InsaneJournal

Current mood:

desperate

Section 9
Word count: 1 539

Warning: Uh... somewhat graphic bit of a threat, I think.


It only took Max more than a century and a quarter in the city (mostly) to get to the point where he would get killed. For real, this time.

He could recognize the look of fury in the orange-glowing eyes even despite their alien-ness. Inside, he cringed slightly, but tried to focus mostly on planning that spell again. Couldn't let them know what he was planning though, not even that he was planning something.

"You don't much like getting turned down then, I take it?" The bluster was still there, obviously.

He did fully expect her to lash out at that. He didn't expect her to do it with Hellfire.

True, the flowing water about him possibly took the worst of its power away. His body still arched to the side, twisting away, as a flow of flame grazed past the right side of his ribcage.

Living through the senses, he'd discovered a long time ago, meant he felt things more intensively. Meant that the effort not to be shivering was almost overwhelming the cold water and Fall wind, and that the burning at his side was definitely something he could easily ignore.

On the other hand, it had been many decades since he'd learned to master pain. He made the outward signs of reacting to it and pressed on with calculating the spell.

It would push his body out of what it could live through, and he knew it. He still had to do it - and he knew there were only two ways out of here, and one was being ridden by betrayal, and the other was dead. At least he could drag somebody, maybe somebodies down with him.

He recalled for a moment, as the dark-skinned figure reached through and punched him hard enough to have made him fall, had he been standing upright rather than on the ground, what it had been that one time when Stephen had almost died. He remembered clearly the first realization that he was late, the visceral almost awareness that something war wrong because Stephen was never late for their meeting locations. Ever. The rush, tracing backwards through the route he'd been supposed to take there. Finding the messy scattering of bodies, lifeless. Could taste the tears he was shedding as he knelt over the still form of his boss, friend, love. The despair, the loss, the pain, because how could he be dead, how? This was wrong and it was real and Max could still feel the intensity, the tenacity of it.

The absolute wave of relief as his uncertain, helpless touch had resulted in a reaction, barely audible gasp of pain, instead of finding the coldness of death under his fingers. The absolute need to protect him, against everything and anything, carrying him to safety, tending to as much of his hurts as he could, then going out to get medications and even advice for the rest. Coming up with that plan - which worked fine, too - that they did, together, of ways to spread the rumour that he hadn't survived. The chilling numbness on Solace's face as he'd delivered the news to her.

The glare of cold fury she'd given him when he'd come in at Stephen's hideout, finding her there after she'd figured it out. His own lack of repentance.

Would Stephen go through something like the first of those, when Max and his people didn't show back up at work at the assigned latest hour? He didn't want to give that pain. But it was better than welcoming the parasite, or whatever, that the fallen angel of the blackened denarius would become to him.

Couldn't.

That would be too much evil. To Stephen and TO Dia first of all. To the rest of the world as well.

Then he got to focus on the voice hissing at him - by means of being prodded by the edge of a blade, of the great broadsword, in each upper arm in turn. Pain from the cuts - not too deep, but none too gentle either - was another species of pain to put away, as the voice which was threatening...

Oh.

No longer him. The androgynous figure with icy blue eyes was now threatening his family. If he didn't pick up the coin, the Denarian would go after Claudia. Would go after his daughter, after his son, after their families. Crushing chests, popping skulls by squeezing them in his hand. Breaking bones, each single bone on a palm and wrist, one by won.

It made his blood boil again, made him forget the chill of the water and get angry over the evil that these things were.

He couldn't let it happen.

He wouldn't let it happen. And he sure as hell wouldn't be a part of it, neither for those he loved himself, or for those that others loved. Because he had no illusions. If he took up that coin, he'd end up wreaking havoc and grief to people who had their own loves, their own principles, their own reasons to do goo, or try to, and made their own mistakes, for their own reasons.

He couldn't pick up that coin. He couldn't let it be picked up. He couldn't let Mr. Black over there get its hands on Dia or Sammy or anybody, or Bug-girl over here or her husband get their hands on Stephen. He had to do something about it.

He couldn't gather his will here, no. But he could, and did, built up the resistance that would lead to it. He collected his pain, his anger, his despair even, the knowledge that he'd never either kiss Dia's sweet lips again, or run his fingers along Stephen's wiry, muscled chest. The love he had for them. The pain he bore for each time they had been harmed, and the determination to not let it happen again.

He couldn't build up his will. But he could build up his emotions. He hadn't tried it before, but it had to work a bit, at least, to help fuel it all - and he held it now firmly in his mind - when he got out of under the damned hydrant.

He sensed the boiling lot of all of the emotions coil inside him. Tried to condense them more. Death curse or no, every little additional bit of help would help, if not the fact of the spell, at least the speed of it.

He also broke his cross-legged position, coiling physically too - his feet placed before his hips, apparently curling, holding his knees before his chest as if upset, hurt, trying to protect himself. For one thing, to move his freezing, screaming muscles. For another, he could straighten up and burst into motion really quickly from this position.

And he planned to.

The towering black figure gave a sort of canine grin, thinking it was working, that he was close to yielding to their will. Repeated the cuts with the sword on the front of each of Max's shins and kept on talking, making the wizard's eyes glint in contained, seemingly helpless fury up at him.

It either has more imagination than its appearance leads us to believe... or more experience and teachers that it's paid attention to.

Too bad.

And then the insectiod one stepped forward and again put one of her clamps over the dark, looking like a polished stone, arm. "I think he got your point well."

The sword got retracted, the smirk on the genderless features remained. "Do you think he did? I think I can come up with some interesting ways to use strips of the skin of her inner thighs too..."

"I think he did." The large, faceted eyes turned towards the chilled man under the flowing water. "Didn't you. Maxie?"

"I'm... pretty sure I actually did." He let his teeth chatter a little. It was better than letting his actual reaction to that name be seen. Of course, almost anything was better than that.

"We can, and will, take you away from here, you know. With enough time, after you see enough of that which was just talked about, and more, actually coming to pass, you'll take it up. And you know it."

"I..." Max looked down. Maybe, if that came to pass, he might. Maybe he would. Hiding his eyes and the determination in them to not let it happen wasn't a bad idea at all.

"Aaaah Maxie. So stubborn to make things the way you want them. So thorough. And now suddenly, all of that is lost. Irretrievably lost. Does it feel bad?"

The condescension and taunting in her voice fed his rage again. Because, indeed, what he'd planned on had been lost. He'd hedged the bets in favor of what he meant to happen - Stephen's safety and work were achieved, after all, at least for now - but he'd not managed to do it well enough for himself and those with him. Yes, it did feel bad.

No, he couldn't let it all be wasted. Couldn't let their deaths be wasted.

Or his own.

"I... guess."

"Poor little Maxie. But in the course of things, you see... you really have no choice."

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