Storyteller - DA fic - PG13

[tigriswolf]

Title: Storyteller
Fandom: "Dark Angel"
Disclaimer: not my characters.  Just for fun. All the quotes are from “Pollo Loco” or “The Berrisford Agenda”
Warnings: after “Hello, Goodbye”
Pairings: none
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 1170
Point of view: first

Ben: Come on, Maxie! Don't tell me you've forgotten that day. 
Max: Believe me, I've tried. 
Ben: But you can't, can you? And you wanna know why? Because it was the most exhilarating day of your life. For one brief moment, you were what you were meant to be--a predator. What's the matter, Maxie? You afraid to remember? 
Max: I don't want to remember. 
Ben: Because it scares you? I think we even scared Lydecker that day. I remember watching him run off into the woods... how long it seemed for Lydecker to count down the seconds. He never had a chance. Don't tell me you don't wake up with the sound of your heart pounding in your ears. 
Max: Shut up. 
Ben: Or the taste of blood in your mouth. 
Max: Shut up! 
Ben: You're like a wolf in sheep's clothing, Max! You're hiding your instincts, every minute of every day, so no one will know what you really are. A soldier...a hunter...a killer.

----

She killed me. Well, not me—him. Ben. The man whose face I wear. The psycho killer. The storyteller. Her brother.

She killed him. How can she look at me? She wrapped her hands around his neck and snapped it, cutting short his life.

Sure, she says he asked her to—but how can I know? How did he get so injured she couldn’t help him out of the woods?

Oh, but I forget—he was a serial murderer, a monster. He had to be stopped.

I underwent so many things because of him. They wanted to find out what made him crazy, if it’d happen to me. Wanted to see just how different we were, if at all. Could I kill so indiscriminately, so cruelly? Could I?

If I had escaped so early, like Ben and the rest of them, perhaps so. I never told them that, though, even during the worst. Never said how easily it would be, how... freeing. To toss away all training and just... be.

Be a hunter, a predator. A killer for fun, not for Manticore.

I never said that to them, to anyone. Ben would have understood. And as much as I hated him for the pain he caused me, I reveled in it. Sometimes I’d pretend it was me killing all them, dream about his hunts. Sometimes I’d wonder what would happen if I ever could leave Manticore, be out in the real world.

Would I lose my mind? Would I kill?

----

Max: You're the Nomlie. 
Ben: No. 
Max: The genetic mistake. 
Ben: No. 
Max: The monster in the basement. Ben, you know what you're doing is wrong. Some part of you wants it to end. So end it. Tell me where Destry is. Your mission's over. You can't keep trying to recreate Manticore. 
Ben: We never should've left. Everything made sense there. 
Max: No. Nothing made sense there. 
Ben: I'm a good soldier. I try so hard.

----

Then it happened, because of her, the girl who killed him.

Sometimes I want to call her ‘Maxie’, what I call her in my dreams. What I call her, wrapped in Ben’s blood-drenched memories. Sometimes I want to hunt, to kill—it’s what I was made to do. What I was raised and taught to do, what I was born for.

Ben understood that, and Max doesn’t want to. She pretends, and pretends well—in my dreams, I see Ben call her on that.

I wonder if we’d get along, Ben and I. If we’d agree on anything, besides Max being a hypocritical bitch. If we’d have anything in common, beyond the need for the hunt, the need I suppress daily, the need he gave into. If we’d understand each other, if we even could.

After all, he went insane and I haven’t. Yet. But the dreams... blood and power and the scent of fear. No regret at all. No pity, no mercy—just the hunt. For her, the Lady.

Ben was a storyteller. While at Manticore he kept the others sane. Made them a family. Gave them a feeling of safety in one of the least-safe places in the world.

I wish I had had a Ben. Maybe... maybe I’d be like Max, able to forget and move on. Able to lose myself in helping others and leave behind my own pain.

But I didn’t have a Ben. I didn’t have a family. I just had training and pain. I just had myself and lies and acting a part that I could never truly become—because, I think, we weren’t made for it.

Ben and I—we’re different, even from the other transgenics.

----

Alec: ...you don't know what you're talking about. 
Max: Then explain it to me. 
Alec: I would, see, but you wouldn't understand. You can't understand; you weren't there. You ran. You and your little rugrat brothers and sisters. You think life was rough when we were ten? A little schooling, a little brainwashing, some maneuvers outside? You think that was tough? 
Max: Sucked pretty hard. 
Alec: Take it from me. Later on, it got a whole lot worse. But you did what you had to do. Then you tried to forget. And when you couldn't forget, they had ways of making you not care. 
Max: I'm sorry. 
Alec: I don't want your pity. I want your absence.

----

I wonder what would have happened if our positions had been reversed. If I had been him, and he’d been me. If I was Ben and he was Alec—if I had escaped. Been a part of a family.

She cried for him, for Ben, her brother, the man she killed. She cried in my arms, asked me to forgive her—I have his face, after all.

And sometimes I wonder about souls. We were made in a tube, born to kill. Do we have souls? Do clones share souls?

I said I forgave her. I’ve always been a liar. Ben wasn’t, though—Ben never lied, except to himself. So, since I dream his memories, does that mean he’s lied to me?

Am I crazy? I have to be.

Sometimes, in the dreams, the memories, Ben speaks to me. He’ll just talk, just ramble, and I listen. Sometimes I’ll speak instead, rant at him about the pain I suffered because of him, and he’ll smirk my own smirk at me. We’ll talk and laugh and I know what it’s like to have a brother.

And I know I’m insane. I finally lost it.

“It’s alright, brother,” my own voice says, “I swear. I’m not a liar.”

Ben was a storyteller, not a liar. Except to himself. And I... she killed me. She killed me when she told me she killed him, and I finally understood all the memories I have that aren’t mine. Ben was my twin, my clone, what I could have been, what I could still become.

Ben was... me.

----

Joshua: Alec only outsmarts Alec. He doesn't know himself.

Comments

[iamstealthyone.livejournal.com]

Nicely done. I like how you wove the dialogue in and out of this fic, and you offer an interesting perspective of Alec’s POV regarding Ben and Max.

Favorite lines:

Sure, she says he asked her to—but how can I know? How did he get so injured she couldn’t help him out of the woods?

I really like this, because he’s right: How does he know for sure that Ben asked to die? And I still don’t get why Max couldn’t carry Ben out of there, what with her transgenic strength and speed.

Ben was my twin, my clone, what I could have been, what I could still become.

Ben was... me.

Ooh … nice and shivery.

[tigriswolf]

Hee.

I love Ben.

[taniapretender.livejournal.com]

lovely. I always wanted to see some Alec/Ben interaction as well. I think Ben would have totally been able to talk alec into the killing thing.

Like Joshua said, Alec is still searching, and Ben had answers. A purpose.

[tigriswolf]

Alec and Ben! Add in Dean and it's the best TV show ever.

Thank you for reading!