[dark angel] trying to forget
Title: Trying to Forget
Author: aaronlisa
Fandom: Dark Angel
Pairing/Characters: Max Guevara/Alec McDowell
Rating: FR13
Disclaimer: Dark Angel belongs to James Cameron, Charles H. Eglee and company.
Prompts: 5drunkfics - #3 (forget)
Notes: Set post-Season Two.
Summary: Sometimes Max just wants to forget.
Word Count: 1020
There are times when Max just wants to forget who and what she is. She doesn’t often given into the urge to run away so she doesn’t have to think about the fact that she’s the de facto leader of the transgenics who now call Terminal City their home. But she’s often full of doubts and worries that she can’t tell anyone about, not even Logan or Joshua or Alec because everyone looks up to her as some sort of hero.
And everyone knows that heroes don’t run away. They don’t avoid the fact that they have people who are looking up to them in order to protect, guide and lead others. Heroes stay the course while they remain strong and silent instead of whining about how the weight of the world seems to be crushing them. So she remains silent while she tries to keep Terminal City running.
However there are times when it gets really bad. When that happens, she’ll tell them she’s on a mission, always a heroic mission, and she’ll take off on her bike and just drive until she’s far away from Seattle. She’ll stay wherever she’s ended up for a few hours and she’ll pretend that she’s not Max Guevara. Instead she’s just a young woman with a dead end job who’s trying to make ends meet in a fucked up world.
Invariably, she’ll end up at some bar where the music is too loud, the interior is foggy with cigarette smoke, and the beer is cheap and plentiful. Max will end up having a few beers in a feeble attempt to try to forget who she is for a few hours before she goes back to Seattle where she has to be Max Guevara.
* * *
This time she’s wound up in Vancouver, on a mission for Logan to help track some lead or another. It’s turned out to be a false lead but she figures that she deserves to spend some time pretending everything’s normal in her life, especially in a place where she’s barely recognized.
She ends up at some bar in Gastown, a quaint part of the city that was probably a tourist trap back in the day before the Pulse. Now it’s littered with bars and young adults dressed outlandishly as they all seem to try to outdo one another. Max ends up at a place called the Lamplighter. The patrons seem fairly normal and in many ways the place reminds her of Crash.
There’s an empty spot up at the bar that she claims and she orders a beer. One beer becomes two and then three and then four when someone sits down beside her. She barely has a buzz from the beer but she can at least pretend that she’s not Max Guevara. Until she turns and sees Alec sitting beside her.
For a brief moment, she thinks it might be another clone until he opens his big mouth.
“If you want to forget, you should bypass the beer, Maxie.”
“It’d be better if you weren’t here,” Max replies.
Alec just shrugs his shoulders and waves down the bartender as Max dispassionately watches. He orders two shot glasses, a bowl of limes, a shaker of salt and a bottle of tequila. She tries to tell him that he doesn’t want any but he gives her an inscrutable look that makes her look away in pain. When he sets the full glass in front of her, she downs the golden liquid in one go.
It burns going down and for one terrible moment she thinks that it’s going to come right back up. When she looks at Alec, he gives her a smirk and pours her another shot. They don’t say a word to one another while they drink the bottle of tequila.
By the time that they’re finished the second bottle, Max can barely see straight and for once she’s just a normal girl in a bar getting drunk with a really hot guy sitting beside her. When the bar closes, she lets Alec guide her out onto the wet cobblestone street. She giggles as she trips almost bringing them crashing down to the ground. When Alec pulls her up and she’s snug against her chest, she feels a warmth in her belly that has nothing to do with the tequila.
She reaches shakily up on her tip toes, her lips meeting his and she sighs as his arms tighten around her body. This is what she wants, what she’s fought against since she first realized he wasn’t Ben. And then it’s over when Alec gently pushes her back.
“I won’t take advantage of you Maxie.”
“But I want you.”
“That’s the tequila talking, not you.”
She pouts at him before he starts guiding her down the street.
“If you still want me in the morning them I am all yours.”
“Promise?”
Alec nods in response as he guides her up a flight of stairs into a motel just outside of Gastown in a seedier part of town, not that she really notices this. Instead Max is too busy trying to count the freckles that mar Alec’s skin. She manages to get up to ten but she always loses count after eleven and has to start over, not that she really minds.
Even though he brings her to a room that has two beds, she refuses to lay down in the other one and insists on lying beside him, protesting that he’s wasted too much money on a motel room when she doesn’t sleep. Somehow Alec convinces her to lay quietly in the dark beside him and Max listens to the soft sound of his breathing.
She can still remember everything that she’s been trying to forget but everything doesn’t seem as hard as it normally does when she’s lying beside him in the dark with the tequila making her all philosophical.
“Do you ever wish things were different?” Max quietly asks, falling asleep before he can answer her.
“Yes,” Alec whispers even though he can tell she’s asleep, “All the time Maxie, all the time.”
**END**
End Notes: I don’t normally do end notes but I thought this story deserved some. I know that canon-wise Max doesn’t sleep very much if at all, however I think that after drinking two bottles of tequila, even Max would fall asleep if not pass out. I set the second half of the story in Vancouver because I am more familiar with it than I would be with any US city that would be close to Seattle. Gastown is a tourist trap but it does have several bars in it that Vancouverites visit. The Lamplighter is a real bar and in fact it’s been in Gastown since 1925.
Author: aaronlisa
Fandom: Dark Angel
Pairing/Characters: Max Guevara/Alec McDowell
Rating: FR13
Disclaimer: Dark Angel belongs to James Cameron, Charles H. Eglee and company.
Prompts: 5drunkfics - #3 (forget)
Notes: Set post-Season Two.
Summary: Sometimes Max just wants to forget.
Word Count: 1020
There are times when Max just wants to forget who and what she is. She doesn’t often given into the urge to run away so she doesn’t have to think about the fact that she’s the de facto leader of the transgenics who now call Terminal City their home. But she’s often full of doubts and worries that she can’t tell anyone about, not even Logan or Joshua or Alec because everyone looks up to her as some sort of hero.
And everyone knows that heroes don’t run away. They don’t avoid the fact that they have people who are looking up to them in order to protect, guide and lead others. Heroes stay the course while they remain strong and silent instead of whining about how the weight of the world seems to be crushing them. So she remains silent while she tries to keep Terminal City running.
However there are times when it gets really bad. When that happens, she’ll tell them she’s on a mission, always a heroic mission, and she’ll take off on her bike and just drive until she’s far away from Seattle. She’ll stay wherever she’s ended up for a few hours and she’ll pretend that she’s not Max Guevara. Instead she’s just a young woman with a dead end job who’s trying to make ends meet in a fucked up world.
Invariably, she’ll end up at some bar where the music is too loud, the interior is foggy with cigarette smoke, and the beer is cheap and plentiful. Max will end up having a few beers in a feeble attempt to try to forget who she is for a few hours before she goes back to Seattle where she has to be Max Guevara.
* * *
This time she’s wound up in Vancouver, on a mission for Logan to help track some lead or another. It’s turned out to be a false lead but she figures that she deserves to spend some time pretending everything’s normal in her life, especially in a place where she’s barely recognized.
She ends up at some bar in Gastown, a quaint part of the city that was probably a tourist trap back in the day before the Pulse. Now it’s littered with bars and young adults dressed outlandishly as they all seem to try to outdo one another. Max ends up at a place called the Lamplighter. The patrons seem fairly normal and in many ways the place reminds her of Crash.
There’s an empty spot up at the bar that she claims and she orders a beer. One beer becomes two and then three and then four when someone sits down beside her. She barely has a buzz from the beer but she can at least pretend that she’s not Max Guevara. Until she turns and sees Alec sitting beside her.
For a brief moment, she thinks it might be another clone until he opens his big mouth.
“If you want to forget, you should bypass the beer, Maxie.”
“It’d be better if you weren’t here,” Max replies.
Alec just shrugs his shoulders and waves down the bartender as Max dispassionately watches. He orders two shot glasses, a bowl of limes, a shaker of salt and a bottle of tequila. She tries to tell him that he doesn’t want any but he gives her an inscrutable look that makes her look away in pain. When he sets the full glass in front of her, she downs the golden liquid in one go.
It burns going down and for one terrible moment she thinks that it’s going to come right back up. When she looks at Alec, he gives her a smirk and pours her another shot. They don’t say a word to one another while they drink the bottle of tequila.
By the time that they’re finished the second bottle, Max can barely see straight and for once she’s just a normal girl in a bar getting drunk with a really hot guy sitting beside her. When the bar closes, she lets Alec guide her out onto the wet cobblestone street. She giggles as she trips almost bringing them crashing down to the ground. When Alec pulls her up and she’s snug against her chest, she feels a warmth in her belly that has nothing to do with the tequila.
She reaches shakily up on her tip toes, her lips meeting his and she sighs as his arms tighten around her body. This is what she wants, what she’s fought against since she first realized he wasn’t Ben. And then it’s over when Alec gently pushes her back.
“I won’t take advantage of you Maxie.”
“But I want you.”
“That’s the tequila talking, not you.”
She pouts at him before he starts guiding her down the street.
“If you still want me in the morning them I am all yours.”
“Promise?”
Alec nods in response as he guides her up a flight of stairs into a motel just outside of Gastown in a seedier part of town, not that she really notices this. Instead Max is too busy trying to count the freckles that mar Alec’s skin. She manages to get up to ten but she always loses count after eleven and has to start over, not that she really minds.
Even though he brings her to a room that has two beds, she refuses to lay down in the other one and insists on lying beside him, protesting that he’s wasted too much money on a motel room when she doesn’t sleep. Somehow Alec convinces her to lay quietly in the dark beside him and Max listens to the soft sound of his breathing.
She can still remember everything that she’s been trying to forget but everything doesn’t seem as hard as it normally does when she’s lying beside him in the dark with the tequila making her all philosophical.
“Do you ever wish things were different?” Max quietly asks, falling asleep before he can answer her.
“Yes,” Alec whispers even though he can tell she’s asleep, “All the time Maxie, all the time.”
**END**
End Notes: I don’t normally do end notes but I thought this story deserved some. I know that canon-wise Max doesn’t sleep very much if at all, however I think that after drinking two bottles of tequila, even Max would fall asleep if not pass out. I set the second half of the story in Vancouver because I am more familiar with it than I would be with any US city that would be close to Seattle. Gastown is a tourist trap but it does have several bars in it that Vancouverites visit. The Lamplighter is a real bar and in fact it’s been in Gastown since 1925.