Just Another 48 Hours -- Chapter 4
Chapter 4: Stay the Night
May 5, 2021
“Hey there Maxie, brought ya somethin’… that’s supposed to be dinner,” Alec said as he placed the juice box and packet of Little Debbie cakes in front of her. Then he took a seat on her desk.
That afternoon Max had set up shop in an abandoned office on one of the floors above the Command Center. She hadn’t intended on making herself one, but she needed her own space and had gone up there to clear her head.
Suddenly people began showing up at the door looking for her, needing this and that. She started working from that spot and that was how it became her office. Wasn’t that how she got the job in the first place?
It was close to one in the morning when Alec came to make sure that she had eaten before he would go back to Josh’s place. Housing arrangements were taking longer than they hoped. When Cece had called base to tell them that things had gone FUBAR, all of the transgenics that spent time in Terminal City but didn’t live there had rushed into the abandoned sector fearing the worst. This left a lot of them without their personal belongings or a decent place to stay. No one even wanted to think about the ones waiting to get in yet.
So Alec was stuck sleeping on the floor at Josh’s place with Sketchy, Cindy and Logan for the time being. After their little tête-à-tête, Alec was not looking forward to sleeping in the same quarters as Logan, though admittedly he’d had worse roommates.
It was nights like these that Alec especially envied Max’s nocturnal DNA, which only required her to sleep a few hours. He would have stayed up with her. But he had to settle for checking up on her before going off to bed.
It was strange. No matter how much she threatened him and smacked him around, he didn’t get sick of being around her. Or bothering her. Well, except that time she kicked him in the crotch during the cage match. He had paid her back for that one though, giving her phone number out to some of his shadier clients so she ended up having to change it. She didn’t need to know that though. Or that he told Normal and Sketchy that when he had first met her it was for sex, which was technically true.
All those thoughts faded from his mind when Max looked up from the mass of papers in front of her, many of the sheets once belonging to his clipboard. The Gem and Ken comment must have amused her because she’d underlined it in red. He smirked at the thought.
She gave Alec a confused look and his grin faded.
“Huh?”
“Food. Remember? That thing your body needs to fuel itself,” Alec said.
“They gave out rations already?” she asked.
“Max, I left this out for you in the Command Center hours ago. You’re lucky everyone’s afraid of you or it’d be gone by now,” he told her, smirking. Then in a tone that hinted at concern but wasn’t quite there, he continued, “You need to eat and get some rest.”
“But White -”
“Yeah, there’s a guy who no amount of beauty sleep could cure. Super-immunity is nice, but I seriously would not want to be stuck with those ugly-ass idiots that talk like those automated phone calls. I’m starting to see why Sandeman made us. At least me anyway.”
Max looked at him, trying to figure out what angle he was playing at. Alec was always a puzzle to her. His motivation was so whimsical, it drove her mad. It was so unlike Logan’s decisive reasoning or Zack’s tactical precision. He probably just came by to bother her. Right now, she didn’t have time for it. She was too tired.
“Are you going to eat that or do I have to feed you?” Alec demanded.
Evidently he didn’t get that she was trying to ignore him. Even if he did have a point. Her stomach growled.
Without thinking, they both reached for the snack at the same moment. Their hands became entangled, and their eyes met in a challenging stare, each daring the other to make the first move to defuse the situation. It was Max’s dinner and his hands had no right to be there. But he enjoyed that fiery look in her eyes that threatened to incinerate him too much to move.
How their hesitation caused their hands to entwine more was a mystery.
Their eyes didn’t move from their opponent’s. Not even when Max’s hand maneuvered out of his grasp and twisted his hand back. Hard. It wasn’t enough to do any damage except to cause him to flinch and lose their little staring contest. That was Max and Alec.
“Thanks, but no thanks Pretty Boy,” Max said. “I’m a big girl. I can feed myself.”
“Yeah, but I’m still older. Seniority and all that,” Alec replied as he pulled out of her grip. He brought his hand back close to himself, nursing it like she broke it even though it only hurt a little. “So I’m ordering you to get some sleep before you start looking like Mole… or White.”
He shuddered for effect, and then playfully messed up her hair when her hands were occupied with the snack cakes. She swatted his hands away with her elbows.
“Noted. And you know how I feel about being ordered around,” Max said.
“You wouldn’t burn Josh’s place to the ground, so I’ll take my chances for now.”
“Smart ass.” Max smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“This thing with you and Logan, it’ll work itself out. Yeah, I know it’s none of my business, but I ran into him. He just needs some time. But I stand by what I said before. We don’t belong with them. He’s still a good ally though.”
“Alec,” Max gritted through her teeth. “Logan can do whatever he wants. This isn’t his fight. It’s ours… By the way, I was wondering when you’re leaving.”
Alec paused. Did she really just ask him that? Where had that come from?
To say the thought of leaving Max to deal with this little military party on her own never crossed his mind would have been a lie. Even she knew that. He just raised his arm in solidarity because he got caught up in the moment. But his penchant for self-preservation told him that it would be better to stay put where there was a huge fence between him and the people who wanted him dead.
“Hate to break it to ya, but I’m not going anywhere,” Alec informed her. “You’re stuck with me for the foreseeable future.”
Max nodded. “Well then, you’ll have to earn your keep.”
“I figured you’d say that,” Alec said, grinning smugly from ear to ear. “What is it? Because I’d like to remind you of how multi-talented I am.”
Max rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this…”
Alec’s eyes widened with devilish curiosity. “For the record, just because I let you smack me around does not mean that I actually get turned on by - ”
“Finish that sentence, Dick, and there’ll be nothing to turn on,” Max said dryly.
“Okay, okay,” he said, putting his hands up in mock surrender.
“I’m going to live to regret this, aren’t I?” she went on. Then she drew in a deep breath. “But I need a right-hand man with this Terminal City gig. Ya know, a girl can only do so much in twenty hours a day…”
He stared at her blankly. Then he started to reach for the back of her collar. “Okay Sam, the jig is up. Now we can have our fun, but you don’t have to pretend to be Max. I promise you can have your wicked way with me anytime you want.”
“Alec!” she snapped and slapped his hand away, while at the same time maintaining her balance on the chair. “Quit it. Can’t you take this seriously? You know what? Forget it.”
“Seriously?” he said as if the word were new to him. Was he hearing right? “Me?”
“Yeah, surprised me too,” Max admitted sarcastically.
Alec shrugged. “Eh, I’ll think about it.”
“Excuse me?” Now her ears were malfunctioning.
“Like I’ve told ya, I’m not lookin’ for trouble. And that is exactly what I’ll get if I agree to this. You know what you’re asking here?”
Max sighed.
She knew what she was asking of him. She had been ambivalent about asking him before he walked into the room, and she was still trying to retrace how she arrived at this moment. There had been no intention of bringing the issue up, hoping that someone better would come along to fill the position and proving that her sanity was left in tact. But then he just came through the door and she let it slip. Logan did say the universe was right on schedule. If so, she needed to get a copy of it Fed-Exed over to her.
And how dare Alec turn her down? Of all the nerve. He should have been grateful. She had saved him how many times and now when she needed him, he refused to help? Of course. What else could she have expected?
For him to stay.
She was asking him to stay.
His brain couldn’t process this properly. She was giving him a purpose, a reason to stay.
The first thing she had given him was a swift kick into a wall. Then she gave him his name. Plus the seemingly innumerable times she’d saved his ass from what could only be called imminent death. Now this? Signing his life over officially?
No, this was too much. The whole last forty-eight hours had been too much. He refused to deal with this.
“Whatever,” she finally said. “I knew I was stupid for asking. I should’ve known better.”
He didn’t reply this time. He didn’t even look at her as he hopped off of the desk.
Being friends with her was too much work as it was. Throwing in heroics as well? Not his style.
He wasn’t a martyr. Though in the last few months he had done some questionably martyr-like things. But he just blamed that on Stockholm syndrome.
This, what she was asking of him, would be his choice.
He needed to think. And he needed to do it far away from her, because she screwed up his amoral compass like only a best friend could.
That was why he walked out of her office without another word.
May 5, 2021
“Hey there Maxie, brought ya somethin’… that’s supposed to be dinner,” Alec said as he placed the juice box and packet of Little Debbie cakes in front of her. Then he took a seat on her desk.
That afternoon Max had set up shop in an abandoned office on one of the floors above the Command Center. She hadn’t intended on making herself one, but she needed her own space and had gone up there to clear her head.
Suddenly people began showing up at the door looking for her, needing this and that. She started working from that spot and that was how it became her office. Wasn’t that how she got the job in the first place?
It was close to one in the morning when Alec came to make sure that she had eaten before he would go back to Josh’s place. Housing arrangements were taking longer than they hoped. When Cece had called base to tell them that things had gone FUBAR, all of the transgenics that spent time in Terminal City but didn’t live there had rushed into the abandoned sector fearing the worst. This left a lot of them without their personal belongings or a decent place to stay. No one even wanted to think about the ones waiting to get in yet.
So Alec was stuck sleeping on the floor at Josh’s place with Sketchy, Cindy and Logan for the time being. After their little tête-à-tête, Alec was not looking forward to sleeping in the same quarters as Logan, though admittedly he’d had worse roommates.
It was nights like these that Alec especially envied Max’s nocturnal DNA, which only required her to sleep a few hours. He would have stayed up with her. But he had to settle for checking up on her before going off to bed.
It was strange. No matter how much she threatened him and smacked him around, he didn’t get sick of being around her. Or bothering her. Well, except that time she kicked him in the crotch during the cage match. He had paid her back for that one though, giving her phone number out to some of his shadier clients so she ended up having to change it. She didn’t need to know that though. Or that he told Normal and Sketchy that when he had first met her it was for sex, which was technically true.
All those thoughts faded from his mind when Max looked up from the mass of papers in front of her, many of the sheets once belonging to his clipboard. The Gem and Ken comment must have amused her because she’d underlined it in red. He smirked at the thought.
She gave Alec a confused look and his grin faded.
“Huh?”
“Food. Remember? That thing your body needs to fuel itself,” Alec said.
“They gave out rations already?” she asked.
“Max, I left this out for you in the Command Center hours ago. You’re lucky everyone’s afraid of you or it’d be gone by now,” he told her, smirking. Then in a tone that hinted at concern but wasn’t quite there, he continued, “You need to eat and get some rest.”
“But White -”
“Yeah, there’s a guy who no amount of beauty sleep could cure. Super-immunity is nice, but I seriously would not want to be stuck with those ugly-ass idiots that talk like those automated phone calls. I’m starting to see why Sandeman made us. At least me anyway.”
Max looked at him, trying to figure out what angle he was playing at. Alec was always a puzzle to her. His motivation was so whimsical, it drove her mad. It was so unlike Logan’s decisive reasoning or Zack’s tactical precision. He probably just came by to bother her. Right now, she didn’t have time for it. She was too tired.
“Are you going to eat that or do I have to feed you?” Alec demanded.
Evidently he didn’t get that she was trying to ignore him. Even if he did have a point. Her stomach growled.
Without thinking, they both reached for the snack at the same moment. Their hands became entangled, and their eyes met in a challenging stare, each daring the other to make the first move to defuse the situation. It was Max’s dinner and his hands had no right to be there. But he enjoyed that fiery look in her eyes that threatened to incinerate him too much to move.
How their hesitation caused their hands to entwine more was a mystery.
Their eyes didn’t move from their opponent’s. Not even when Max’s hand maneuvered out of his grasp and twisted his hand back. Hard. It wasn’t enough to do any damage except to cause him to flinch and lose their little staring contest. That was Max and Alec.
“Thanks, but no thanks Pretty Boy,” Max said. “I’m a big girl. I can feed myself.”
“Yeah, but I’m still older. Seniority and all that,” Alec replied as he pulled out of her grip. He brought his hand back close to himself, nursing it like she broke it even though it only hurt a little. “So I’m ordering you to get some sleep before you start looking like Mole… or White.”
He shuddered for effect, and then playfully messed up her hair when her hands were occupied with the snack cakes. She swatted his hands away with her elbows.
“Noted. And you know how I feel about being ordered around,” Max said.
“You wouldn’t burn Josh’s place to the ground, so I’ll take my chances for now.”
“Smart ass.” Max smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“This thing with you and Logan, it’ll work itself out. Yeah, I know it’s none of my business, but I ran into him. He just needs some time. But I stand by what I said before. We don’t belong with them. He’s still a good ally though.”
“Alec,” Max gritted through her teeth. “Logan can do whatever he wants. This isn’t his fight. It’s ours… By the way, I was wondering when you’re leaving.”
Alec paused. Did she really just ask him that? Where had that come from?
To say the thought of leaving Max to deal with this little military party on her own never crossed his mind would have been a lie. Even she knew that. He just raised his arm in solidarity because he got caught up in the moment. But his penchant for self-preservation told him that it would be better to stay put where there was a huge fence between him and the people who wanted him dead.
“Hate to break it to ya, but I’m not going anywhere,” Alec informed her. “You’re stuck with me for the foreseeable future.”
Max nodded. “Well then, you’ll have to earn your keep.”
“I figured you’d say that,” Alec said, grinning smugly from ear to ear. “What is it? Because I’d like to remind you of how multi-talented I am.”
Max rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this…”
Alec’s eyes widened with devilish curiosity. “For the record, just because I let you smack me around does not mean that I actually get turned on by - ”
“Finish that sentence, Dick, and there’ll be nothing to turn on,” Max said dryly.
“Okay, okay,” he said, putting his hands up in mock surrender.
“I’m going to live to regret this, aren’t I?” she went on. Then she drew in a deep breath. “But I need a right-hand man with this Terminal City gig. Ya know, a girl can only do so much in twenty hours a day…”
He stared at her blankly. Then he started to reach for the back of her collar. “Okay Sam, the jig is up. Now we can have our fun, but you don’t have to pretend to be Max. I promise you can have your wicked way with me anytime you want.”
“Alec!” she snapped and slapped his hand away, while at the same time maintaining her balance on the chair. “Quit it. Can’t you take this seriously? You know what? Forget it.”
“Seriously?” he said as if the word were new to him. Was he hearing right? “Me?”
“Yeah, surprised me too,” Max admitted sarcastically.
Alec shrugged. “Eh, I’ll think about it.”
“Excuse me?” Now her ears were malfunctioning.
“Like I’ve told ya, I’m not lookin’ for trouble. And that is exactly what I’ll get if I agree to this. You know what you’re asking here?”
Max sighed.
She knew what she was asking of him. She had been ambivalent about asking him before he walked into the room, and she was still trying to retrace how she arrived at this moment. There had been no intention of bringing the issue up, hoping that someone better would come along to fill the position and proving that her sanity was left in tact. But then he just came through the door and she let it slip. Logan did say the universe was right on schedule. If so, she needed to get a copy of it Fed-Exed over to her.
And how dare Alec turn her down? Of all the nerve. He should have been grateful. She had saved him how many times and now when she needed him, he refused to help? Of course. What else could she have expected?
For him to stay.
She was asking him to stay.
His brain couldn’t process this properly. She was giving him a purpose, a reason to stay.
The first thing she had given him was a swift kick into a wall. Then she gave him his name. Plus the seemingly innumerable times she’d saved his ass from what could only be called imminent death. Now this? Signing his life over officially?
No, this was too much. The whole last forty-eight hours had been too much. He refused to deal with this.
“Whatever,” she finally said. “I knew I was stupid for asking. I should’ve known better.”
He didn’t reply this time. He didn’t even look at her as he hopped off of the desk.
Being friends with her was too much work as it was. Throwing in heroics as well? Not his style.
He wasn’t a martyr. Though in the last few months he had done some questionably martyr-like things. But he just blamed that on Stockholm syndrome.
This, what she was asking of him, would be his choice.
He needed to think. And he needed to do it far away from her, because she screwed up his amoral compass like only a best friend could.
That was why he walked out of her office without another word.