March 2007, and it's taken until today before I've finally managed to finish it. I'm therefore kind of hoping that
mandragora1 thinks it's worth the wait, as I've been tormenting her with the prospect of Max/Alec almost since the beginning ::g::The title comes from The Farthest Thunder That I Heard, by Emily Dickinson. Many thanks to
aithine for the beta.***
The Farthest Thunder That I Heard Was Nearer Than The Sky
The air is heavy, heavy as a truck
We need the rain to wash away our bad luck
- Electrical Storm, U2
Over the years since she settled in Seattle, Max had grown used to its quirks; grown used to them to the point where she'd grown comfortable with them. Too comfortable, sometimes, she thought, and the thought itched away in the back of her mind, leaving her tense and irritable with no way to scratch.
The itch was bad tonight, putting her on edge even though there were far worse places to be, especially for her. Seattle was mundane. It wasn't a place of extreme weather, just of extreme wetness. The storms that blew in from Seattle's south were like the gangs running in that area - all bluster and no muscle. The winds might carry water from Puget Sound and dump it by the bucketful over the city, but they lacked the bitter knife's edge that she remembered from Wyoming and the rain seldom froze.
There were no tornadoes, no hurricanes. When it snowed, the snow didn't lie thick and crisp on the ground, crackling beneath her feet as she ran. Instead, it skulked wetly in corners and turned to black sludge on the sidewalks, making everything dreary. In summer, the sun didn't bake the roads and the asphalt stayed firm under her wheels, and in spring and autumn the rain that fell - what seemed endlessly some months - was wet and dull and grey. But dull and grey made for a good place to blend in, even for someone as non-normal, as non-ordinary as she was.
But tonight there was an edge in the cool and still air. There was a storm gathering on the horizon and for once it promised to be something.
Max flicked her hair back and turned her face up to the sky, feeling the first droplets hitting hard against her skin. They were icy cold and, as they struck, she hissed out through her teeth. Her breath blossomed foggily and she huffed out again, this time just to see it.
The atmosphere was heavy with promise but it was the kind of promise only she appreciated. The rest of Seattle seemed to be scurrying away along the street, seeking cover from the raindrops that now fell with heavy splatters against the pavement. She ignored them, staying in the shadows but still under the sky, raising her hands a little so that the raindrops bounced off them and the hairs on her arms rose, pricking tendrils of tension.
The promise was kept; lightning flashed across the sky to the east as she turned her face up again. She closed her eyes, basking in the aftershock. She shouldn't have been able to feel it at that distance - not even with her enhanced senses - but it thrummed through her anyway. It was electric - literally - and for that split second she felt alive, every nerve, every follicle singing. Alive in a way she hadn't felt for some time. Everything - Logan, the virus, the ever increasing threat of exposure - slipped away and left nothing behind but this.
She took a deep breath, held it deep inside her, crisp and sharp and raw, before letting it go - slowly, over several beats - and watching it crystallise in the air again.
One, two, three, four...
Behind her the door to Crash swung open, a sudden burst of music and voices that almost drowned out the slow, low rumble of thunder that rolled overhead. When it swung shut again she was no longer alone.
"Huh," said Alec, peering out into the street and hunching his shoulders against a flurry of raindrops, blown into their meagre shelter as the air finally stirred sluggishly and a gust of wind swirled in their direction. "Looks like it's going to be a doozy of a storm."
A 'doozy'. She'd long since stopped ragging on him for the out of date slang that Manticore had taught him but he still came out with the odd phrase that made her roll her eyes. It may have happened less and less as he'd grown accustomed to the world outside - transgenics were nothing if not adaptable - but even so. A 'doozy'. It was definitely an Alec word - all slick and smooth and yet still not quite fitting in, not completely.
For once she kept her mouth shut, locking the sarcasm inside. She didn't want to fight with him, not tonight. Not even with the energy - electricity - singing through her. There were other things she wanted to do instead; vague, unformed thoughts she didn't examine too closely. But not fight, not tonight. Flight, maybe. Or fuck.
But that thought only brought her back to Logan, and she wasn't thinking about Logan.
Not tonight.
As if in response to his words - or her thoughts - the skies suddenly opened, the rain coming down thick and fast and hard. Raindrops bounced off the pavement, splashing back up into their little alcove, a shower from below. She shook the droplets off herself like a cat but Alec moved back, the look on his face one of comical surprise. Max smiled, sharp and feral if he'd cared to see it, amused, for once, at his antics. Every nerve ending in her body still felt as though it was singing and lately she'd been feeling charitable towards her fellow transgenic.
The same strange tension she felt seemed to be rising in Alec too - she could sense that somehow, hyperaware of him, of the way that his broad shoulders flexed as he leant forward again, keeping as much of him out of the rain as he could even as he peered up into the sky. The look on his face was now fascinated, pupils wide as he took it all in. It only served to cement that fellow feeling, especially when a droplet landed on his face and his cheek twitched, his eyes gleaming brightly as another bright flash of lightning sparked across the sky.
It was closer this time and it made her reckless.
"Hey," she said, raising her voice over the rolling thunder, riding more closely on the heels of the flash as the storm moved in on the city. Alec turned towards her, his expression quizzical. "Want to go for a ride?"
Flight, maybe. Feeling her baby eat up the miles beneath her wheels. That would serve to soothe her if anything would.
He glanced back out into the night, his eyebrows raised as he considered it. She half expected him to buckle, to smarm his way out of it, but this was Alec she was talking about. Alec who, in spite of all of his bitching, didn't back down from a challenge even - especially - when it was the smart thing to do.
It would be a little hypocritical of her to call him on it. Perhaps it was something in the genes.
When he looked back, it was to scan her face, trying to read her even as his eyebrows settled into a stubborn line that she was starting to recognise. She tried not to tense, to give anything away. The offer was casual. Flight, that was all.
After a moment, his lips turned up into that smirk that was quintessentially 'Alec'.
"Why not?" And there it was, to go with the smirk - that typical Alec challenging look, the one she knew too well. The one that said he saw right through her and most of the time liked what he saw but that he had no qualms telling her she was full of shit when he didn't.
This time it seemed as though this time he liked what he saw, no reservations.
"What did you have in mind?"
What did she have in mind? She wasn't sure - all she knew was the urge to move, to give in to the energy thrumming through her, to race, to ride, to soar. It made her restless, another itch that needed to be scratched. She scanned the horizon, her eyes automatically coming to rest on a familiar landmark.
"Race you to the Needle?"
He snorted. "Right, Max. We're in the middle of a thunderstorm and of course you want to head for the highest point around."
She flashed him a smile, all teeth and taunt. "Scared?"
He bristled, as she'd known he would, but covered it well, returning her smirk with a bright one of his own. "Think you can keep up?"
Her turn to snort. "Like I don't always kick your ass."
"Again with my ass, Max. I'm beginning to think you're obsessed."
She reached out to smack him on the arm but he'd already moved away, the reflex ingrained in him by now. He didn't even look at her as he did so. Instead, his eyes scanned the street, assessing the traffic - or lack thereof.
"How do you want to start this? Go on three or just -"
He took off suddenly, just like she'd expected him to. Manticore didn't train them to fight fair and - for all of Alec's insistence that he couldn't hit a girl - he'd learned that lesson well. Not even eight months out of Manticore could rid him of it entirely.
She knew him - and thought she was ready for him - but when he blurred it took her a split second to catch on, to adjust her stride and her speed to match his. Stupid, stupid. Like they needed any more attention. He was just lucky no one was around and she was so going to kick his ass for this. When she reached the idiot.
It was only when Alec came to an abrupt halt at the corner that she finally caught up with him, both caught off guard and caught by Alec. He wrapped one arm around her as she passed him, already starting to slow down, and jerked her sharply back against him.
He was laughing, the ass, putting her back on her feet and steadying her as he peered around the corner, warm and solid against her back.
She followed his gaze and realised why he'd stopped. They no longer had the city to themselves. There were people on the next street, people hurrying with hoods up or coats over their heads and barely aware of their surroundings in their rush for shelter, but she got it. She'd been made to be quick on the uptake and Alec, apparently, hadn't been made to be quite as stupid as she'd thought.
When she twisted her head to look at him, he was grinning at her, his eyes lit up with mischief. He was barely out of breath, despite the speed they'd both been moving at, and she felt the laughter that shook through his body where it pressed against hers. His lips were parted and with each huff of laughter water vapour puffed out, clean and white, into the night air.
She grinned back, shark-like and promising retribution. When his grip on her loosened - although his amusement didn't dim - she stepped back and held his unrepentant gaze. The rain had dampened his hair, spiking it up and flushing his cheeks, and the light from behind him seemed to hang, like a halo, around his head.
He looked nothing like an angel.
She softened her smile into something uncharacteristically sweet and watched as the amusement faded a little and his eyes widened in confusion.
"Three," she said and took off like a bat out of hell, even though she didn't have any bat in her DNA, as far as she knew.
She kept her speed this time to something approaching 'normal' and Alec did likewise. His legs were longer, eating up the streets even without his transgenic abilities, and he might even have gained on her if he'd concentrated on running rather than laughing. She grinned again even though she knew that this time he couldn't see it, caught up in the sheer exhilaration of moving, in the electricity still in the atmosphere. When the opportunity arose, she swerved, splashing him with one of the puddles now forming in the uneven streets. Her grin grew even wider when she heard his muttered curse behind her, audible to her even over the drumming of the rain.
Splashing him might not make him any wetter but it was the principle of the thing that counted, even if she wasn't entirely sure of the principles at stake.
Their bikes weren't far away from Crash, hidden somewhere safe and secure in one of the many abandoned buildings that littered Seattle. She couldn't remember which one of them had found it first - okay, she could and it was Alec - but it didn't matter because they tended to park them side by side, even if they arrived and left at different times. It felt right in a way that she didn't want to examine too closely and probably still wouldn't have been able to explain even if she had. She didn't worry about it - it was barely a blip on her radar, not with White on their heels and a virus eating away at what was left of her 'not like that' relationship.
She beat him to the bikes, although only by a fraction of a second, her shorter stature meaning that it was marginally easier for her to duck under the boards that hid the hole in the perimeter fence of the empty lot. It gave her the edge and she was damned well going to use it; Manticore hadn't made her a chump either, no matter what Alec thought or said, and she'd use whatever advantage she could when it came to dealing with him.
He was hard on her heels and, as she slowed, drew up beside her, still smiling. She flashed him a grin, magnanimous in victory, and he rolled his eyes as he leant back against his bike, folding his arms and watching her over the top of them. His ever present smirk was in place, his body language casual, but his eyes now were calm, watchful. Still amused, but there was a slightly appraising look in them that unsettled her.
But Max was never one to remain unsettled for long. Not when she could do something else instead. Carpe diem and all that crap. She took the initiative again and, again, he let her.
"Think you can keep up on that thing?" she asked, nodding rather dismissively at his Ducati. "Not like it has a great deal of power. Not like my baby." She smoothed a hand reflexively over the supple leather of her bike's seat.
He frowned. "Don't diss my ride, Max."
Diss? Oh, man. She couldn't let that little idiom slide. She smirked and opened her mouth to call him on it, but once again he beat her to the punch.
"Just because you have to ride something that big and clunky and obvious." He smirked at her again, his momentary pique over with. "Tell me, Max. Are we compensating for something?"
She cocked her hip and glared at him. "You might be."
He swung his leg over the saddle and grinned at her again, all cockiness and attitude. "Oh, I'd say not needing a ride that screams 'look at me' pretty much says I'm secure."
She waited until he'd put on his sunglasses - it was the only concession he'd make to riding semi-safely (and she didn't blame him for that one - grit in the eye at high speed hurt like a bitch, even if you were transgenic) - before she mounted her own bike. She patted it gently as she did so, a mute apology for Alec's harsh words, and scowled when Alec caught the move and his smirk deepened.
"Whatever," she said. "Just get the door and no comments about how I just like something hard and throbbing between my legs because I've heard it all before and from better men than you, pretty boy."
His laugh this time was delighted, like he wished he'd thought of it and was as amused as hell that she'd said it anyway. She let her gaze trace the line of his throat as he threw his head back, feeling vaguely envious that he could still find that kind of delight in something, even something so stupid. There'd been a time when she could, back when she could just enjoy being alive and free, even with Lydecker on her trail. Back before her life grew so damned complicated.
She gunned her engine, drawing his attention back to her. "You ready?"
She knew what the answer to that was going to be even before he said it, and let the momentary pang slide over her and away, letting it go. Biggs had been Alec's friend, not hers. She'd barely known him and if Alec was okay with invoking those memories she sure as hell wasn't going to say anything about it.
"I'm always ready, Max. You should know that." Yep. Bang on cue. Predictable, but somehow comforting for it.
She let him roll ahead of her, following slowly in his wake and waiting while he dismounted and pulled back the boards so that they could ride on out.
"So someone really said...?" he asked as she rolled past him. He anticipated a thwack on the arm - once again pulling back before she could deliver it - so she kicked out at him instead, catching him high on the thigh and grinning at him as she motored on out and he was left glaring at her back.
The lightning was still flashing across the sky and she watched it while she waited for him, idly counting the seconds between the flash and the roll of thunder in her head, calculating the distance. It would be accurate - her time sense always was, Normal's complaints aside.
The streets were deserted now, glistening wetly in the few streetlamps still working and in the flashes across the night sky. The rain had eased a little, but still formed a haze around the isolated fluorescent lights dotted here and there. She peeled one of the wet strands of hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear, turning her head to watch Alec pull the boards back into place and remount his bike.
"You want to do this on three?" he asked as he pulled up beside her, the rumble of his engine softer than her Ninja and a little less rough. "Or do you want to cheat again?"
He tensed his body, although his expression remained amused. He was obviously waiting for another of those swipes that had grown less heated and more playful the longer that they had known each other. Time to change her direction of attack.
She smiled sweetly again and again she pushed him off balance. She could see that in the way the lines around his eyes changed, slackened, even though his eyes remained hidden by his sunglasses.
"Three."
This time he was ready for her. He matched her speed as she roared along the street and around the corner, bending her body with ease to take the corner smoothly. He was right behind her, and she caught him in the periphery of her vision, just as comfortable on his bike as she was.
Something in her eased, a tension she'd lived with for so long she barely noticed it any more. Nothing to do with the storm and little to do with Alec, not really. She opened the throttle, felt that tension ease further, even as the muscles in her thighs, her arms took up the burden, keeping the power of her Ninja in check. Alec kept pace with her all of the way, matching it, one edging forward as the other pulled back then swapping places. It became more of a dance than a race and she let go, let herself fall into the rhythm of it, feeling the road roll by beneath her wheels and knowing that Alec would be with her all the way.
He seemed to pick up on it too, no longer challenging her but keeping pace, now crossing in front of her, now letting her cross in front of him. She stole a glance to the side as she passed him, taking in, in that brief moment, the focused look on his face, almost peaceful in the way that he moved with his machine.
She'd never seen him this calm, this... content. Almost happy. Like her, there was always something stirring below Alec's façade, something wary and watchful and never fully at ease, even if no one else noticed it, buying into the act.
She'd bought into the act at first, not wanting to see past what Alec projected. It had been easier - safer - that way, for her at least. Smart Alec. Someone shallow and self-centred. Someone to blame. Someone to bear all the anger she carried around inside, eating away at her because she let it, because the emptiness was more bearable.
That she should see past it now - should care whether or not Alec was happy... The thought unsettled her and so she did what she always did when unsettled - picked up the pace, forcing him to do likewise, losing herself in the rhythms of action. It still fell short of being a race, but they were moving fast enough now to force her to stop thinking and instead concentrate on the road with the same kind of single minded focus that Alec was showing.
There was only one checkpoint between Crash and the Space Needle, but it still meant that they had to slow down and deal with the kind of crap that came from living in a city under siege. She stayed silent during it, flashing her badge at the Sector Cop instead of speaking and working on projecting an air of 'it's been a long and shitty night and now I'm headed home'.
It wasn't difficult. She felt no need to talk - her whole being was now focused on riding, on just feeling, and she didn't want to lose that to extraneous chatter. Alec seemed to be of the same mind, for once not babbling inanely the way he did when he was bored and, when she stole a look at him, his gaze was distant, focused on the Needle, and his face was unreadable.
It unsettled her again and she had to fight the urge to punch him on the arm just to get a reaction, to get him looking at her even if it also meant him whining and bitching. To fight the urge to make herself the focus of his attention again, even if it came with theatrical arm rubbing and that little half-smile that gave lie to all his complaints.
She focused instead on the Needle, the outline blurring a little in the rain. It was softer now, no longer hissing and hail like, just a steady, monotonous downpour. Over the top of it, she could hear Alec breathing beside her, slow and even, so different from the slightly wheezing breath of the sector cop giving their documents a cursory glance. If she concentrated, she could almost feel the heat radiating from Alec's body, inches from hers as they stood side by side in the rain.
She stole a glance at him, watching the water sliding down the side of his face, dripping from the damp tendrils of hair hanging by his ears.
He turned his head, caught her eye. Raised his eyebrow, his expression quizzical, and she looked away again, staring back at the Needle. It was safer that way, tuning him out and listening instead to her bike clicking steadily behind them as the engine cooled, the sound as warm and steady as the rhythm of Alec's heartbeat.
There were no smart comments from either of them as the cop handed their papers back, scuttling rapidly back into his checkpoint hut; no banter or give and take as they mounted their bikes again. Just the road rolling back beneath their wheels, throwing up water as they moved in sync towards their destination, Alec a warm and steady presence by her side, half a step behind.
The Farthest Thunder That I heard - Part 2