H is for Hero

[parallax23]

HERO

 

Alec picked up his drink from the counter. Scotch neat. The boys at Crash didn’t even ask anymore.

He swirled the amber liquid in his glass. First drink of the night. He wouldn’t bother counting how many it would take to wash out the bad taste guilt had left in his mouth. And he hated this particular type of guilt, because really he hadn’t hurt anyone or gotten anybody killed, so he shouldn’t have cared.

“Boy, where you been? Original Cindy ain’t seen yo triflin’ ass for a week,” she said as she took a seat by him at the bar.

“Aw, you missed me?” he asked with a cool grin. “I’m touched.”

“Hardly. I just came by to let you know our girl had a run in with some serious trouble – and you weren’t there to help her out,” Cindy told him, the bartender handing her a beer. “After all the times she saved yo ass, you can’t have her back one time?”

Alec took another sip from his drink, then glowered at her. “I was busy.”

He didn’t want to talk about it. It was pretty damn clear if Original Cindy was talking to him that Max didn’t talk about it either.

“Yeah, we got that. Well, while you were busy, Logan was there…”

There was no reason to keep listening after that. The last thing he needed to hear was how Logan Cale had saved Max’s day. How Logan had once more risen to the rank of hero while Alec had been the bad guy… Again. Original Cindy didn’t even know that half of the story as she went on about the tale of Max’s rescue from the wicked clutches of White and the CDC.

No one needed to know what he’d done. The role he had played in getting her into that situation. What they’d done that led to Max getting in that gas line, looking to fuel an escape.

As Alec downed the rest of his drink, Cindy knew he was drowning her out. There was no getting through to him when he was like this. Brooding. She had only seen him like this once before and knew to keep her distance.

Picking up her drink, she didn’t bother to say that she was leaving him alone to scowl in peace. She just walked away and he didn’t even bat an eyelash in her direction.

She didn’t know that she had made a bad situation worse. That now he was even more guilty than he ever thought possible. Max had gotten hurt. It was his fault and it wasn’t at the same time.

The memory was burned into his psyche the way Max’s touch had marred his skin that night. It was an immortal invisible imprint on his soul.

It was the best and worst night of his life. He hated how all of his best memories were tainted with tragedy. How could he have expected this to be any different? That was what he got for going after the ones he couldn’t have.

Shutting his eyes, it replayed in front of him. The whole damnably sinful evening.

He had been at the bar in Crash, after the whole gossamer thing had blown over. Apparently the cure had only been a temporary one, so Max was back to moping. Having lost her window of opportunity, she would be spending the next few days bemoaning it. She had called in sick at work the day after. Logan had probably locked himself in his apartment, burying himself in work, which would explain why Alec couldn’t find Asha to finish what they’d started the other night. So there he was, drinking by himself waiting for the next warm body to cozy up to him.

If only Alec knew what was in store for him, how badly the odds were stacked against him that evening, he probably would have gone somewhere else.

Probably. But that wasn’t what happened.

Of course not. Because he was Alec, perpetual screw-up extraordinaire. If he wasn’t getting himself into trouble, the universe would find a way to rectify the situation.

It had been while some girl with brown hair had swaggered up to him, hoping that he’d offer to buy her a drink. She wasn’t that bad looking, but he couldn’t explain the awful feeling at the pit of his stomach that something was about to go wrong. In his life, he had gotten far too many of these feelings to actually warrant much notice. So he carried on as if it were nothing. He would burn that bridge when he got to it.

Too bad it wasn’t a bridge or any other stationary object. No, it was something on the prowl.

She hadn’t been looking for anyone in particular. She was too hurt from that lost moment with Logan that all she wanted was something to dull the pain. It didn’t help that her heat decided to come knocking when her sexual frustration was at its peak. Heat was bad enough without all that pent up energy. The first day had been bearable at least. But now, when it had really set in, she couldn’t take it anymore.

Original Cindy was out of town visiting some sick aunt, which left Max on her own. There was no one to talk her out of pulling on a pair of new cargo pants and that really cute sweater that made Logan stutter whenever she was in the room. Half the reason she wore it was because it reminded her of him. Maybe if she wore it, it would remind her who she really was meant to be with and keep her from doing something stupid.

The emptiness of the apartment started to become unbearable after she changed. Silent and hollow, when all she wanted was something to drive out the pain and loneliness. She had been ready to tear her hair out when she finally decided to get some air.

Wasn’t this the same way the hook-up with Rafer had started? A tangled memory of want and guilt and rabid instinct that she hated remembering, but also reveled in at the same time, came back to her. She knew what she was risking when she went out that night. Or at least she thought she did.

Crash was more crowded than usual. There were so many warm and willing bodies to choose from.

Why had Alec ignored all of them the minute she walked through the door? Maybe because she was his friend and he knew she had been feeling down. Yeah right. It was that sexy gray sweater and the pants that looked painted on. He hadn’t seen her like that before.

Her eyes had been surveying the room when they connected with his gaze.

Good old Alec, trying to score his next bedmate for the night. For once, Max wasn’t really repulsed by the thought of Alec seeing some action. With her. Her moral compass must have been wherever Cindy had gone, because whatever usually pointed her away from Alec wasn’t there anymore. She had appreciated his good looks, it was just his personality that ruined the package.

“Hi,” Max said in a measured tone, her vision focused on Alec the entire time. Inside her head, she kept insisting that this was probably some heat fantasy gone awry. Alec didn’t look at her like that – full of want.

“Hi,” Alec replied easily, though it was anything but easy.

“Hello? Standing right here,” squeaked the brunette he had been talking to.

“So?” Max asked, not tearing herself away from her visual evaluation of Alec.

He had to know what was going on with her, right? If not, there was no reason not to admire the view. He was wearing that blue sweater he seemed to be wearing every day now, that was nonetheless adorable on him. Or maybe it was just that he was adorable. Whatever.

The other girl was about to say something else to draw the attention back to herself, but noticed Alec’s gaze was just as intensely fixated on Max.

So much for a hot random hook-up.

So much for not being the bad guy. He couldn’t take the dangling of something so tempting in front of his face. He just wanted her, and nothing was going to stop him from bridging the gap between himself and Max with a long and passionate kiss that left them both breathless. He was the one who broke the barrier, not her. She just reciprocated. Very, very willingly.

They had gone back to her place since it was closer, there was no thinking about it.

Sure, the experience was mind-numbingly fantastic enough to leave him still feeling it a week later, wondering if anything else would ever compare. But in the short hours afterwards, he had decided to run from it. He crawled out of bed when he woke up, knowing that she was probably awake and pretending to be asleep, pretending that it had all been some heat induced dream and not reality when she woke up.

He had sworn to himself that he was not going to get dragged into Max and Logan’s stupid little love drama. What had he been thinking? Wait, he wasn’t thinking. He just really wanted to touch every inch of her, taste her, make her scream his name. It was the tomcat, not him, that was in control.

Alec had seen what getting between Max and Logan had done to Asha, heck even Zack, and he wasn’t going to let himself be another casualty to their failed attempt at star-crossed romance. Hell, she’d burned Manticore to the ground to get back to him. No freaking way was he going to be the next sacrifice to the altar of broken toys.

So he ran.

After an hour of driving aimlessly along the highway in a car he’d jacked from some drunk at a strip club, he found himself staring at the charred remains of Manticore. Even though it was gone, he still felt trapped by it. The whole incident with Max had been their fault – trying to make perfect soldiers with imperfect science. It was their fault for making her in the first place, for pairing them up to breed. Alec loved that little irony and chuckled softly to himself. Still doing just what Manticore wanted them to, even when they were supposed to be free.

They hid what they were from their enemies until the strike. They kept a low profile. They lied. They broke.

Max mixed it up a bit with her heroine routine. Alec bounced between the roles of lovable sidekick and bad guy, depending on what the occasion called for. Or how bored he was.

Damn it, he hadn’t even done anything wrong. He wasn’t supposed to feel like he’d hurt her when she had begged for it in the first place. Literally begged. And she was the one who started round two, not him.

Then she really got hurt trying to escape from what they’d done.

He wasn’t the guy who pulled the trigger, but he felt like he was. It was his stupid inability to control himself; he could have just walked away. He had enough sense to do it the moment he realized what was going on. Why didn’t he? Why did he initiate that kiss?

She got hurt trying to get away from him, served up to White on a nice hospital tray. And let’s not forget the CDC getting a whiff of a transgenic. No one needed to know that Alec had been the catalyst for the whole fiasco, along with the fact that he hadn’t even been there to fix the situation. Not when Cindy and Joshua saw Logan as the hero of the story. They were team ‘Max and Logan.’ If they knew what he’d done, even though it really was as much Max’s fault as it was his, he’d be the evil monster in this little fucked up fairy tale.

Logan had been there for her when she needed help. That was what mattered. He wasn’t a screw-up. He got to be the hero of Max’s story once again.

And Alec?

He downed the contents of his fifth glass and signaled for another.

What did it matter what he did?

He’d always be the bad guy, wouldn’t he?