[closed, complete]

[zer0_restraint]

WHO: Zero, Max
WHAT: Max went wandering into the Jungle. Zero has had enough of this bullshit.
WHERE: the Jungle~
WHEN: Some... time... ish. this morning.

Comments

[nixe_eva]

Max clenched her jaw. She'd let Danny out of her sight, and gotten burned. She'd never failed so bad at keeping track of a friend, much less one in this sort of place. She clung to the branch, thinking hard. What had she done wrong? Her eyes passed over a red form hacking his way through the jungle. Gritting her teeth against the pain of her encounter with batboy, Max jumped down from her branch. Her whole body was crusted in dirt from sleeping and laying on the ground for a few days.

"I was gonna come back, y'know, one day." Max commented idly when he was within earshot.

[zer0_restraint]

"You look like hell," he said when he could see her. "No, not even like hell, you look like a dog used you as a chew toy and then dragged you through hell."

He rubbed his neck. "And sure you were. Just like X was totally going to come back someday, just fine, he was just investigating. Sorry, but I'm not taking chances anymore."

[nixe_eva]

Max raised an eyebrow. Seeing him, Max tried to replace the facade of indifference, the mask that only showed sarcasm and toughness. "At least the dog was a werebat, right? I'd be pathetic if I let a dog tear me up." Her shirt was ripped in multiple places from the fight with Hiruma. Any normal human might've been more concerned about ripping open the scabs, but Max just kept going like there was nothing wrong.

She picked up the knife she'd used once to skin a monkey for dinner and stuffed it back into the sheath. "You worry too much." She muttered, walking back up to him. Then again she, herself, worried too much.

[zer0_restraint]

Zero sighed. "If I didn't worry I'd be a lot more dead," he said. "Now, come on."

[nixe_eva]

Max shrugged. "Were you expecting me to say 'no, I must brood by myself'? That's Uncle's job." She sighed as well. She was the worrier, not anyone else. "I do agree that worrying has kept me alive."

Weird copies, weren't they? They both even had blond hair.

She paused in front of him, shaking her head. "Sometimes I just-" She stopped. No point. He probably understood already. She just wanted to stop caring about people. Give up and be a complete cynic at odds with the world.

[zer0_restraint]

-need some time alone," he finished. "I get you."

Boy did he ever. How many times exactly had he run off, leaving poor X to think he was dead, was gone, was missing with no words, no explanations?

"Still. You gotta forgive me for worrying and coming out here myself. I'm not going to lose another friend to this damn place."

[nixe_eva]

The mask she'd quickly slipped on when she saw him shattered with the blatant admission of friendship. She'd lost Danny here. That was obvious. She needed someone to fill the void of friendship he'd left, the part of her open when she appeared here without Fang.

There was no one else around. A tear, or two, slipped out of Max's eyes and she threw her arms around him. It was ten times harder to lose a friend here. He'd been like Fang to her, and it was hard to imagine herself loosing her right-hand man.

It was about two seconds after Max was hugging and silently crying that she realized he probably was as uncomfortable with hugs as she was.

[zer0_restraint]

He really had no idea how to react to this.

He sort of just stood there for a few moments, as the warm human - ok, not human but to him it was all the same - girl threw her arms around her and started crying.

More than a little awkwardly, he hugged her back, trying to think about what people were supposed to do in these kinds of situations. Even X never hugged people. Did he know ANYONE who did? Iris, perhaps...

[nixe_eva]

Max stepped back. God, she hated hormones. She wiped the tears off her cheeks and started walking back. "Tell anyone and I'll tear your central core out." She muttered.

She hadn't intended to break down in front of, much less hug, Zero. Max rubbed her nose on her sleeve. She wasn't going to cry again, not where he could see.

The thought simply occurred to her that she really had no idea where the android was staying. "Where are you staying?" Max folded her wings under her hoodie and glanced back to make sure he was following. "Even..." She trailed off. "Even with Jojo, I mean, we- I have room."

She really didn't want to admit she wanted someone that was bigger than two inches around the house.

[zer0_restraint]

"Pft, like I'd say a word," he said, following right behind her.

"And I... I'm not staying anywhere. I don't really need to eat, and I don't mind going into sleep mode outside."

Not that he would mind sleeping with a roof over his head, exactly.

[nixe_eva]

Max nodded. "Sleeping outside is nothing to a bed, though, that's just my humanity seeping into my brain. You can have a room for whatever, if you want." Her foot caught on a root and she stumbled forward a little before her wings snapped out to catch her.

"And, honestly, it's not like I have to worry about feeding you."

[zer0_restraint]

"True enough," he said. "If it really isn't a problem... I'd like that."

[nixe_eva]

Max shrugged. Her voice was flippant as she said, "I'm the owner now anyways."

She kept walking and straightened her back. The closer to the city she seemed to get, the more the mask of sarcasm and indifference became secured. Her whole being resumed the air she'd adopted to keep herself protected.

Her wings settled themselves once more into the indents that ran along her spine; the ripped-up clothes had a little more blood added to them as her scabs from the fight with Hiruma ripped open from her movement. She kept walking, almost ignoring entirely the pain from the injuries.

Oh well. She would live. Just another way for the healing to be kept up to par.