How's your new boy, does he know about me?

[lolwhatfuture]

"We intend for you to found a dynasty."

You've heard this before. The end of the world is coming, everyone will die, you're expected to lead the survivors. So on and so forth. It's nothing new. But they're hiding something from you. Something your rat bastard father isn't prepared to say.

"And that dynasty will rule society until it has progressed enough to--"

"Overthrow the dynasty in a revolutionary, blood-filled coup!" Iggy cries eagerly. You all stare at him. It's good to know you'll have him backing you up on the whole being queen of the world business. Shit.

"Okay, you lost me," your mother says. "What exactly are you getting at?"

You'd love to know that, too. Your father, Jeb, and his creepy science pal Doctor Hans have something in store for you, and you're a little anxious to find out what it is.

"It's very simple, Dr. Martinez," says Hans. "We want Max to…breed."

Your mouth falls open.

Breed. Like cattle.

"To produce heirs," Hans continues. "Who will govern the world after she dies."

Everyone has fallen silent with shock. But Fang is gone. The only boy you've ever loved took off. Who the hell do they expect you to--

You catch sight of the beautiful blond boy standing silently to the side. Dylan. The cow-eyed, winged mate they designed and sprung on you out of nowhere, whose advances you've rejected vehemently. And violently. You see his discomfort. His guilt.

You're horrified.

"Oh, no."

"It makes sense, Max. You're a perfect match. I'd like you and Dylan to come with me to Germany, where I have a nice home waiting for you."

You can't speak. You're too stunned. Ruling the world, sure, you think you can handle that, but being told you have to have kids now, soon, because "we don't know how long your lifespan will be…"

"You can marry or not, as you wish, and in time produce children, heirs to your dynasty. To carry on your legacy, your leadership."

Your mother's voice pitches in, loud and firm. "Over my dead body, Hans."

The breath rushes from you in relief. "Oh, thank you. So it's not just me."

They really are just fucking insane.

"That's a crazy plan!" your mother shouts. "Max is barely fifteen years old! It's bad enough that you've saddled her with saving the world. Now you want her to do it with a baby on her hip?"

You feel an intense love for her, and gratitude.

They go on arguing for a short while. You barely have ears for it, but you can't help but spare one more glance at Dylan, and you feel your horror flicker back to life at the look of hope in his bright, turquoise eyes.

-------

She doesn't bother suppressing a scream of outrage. It was humiliating enough being seen as a weak thing in a cage, with as much defensive power as a drugged up infant monkey, but this was especially wrong. The foul mess that was her love life and familial relationships were not for public eyes, and the animalistic purpose those men had tried to brand her with was infuriating. For a moment she forgot she had any roommates. It was too satisfying to chuck the Forge across the room with a noisy, crunching clatter as it hit the corner.

The bedroom was cold, empty, and seemed to echo with mocking, as well as detached expectation. Like Hans.

Sighing, a hand running through her hair as Max took a breath to calm herself, she hardly knew what to do, or where to go, and instead stood there staring at the broken Forge while seeing something else entirely.

Whatever, she had to tell herself. Who freaking cares?

It had been up for a while according to the device, broadcasted while she slept. They'd get over it. Maybe even think it was funny. It's not like anyone could blame her for the twisted plan some jerkoff in a coat had come up with.

Except...one very irrational person.

Comments

[lolwhatfuture]

"Then figure it out!"

Some instinctual part of her nearly backed away when he advanced. Just barely, though, she managed to stay. There's something incredibly human in him then that's stunning, scary, but thrilling and honest and so priceless she can't help but feed off his fear and frustration until the house is filled with their shouting.

"You're such a genius, you're so flipping smart, but you don't even get what's right in front of you. Why do you have to think so much?" Her hands clench as if itching to strangle or shake him. Maybe both. "You're-"

The words catch somewhere in her chest. Max wants to shove him, knock him around, rough him up for causing so much strife inside her, but her hands are kept at her sides and her voice comes out in a flurry as if it's all built up in the span of a moment.

"You're freaking important, okay? You matter--to me--and you don't just turn your back on someone who matters! I like being around you. I like being here, even if you are totally crazy and unpredictable. I don't want to leave!"

[purgatio]

Albedo thought so much because he understood nothing else. Not at this point, not with all of his emotions churning inside of him so fiercely; so much that he thought they would never settle. Her words felt harsher than they were, and tears spilled over his eyes without his realization-- He hadn't even known they were building behind his eyes. She would yell at him, berate him, and then--

And then, tell him that she cared.

Tell him that everyone in his world had been wrong. That you don't walk away from the people you bonded to.

He had made himself believe that. Made himself believe that everyone would walk away, because then it was easier, then it was less painful-- Because if everyone would always leave, then the fact that Rubedo did so was something that always would have happened, no matter what Albedo did, no matter how things played out. There was nothing he could have done to stop it. In every reality, Albedo would have clung crying to his twin's hand, and Rubedo still would have pulled away. There was nothing he could have done.

(Not with Sakura or 623 or the Conflict or anything else--)

And here, she would tell him otherwise. Rip his world asunder and declare him important in the same breath. He finally realized he was crying, giant, sobbing breaths that made him seem younger than he was, and he hated it, he had stopped crying a long time ago, and that this girl could make him cry like this--!

"Are you stupid?! Don't you understand anything?!" He wiped a hand roughly across his face, then flung it out to the side, arms wide. "I'm the villain here, Maximum Ride! I'm the one you should be running from! I'm the one who wouldn't have cared an ounce if the 'sheep' in my tale fell to nothing!" A callback to their first meeting, an example with a fatal flaw that even he hadn't noticed. "I could kill you--!"

His eyes widened in fear--he remembered Nigredo, remembered pummeling his baby brother's form from the rush of U-DO in his system, remembered Nigredo lashing out to rend him, kill him dead, but Albedo still. Still remembered the feel of Nigredo beneath him.

Albedo's lower jaw quivered. He drew up a hand to cover his mouth, gave his last words in a whisper. "...I could really hurt you." So leave. Just go. Run far away. Make it easier so he doesn't have to accept her words.

[lolwhatfuture]

She took his words as a threat at first and cringed . I could kill you; that in response to admitting a deepset wish to stay at his side. It at first appeared that he was so lost in a storm of conflict that he felt the temptation to lash out at her and end his struggle, but Max had to wonder when she recognized the fear and frustration in his eyes. Not a threat, then. It was a warning.

She'd always figured that he would not seek to harm her without intending to, maybe in response to whatever he perceived to be betrayal, yet now his every move and sob testified to some doubt in his ability to stop himself should he feel an inkling to harm. If Albedo still entertained thoughts of her murder and doubted his self-control...

"What do you mean?"

The simple question sounded hard and demanding. With her knowlegde of his past too limited to assume a reason herself, Max could only think of all the time they'd spent in each other's presence, of every teasing jest and comforting touch passed between. If it meant nothing, and every moment spent holding her hand was cut with a barely suppressed urge to maim--she resented the pang in her chest at the thought of it.

She couldn't remember at what point she'd allowed herself to become so vulnerable to him. Like an idiot. And she felt like an idiot, standing there with her arms hanging uselessly at her sides, numb with the near-undeniable compulsion to reach out and sooth Albedo until he was calm again. But she could not afford that kind of trigger compassion, not just yet, no matter how inclined she was towards him.

The next words came out sounding thicker. "Is that what you think about in your free time? Hurting me?"

It couldn't be. Not after everything. Max tried to push the hand away from his mouth and force him to bear the truth of his terror. He couldn't hide from himself now that he'd already blurted so much, and as Max spoke she became angrier, her nails raking against the skin of his wrist as she fumbled under the pressure of what he'd said.

"Bullcrap. We've been around each other this long and nothing's happened! Why would you do it now? Are you trying to scare me off?"