InsaneJournal

Current mood:	sore
Entry tags:	denarians, in my time of dying, mantis-girl, max, nano, obsidian statue, tessa, you don't know me

Section 7
Word count: 2 346


Max was staring, through the water's flow, at the two creatures facing him. Four pairs of eyes stared back, red-orange, steely blue, and two pairs of sickly green, from their different heights.

"Pick it up." It was the first time the androgynous towering figure had uttered anything through this all, and Max had to admit, the voice was as impressive as the appearance and the strength (he'd broken the hydrant with his bare hand, and that took some strength!), deep and echoing and resonating. By this point he no longer even wondered at himself for being able to appreciate something like that in a moment like this, it was simply how he was. It had worked well for him too, once or twice in the past, his recollection of a voice or a smell or motions pattern making possible to recognize an adversary and warn Stephen about it at a meeting - or rather, after it, or during a break. This wasn't a voice to easily forget.

Then again, in the circumstances, it wasn't a voice the sound of which to actually enjoy.

"No." Simple. Clear. He didn't think they'd take it explicitly any more than the implied rejection had worked earlier, but he had to say it.

"What is the matter, you don't want to to get out of the water and do something more useful?"

It kind of had a point, there. With each passing second, the adrenaline high was dying out and exhaustion was settling in. Nothing that he couldn't deal with or hadn't dealt with, but not pleasant at all. He was weaponless - well, he had his body, and it was well-toned, strong, dangerous on its own, but probably not in any way impressive to those two. And the flowing water made any effort to gather his will into a spell absolutely useless, and that emptiness, completely unusual for him, was an ache of unsuspected depth. To cap it all, the water was so very cold, and within minutes it had soaked all through, even his coat - it was meant for weather resistance, not drenching - and in the chill autumn day, it was an effort of will to not be trembling. The cold was somehow enhancing, rather than numbing, the pain from the bruises and the deep scratches he'd procured in the last minutes.

That was still a better focus than none at all, so he took it and used it.

His chin tilted up. "Nah. I actually rather like it here." His face showed a smirk, so well-practiced to appear when unfelt that it was barely a difficulty at all, and he carefully - no need to risk being burned or run through quite yet, not without thinking things through or attempting to - dropped to the sidewalk and sat cross-legged, as comfortably as possible on the hard pavement. "If you have someplace else to be, by all means, don't wait for me." Always the wiseass. That's how he'd grown to be, and that's how he meant to go on, proud every step of the way. Even if his audience wasn't appreciative enough to laugh, he was amusing himself.

In fact, the taller figure growled slightly and gripped its sword more tightly, but one of the mantis clamps held its arm firmly. Then the faceted eyes and the green pair above them misaligned as the head tilted sideways. "You are lying. That's promising."

Max snorted quietly. "Prove it."

"Ah, but I do not need to. You will yourself, when you join us." The free clamp indicated the coin, close enough right now that he could actually lean forward and touch it, if barely, from how he was sitting. Close enough to be able to take a good look at it; which he didn't. One glance was enough to assure him that he didn't want to, not if he was to avoid being fascinated with the intricate sigil or what looked like a fine, delicate script in an unknown language. "You will when you reach out and pick it up and let powers as you've not known about ever before fill you and raise you to do more than you've ever been able to do, before."

"Yeah, right." He tilted his head sideways, and up, at her in turn - carefully, oh so carefully avoiding meeting her eyes. He'd read quite enough to have a vague idea of what to expect... and that all things considered, the last thing whatsoever that he wanted now was an actual soulgaze. "Why would you want me in particular so much? I ain't all that special, you know. Security, working kind of guy. Been on the job for over a century, married almost as long, grown children. You know. Normal, ordinary kind of guy."

The insectoid's lower eyes blinked, slowly, startled; the green pair above them didn't, watching him coolly, easily; the wings on her back fluttered slightly. "You aren't ordinary, particularly because of all those things on the same plate. We have been watching you, you know. Since the first negotiations started." Max didn't show the startlement at that. It had been many weeks since that happened. Months. It was by no means certain the coins would be retreived, at that point, let alone that Archer Imports would selected to convey them. "You don't want to die, Maxie. And I can appreciate skillful muscle. I can well appreciate and reward."

Very, very carefully did Max make sure to keep his face from changing at hearing himself called so. It had been quite a long time since the last time it had been addressed to him. Decades. Lifetimes ago.

It wasn't his name. Once upon a time it had been. But it wasn't any longer.

"So - if I were to do this," no, he wasn't really planning on it. He was buying himself time to think, and he was thinking hard. Stu had died too quickly to even manage to level a death curse, and Max wasn't planning on repeating that. Stall. Talk. Make her talk. Hit back at them so hard that that it wouldn't be in vain. It wouldn't bring back the lives lost, no. But he'd make up for his mistake by trying to make sure that fewer people would get killed in the future.

Somehow.

"If I were to do this, I'd be serving under your orders? I was supposed to be the plaything for you if all was according to plan, but wouldn't your 'husband' be upset if he was left without one too?"

Small smile, another almost purring rasp. "When you join me, my husband would have somebody to join him as well." The clamp pointed down to the coin. "She knew enough of the arrangements of security that we could release some of the coins held, when she is held up once again."

Max actually swallowed, thinking of himself delivering more of the coins to them. Delivering Stephen, his Stephen, to them as was implied. And his eyes narrowed as an idea started developing in his mind. He had to try and keep that knowledge sealed in that coin somehow. What if...

"Tell me now. Wouldn't it be nice to get home, warm and safe and powerful, to your pretty little wife?"

Claudia. Going back to her. Getting back and letting her tend to him, soothe him. Love him, as he loved her back. Now that, that was temptation indeed, more than, he suspected, this creature before him could understand, judging by the tone of voice with which she'd spoken of her husband.

Focus. Think. He tried to keep his eyes away from the coin, and it was an effort now, as a myriad of memories flooded his mind all at once. Dia's smile. The scent of her hair. The color of her eyes as the light from the window fell on them this morning, the way she looked at him when what he was doing was good, physically or otherwise, when she liked what was happening. The way her entire body's position changed the moment she saw him return from a job, relief flooding through her almost tangibly. The way her skin felt under his fingertips, the way her body's curves fit, sweetly familiar, with the motions of his hands, of his own body. The taste of her lips. The aroma of her cooking.

The dismay of finding out he's been hurt, or something had gone wrong.

The acceptance. He wanted, so much wanted to give her the joy of coming home again. But he could barely face one of them, one-on-one. Both of them... He knew his skills and abilities well enough to know it was unrealistic.

But if... if he did pick up the coin... he could go back to her. Back to all of them...

"Yeeeees. Go back to your lovely wife. Go back to your children, stronger, better than before. Safer, so they won't be angry at you anymore. Have your wife any way you might wish to have her, whenever you want to, no matter if she doesn't agree with it or not. You can have anything, consequences left behind you. Regret left behind you. All those things that stop you from being absolutely exactly what you might be. Left behind."

She'd have been closer to getting anywhere if she haddn't added those last bits. The thought of forcing himself on Dia made the little bit of wishing to go back to her recoil and retract back, locked up safe and secure behind walls of who he was. He couldn't, he wouldn't leave behind those things - because they didn't stop him from being absolutely who he was. They were why and how he was fully himself. And he loved his family just as he was. He did have his wife every and any way he wished to - every single time with her consent, or, preferably and absolutely, with her enthusiastic cooperation. And that did not mean in bed alone. He had her mind's approval, her spirirt's support, her heart's love. Nothing, nothing could improve on that. No powers, and no lack of regrets either.

That is what love meant, to him. Keeping her safe, and happy. Oh yes, dying here and now would hurt her, snatch away happiness and joy suddenly and completely from her, from all who loved him back.

But returning a monster would be worse. Infinitely. It would mean grinding down and destroying who she was, just as who he was would've been in the process of being destroyed.

Two bad options.

But maybe one of them he could be in control of. A little. He directed his thoughts, with an effort, back to building in his mind the structure for the spell he had thought of. He could do none of it under the flowing water, but ... later... It had to be powered really strongly to work. That's what death curses are, though, he thought wryly. Powerful.

"You know, I've always been scared of my children's anger at me." His mouth was working almost automatically, as his mind furiously planned and calculated. He needed more time. "But I think you've gotta try harder."

Something flickered on the child-like figure's face. "You can return to your boss too." Sharp intake of breath. They'd been so very careful, to make sure nobody connected them more than as an employer and employee, if important one. So many late-night arguments and refused wanted-for things, ones that both of them had longed for, one to give and the other to accept, just for the sake of keeping up the display of nothing more than a close working relationship, maybe friendship over a beer after work now and again.

Heartened by the reaction, the insectoid Denarian plunged on. "You can go back to him and change everything. Make that working relationship work for you, for a change. Get your own hand in the pot, draw all you want. You will not need to obey him anymore. Why, you could even turn him in to us, make him one of us, where his work might end up with him never getting to order you around again, for eternity."

She thought he resented Stephen. She thought his position of working under him undesirable for him.

Relief, pure and unexpected, flooded through him.

They may have watched him, them, they may have watched really closely. But they hadn't seen the essence. They didn't know him. No matter what they offered, no matter what she said, she could never, ever be able to tempt him so, to lure him into harming, working against them. Into...

"Hmm. That really makes me want to pick up the damn thing just so that I can put your nose through the back of your skull." A hiss, rasp of chitinous body covering as she shiftd, crouched so that her eyes were leveled with his. The green eyes.

He avoided them. And the pair under them. "Let me ask you something, oh temptress who has watched me and knows about me. What is the coin down there? What fallen angel is in it that I should let... ride me?"

"Could you not guess? She worked for the father and was working against him at the same time. You'd work for Stephen de la Marck and turn against him too." Oh yes, he knew the answer. And he knew that answer was the wrong temptation for Max Parker. "Betrayal."

For the man whose loyalty had helped make his life complete in ways most men never knew - loyalty to all he loved, complete and unstinting - that was, in fact, a no-brainer. He'd drained that cup once in his life before. The bitter taste of it never, ever left him.

He was not doing that again.

His chin tilted up, a challenge as clear as before she started trying to lure him into it. Pain and cold and despair and actual temptation could have made it less decisive. If he only weren't quite that certain, that is.

"No."

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