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"Huh, you losing means I win..."
Alec shrugged, and answered, “Go ahead Max, pucker up.” Alec’s eyebrows danced smirking in triumph, as he said, “I’m more than happy to kiss the winner.”
Max laughed, and pushed Alec away. “Oh no, I won, meaning I’d get to choose who you have to kiss, and that’s definitely not me.”
Again Alec shrugged, pulling back further, his head inclined. He said, smiling, “Your loss, but any lady you choose, you’ll be gifting them with the experience of a life time. That’s a weighty responsibility, Max.” Alec’s lips stuck out in a pursed pucker, in focused concentration, as he scanned the crowd pausing at each female considering their attributes.
Max rolled her eyes over Alec’s response. Even winning, she lost. Suddenly, more annoyed with herself for making a bet in the first place.
“So Max, who’s it gonna be? The blonde over there, or maybe one of the brunettes over there?” Alec slung his arm over Max’s shoulder, pointing out various women as he leered finding different attributes he found attractive or even challenging. They ran the gambit from: tall, short, thin, fat, of every race, blonde, brunette, redhead, and various bottled shades of color.
Alec pulled her in closer, egging her on. “Come on Maxie, tell me already. Who’s the lucky lady?”
Glancing over the room, Max exhaled as she realized there was no one here that Alec wouldn’t enjoy kissing. No this wasn’t the way she wanted it go – at all! Deflated, she scanned the room one last time, and was happy to spot Logan walking in. With a knee-jerk response, she called to him, “Logan.”
She felt Alec straightened, pulling his arm away. “What?”
She was about to blurt out that she was saying hi to Logan, that it had nothing to do with the bet. But then she turned to see Alec blanche, that he was suddenly obviously nervous. This-- seeing his reaction-- was exactly what she wanted, to make Alec squirm.
Without thinking it through, she teased, “What is there, a problem? Can’t handle a little man-on-man kissage? Spread a bit of your worldly experience, or maybe that’s the point, you’re lacking experience?”
Stunned, Alec turned toward her, and stared dumbfounded- like he couldn’t believe what she was saying.
A part of Max was right there with him, shocked, by what had come out of her mouth. But the chance to deflate Alec’s self imposed ego, to take it down a peg down, or two was too heady a prize to be passed up.
“Is that it Alec? Manticore didn’t train you for every possible encounter, no matter the gender? How homophobic of them.” Before she finished the sentence, Max knew she had gone too far. At the mention of Manticore, she watched helplessly as Alex’s face paled even further, his head dropping but not before she saw shame, the humiliation etched across his face. She was too late, unable to stop as the words kept tumbling out of her mouth. Her mind was already supplying real possibilities of what Alec might have endured, and from Alec’s silence and his ridged stance, she wasn’t far off the mark. Bile started rising in her throat.
Backtracking now seemed impossible, but still her mind raced to find something to say – something, anything, to go back to the flirtatious teasing they just had.
Logan had finally worked his way through the crowd and greeted them, beer in his hand, oblivious to what had just transpired. “Hey, finished?” Logan asked.
Max and Alec hadn’t moved from the pool table and were still holding their pool sticks. “Play the loser?” Logan asked, looking in Max’s direction. It was obvious he thought she had lost, as she usually did whenever she had played against Alec.
From their silence, Logan finally got that something was wrong. “Am I interrupting?”
Alec responded first, and shook his head. “No, I lost.” Defeated, Alec’s voice lowered a pitch, almost meekly, so that he sounded like he was someone else. “The game and the bet.”
Rooted, Max stood there, watching in a hypnotic state, as Logan asked. “A bet?”
Alec nodded, but didn’t meet Logan’s eyes.
She watched as Logan rolled his eyes and stifled his laugher at Alec’s strange response and behavior. Immediately she realized that Logan must have thought Alec was being melodramatic on purpose, since he was too different from Alec’s usual arrogant cocky persona. “Come on, it can’t be that bad?”
Alec’s voice was low, almost childlike, “A kiss, winner chooses.”
“Huh?” Logan immediately scanned the room, obliviously as he glanced at the patrons wondering who would have made Alec this nervous. He didn’t get a chance to ask, as Alec supplied him with the answer. “You. Max chose you.”
She met Logan’s eyes; saw his surprise, the hurt before a curtain went up. Logan’s simple “Oh,” was his only reply.
Forcibly she found her voice, dipped heavily in regret. “Alec you don’t…”
But it was Logan who angrily retorted, his irritation clearly directed at her. “No, a bet is a bet. If that’s what you wanted Max, who am I to deny you?” Logan stepped closer to Alec, his eyes defiantly meeting hers, accepting the challenge even as his voice softened, “I’m game Alec, if you are?”
Alec looked up to meet Logan’s eyes, following Logan’s line of vision to Max. Max caught Alec’s gaze, saw the uncertainty, the concern. This isn’t what she wanted, to force Alec into something like this. To blatantly remind him of Manticore, or any of their devious training techniques. She was only there until she escaped when she was nine—Alec, her clone Sam, the others, had lived and trained under Manticore’s thumb for years. Alec’s unit, in particular, she had learned from Sam, had garnered unwanted attention because of her, Ben, and all the others who had escaped. Looking into the depths of Alec’s eyes, Max could only imagine Manticore’s insidiousness training once a soldier matured.
But Logan drew her attention in another direction, as Logan’s hand cupped under Alec’s chin and gently pulled his gaze away from her.
Max watched as Logan’s thumb caressed along Alec’s jaw line. As Logan leaned in until his lips were mere inches from Alec’s lips, almost brushing them. Logan’s body, his focus was entirely on Alec. Logan didn’t advance, or move to kiss Alec; instead they stood there, steadily breathing each other’s breath.
How long they stayed like that Max could only guess, but in the end it was Alec who moved first. It was only a slight shift, not even a hairsbreadth. One that she could barely see, and only her enhancements as an X5 allowed her to notice the movement. Then Alec moved again, this time more overt. His stance eased and loosened beside Logan, but it was the movement of Alec’s lips opening further that Logan would notice.
And he did. Logan’s finger spread out and around Alec’s neck, guiding him, tilting Alec’s head back ever so slightly. Logan’s lips brushed the corner of Alec’s mouth, sliding just to the side over Alec’s cheek, closer to his ear. Though it was a hushed whisper, Max still heard Logan’s words, “We don’t have to…”
But Alec turned so his lips met Logan’s. It was too brief, long seconds, then suddenly it was over and Alec was pulling away.
Alec fidgeted as he avoided looking at Logan. Max took in Alec’s face: it was flush, his eyes glistening, and Max was sure she had to be mistaken, but it looked like excitement. Suddenly, Alec was glaring at her in anger, “Satisfied?”
She choked out, “Alec?”
He waved her off, shielding any real emotions by covering-up with the usual cocky persona firmly back in place. Smirking, “No, I’m good. I’m always good.”
Alec turned around to leave and paused, fingers moving toward his mouth, but he dropped them before he touched his lips. Instead his tongue slid out, to lick over his lips. A pink hue creeping up Alec’s neck, his eyes shifted toward Logan, and only for a second, met Logan’s eyes, as he uttered, “nice.” Then he all but ran out of the club.
She could feel the heat of Logan’s steady glare, waiting before he finally demanded, “What the hell was that?”
She opened her mouth to say something, but what could she say? She didn’t know the truth, could only make conjectures of what Manticore did to Alec…. Of what Manticore did to all of them. She looked up, and saw the worry in Logan’s face, saw his frustration from whatever he saw in her face. They both knew what she was going to do, what she always did – like Alec, she would shut down and run. At least for now. Its what she needed to do, it was how she coped.
Logan may not have liked it, but a part of him understood and recognized when she needed time to work something out. So she simply nodded at Logan, the only acknowledgement she gave that they would talk at some point- just not now, and said, “Gotta blaze.” Turning, Max walked out; she needed air, and solitude to think. She needed to perch leaving her only one place to go, the Space Needle.
FiN~