Candy Hearts -- For Skylar0Grace
Author: Noturbaby
Fandom: Dark Angel
Character pairing: Max/Alec
Warning: none
spoilers: none
Author's note: I wrote this for
It had been six days since Max saved Alec. Six days since she crawled into his mind and learned that he loved her. Six days since she fought to tell him she loved him, too. During those six days, Max had only found a few spare moments to spend with Alec. Yes, those moments were full of passion, but they were just moments stolen away. Alec hadn't had a chance to spend quality time with Max and therefore wasn't able to fully express his gratitude for being saved or his desire to show her just how deeply he loved her.
On the seventh day, all that was going to change.
One of the qualities Alec loved about Max was that she always put the needs of others before herself. He knew he'd find her hard at work in the command center. It wouldn't matter to her that it was Valentine's Day and that many of the others were planning romantic rendezvous with their mates. Max would be working, Max was always working.
Alec also knew it wouldn't take much effort to get the place to empty out early. Alec was second in command. An order from him was as good as one from Max. With that in mind, beginning at one in the afternoon Alec began to slowly order the others to take the rest of the day off.
At one thirty, a messenger arrived with a large envelope from Logan. Max opened it and sighed heavily. More trouble, more work. She put aside what she had been working on and began to read the stack of documents from Logan.
At three, Kellie winked at Alec before knocking on Max's door. “Come in,” Max shouted from behind the door.
“Hey, Max, you're not too busy are you? I've got a list of medical supplies we're going to need before the end of the week.”
Max sighed taking the papers from Kellie. “Okay, I'm sure we can handle this. No worries, Kellie.”
“Thanks, Max.” Kellie left Max's office leaving the door open behind her. She smiled at Alec who was across the hall in his office sitting at his desk.
Alec slid his chair over to the corner of his desk, pulled open a drawer and retrieved a weapon. Peering into Max's office he took aim and fired.
Max's head spun to the source of the noise as Alec's projectile hit an exposed pipe in the rear of her office. Not finding anything out of the ordinary, Max went back to her tasks.
Alec smirked an fired again.
When Max looked toward the sound, Alec fired again, this time his target was her back wall. Watching Max begin to follow the noise, Alec loaded his sling shot with three more candy hearts and shot them into the far corner of Max's office. “ALEC!” Max roared.
“Yeah?”
“Get in here, I think I might have a mouse or something.” Max began to move a file cabinet to get at the corner.
Instead of acting on her command, Alec took a hand full of the tiny candy hearts, loaded them into his sling shot and fired. This time scattering them throughout her office.
Max whirled around, “What the ?” Her eyes fell to the colorful hearts scattered throughout her office. She picked one up and read : Be Mine. She looked across the hall to a smirking Alec. She picked up another and read: Hold Me. The next read Hug Me. Another: Love You. “Alec?”
“Yes, Max?” he answered from her doorway.
“Why are you trying to annoy me with candy hearts? Can't you see I'm busy?” She was trying for annoyance, but there was a smile playing on her lips.
“You once said that my ability to be 'creatively annoying' was my best quality,” he began.
“No,” she corrected. “I said it was your only quality.”
Unfazed by her correction Alec continued, “Right, therefore also my best.” He shut her door and moved into her office. “You're not busy, Max.”
Max raised a brow at him, then read another heart. Kiss Me. “Cute,” she said holding up the heart for him to see, “but, yes, Alec, I'm very busy, just look at all of this.” She waved her hand over her desk indicating the papers from Logan and Kellie.
“Hmm, I have, have you?”
Struggling to control the urge to slap him upside his head, Max took a breath. “Yes, Alec, I have looked at the papers. It's all I have been doing this afternoon.”
Alec nodded slowly, took the Kiss Me heart out of her hand and popped it in his mouth. “Are you sure you looked at the papers? I mean did you look closely?” He sucked at the candy with an expectant look.
With an annoyed huff Max picked up a random page on her desk and made a show of looking at it. “Happy? I'm looking at it.”
“Yeah, you're looking at it, but are you really seeing it?” Max glared at him over the top of the page. “Check the date on that Max.”
Her eyes flew to the top of the page. “January 12, 2019. 2019?” Quickly grabbing other pages from Logan's stack of documents she found all the dates were from the previous year. Confused, she looked at Alec only to become annoyed at his smug smile. “Why is this from last year?”
He held up the supply request from Kellie. “You don't need to read all of this, either. The last couple paragraphs would probably be enough.”
Max tore the papers from his hand and quickly flipped to the last page.
Max,
If you're reading this and I'm not standing in your office, I'm sorry, something must have come up and messed up my plan. But, if I am standing in your office while you read this then the first thing I want you to know is that I love you and I did all of this so that we could spend some time alone together.
Kellie doesn't need any supplies and that file from Logan is an old one. I lifted it from the file cabinet in your office and had it messengered over here. So now you know you don't have any 'work' that requires your attention. You should also know that by the time you read I have arranged for us to be completely alone. I have sent everyone home, there's no one in command but us.
Max look up from the page to look Alec in the eye. “Why? Wh-why did you think you had to do all this? If you wanted to be with me all you had to do is say so.”
Alec took the papers from her hand. “Max, I'm in love with you so, yeah, I want to be with you. But you always use your 'work' as a way to be too busy to spend any decent amount of time with me.” Seeing that Max was about to protest, Alec continued, “That's why for Valentine's Day, I made sure we had all the time we want.”
Max took a small step towards him and let a smile warm her lips though she tried to sound annoyed. “And you thought that keeping me distracted with unnecessary work was a good idea?”
Alec pulled Max closer and his smile grew larger. “Well it meant you wouldn't get angry when I did this.” He swept all the papers from her desk, placed her on top of it, then leaned in and kissed her. “Happy Valentine's Day, Max.”