Song choice: The Mariner's Revenge Song—The Decemberists. The story itself has nothing to do with what's going on here, but it's a wicked good tune to write about revenge with. 

Chip's fists swing, trembling at his sides. Max's blood is hot as it oozes against him, his body heavy and his breathing soft, regular. Chip can't explain the anger at his knife being lost in the mud, not in a logical way. He can't explain the wanting for Max to be awake, in pain, either.

In dreams, Chip had seen Max awake on an operating table. He'd seen scalpels and sharp, precise tools hanging from walls. He'd seen himself cutting, cutting. He'd seen himself causing his old friend so much pain. Heard the screams, saw the blood, and in the dream, it felt so good. To hurt Max more than he'd hurt him. To dispose of the body in little pieces, soaked with Chip's rage.

In the dream, it felt so so good. But Max's easy breathing, his delicate face, bruised and still smirking, made his chest ache. Once, it had been good. Their friendship and the clandestine touches, the slight grasps of shoulders, the rufflings of hair. The way Max became his voice. A silky, siren's voice, everything coming out of it respectable. "What Chip means is...," "Chip, actually, doesn't have time to do that. He's very busy," "No, Chip's a musician." People listened to that when it came out of Max. When Chip said the same things, they laughed. It had been good, until that night. And now Max lay there, vulnerable. Chip could kill him.

And still, even now, Max had control of him. Hurling a knife into Max's leg had done nothing, except now they had to figure out how to fix the gaping hole in his leg, because now, the supervillain dying was a bad thing.

"Maybe there isn't anyone." Kai's voice is so strained, so real and harsh compared to his usual one, which is all happy chirps and every sentence ended with an exclamation mark. "Maybe he just said that to get at you, Chip. And Finn."

Finn's teeth are grit. He's eyeing the lump on Chip's shoulder with some kind of fire, something glowing.

"Can't risk it." He's so warm. That smirk is so harsh on his dollish features, the tear-drop face and button nose. Chip undoes the rope around his neck so that maybe his superhuman healing will help. He tosses it to Finn. "In case he wakes up and tries to kill me." 

The boys stumble through the overgrowth, crunching sticks and splashing mud. They had to run, Kai squeezing Finn's hand, Chip having to stare down at his feet, his chest heaving. He couldn't think. He couldn't look at Max's peaceful face. When they finally get to the car, mud-soaked and cussing at the sleeping figure, Chip flings him into the back seat. He rips his own his hoodie off and ties it tightly around the wound, which is still bleeding. Maybe he should've done that miles back. Oops.

Max's hand creeps on top of Chip's. Chip freezes for a second, paralyzed as Max's eyes slide open. They're so brilliantly black when he looks into them, it's like looking into the void. A very warm, very kind-seeming void.

"Thanks for carrying me." He winks.

Chip opens his mouth to scream. And already, before he can get one sharp sound out, Max wraps his hands around his face. Tightening, squeezing. Chip 'mmfs!' and stomps the car a couple of times. "What, did you think you could just try to kill me and it would be okay? You will never, ever get rid of me, do you understand?" Max's voice is hardly human, a hissing sound. 

And Max slinks  back against the seat, let his eyes fall lazily shut, just as the boys wrenched open the back doors. Finn throws the rope back and Kai shouts, squeezing against Max and the open door. Chip shouts and yanks Max's hands together, wringing the rope around his wrists. "Wake up! I'm not playing with you! Tell me where he is!"

Max feigns sleep, his eyelashes fluttering against a soft cheek. Already, color slips out of his face. The skin's now looking alabaster. Chip yanks the rope tight, jerks his shoulders hard. "Stop it!"

Max gives himself up with the quietest sounds, just the slight shine of eye-whites. Finn jumps into the driver's seat and howls like an angry dog. "MAX! I swear to God I'll--"

"I'll beat your fucking face in!" Chip screams it. He grabs at a knife that isn't there, sweat springing to his stone face. "I swear it, Max. You'll wish you were in prison." His fist quivers in the air, inches from Max's nose. He's ready to break it open, his skin crawling where Max grabbed it. He can still feel the cold fingers digging into his jaw, and he hates it, hates him.

Max's eyes fly open. "Okay, okay." He flexes his wrists against the rope. "Ouch, show a man a little mercy."

Chip pulls the rope so tight Max whimpers, a raw, simpering sound. His eyes go big and shimmery. "Whoa whoa whoa whoa, Chip..." 

"Chip..."It's the first time Finn has ever touched him. Just a pat on the elbow, and his voice is stripped of all the sarcasm and irritation he's so used to. It's just plain, just cool. "I know. I know what you're feeling."

"You need to give us an address." Chip bites his cheek so hard the soft flesh rips open and the pain only burns him, spurrs him. 

Max lolls his head back against the worn seat. "You need to untie me or take me to the hospital. Otherwise, I'll bleed to death."

Chip looks down at the wound. "You don't know that." It's starting to ooze again.

"Maybe, but I don't think I'm gonna risk it."

Chip's breath wobbles in his chest like a balloon, filling up and then deflating again. "I swear Max." He starts counting. "Eight, seven, six..."

Max closes his eyes. "Get out your phone." He whispers the address, his voice so soft, so chipper. After a second, he adds in a tone all smooth and summery: "Untie me now?"

Chip can't help himself. The need to hurt Max, really hurt him, digs its claws into his shoulders like bony, piercing things. He yanks Max out of the car by the wrists. He has to pay for what he's done. He has to pay and Chip deserves to be the avenging angel. 

"Chip," Finn says, scratching the back of his neck. "Erm, take it easy?" But Max is just weight, this warm, oozing lump. Never before has Chip been able to pick him up like that, move him around. Now Max is what he had only been in appearances before: a small, well-groomed boy, with little athletic ability or interest. And Chip's suddenly very big in comparison.

Max squirms uselessly, but it doesn't look desperate to him. Nothing Max does is desperate. And when it seems that way, it's all for cameras, for pitying allowances that let him escape. Chip knows that. But the eyes of the kids that Max has so easily and thoughtlessly brutalized before are eyes Max doesn't need to waste time performing for. And Chip has to believe that he's worth more than that, can't be just another thing Max broke and then tired of. Max looks up at him, his eyes big and round, but it's all fake fear. All a ploy. And it must be out of reflex, because it doesn't even look half convincing.

Chip wrenches the trunk door open, with Max bound up in his one hand. He grabs a silver roll out of a lumpy pile of plywood and empty canisters with the other. "Chip," Finn warns. But there's no more warning for him. Nothing can stop him now. He finally has him in his hands. 

"Well, Max?" Chip shakes the duct tape. "Why don't you talk to me the way you did before you left? Why don't you try to charm yourself out of this one? Talk me out of using this."

Max's eyes narrow. They blaze the way they used to before Max raised a fist to Chip's face. But Chip feels the shift as if the very ground underneath them had rolled toward him. Because Chip already knows what Max will do, and it's exactly what Chip wants him to do.

Max says nothing. Because he'll never let Chip make the rules, never play his game. Chip stands there, no longer a pawn in the boy's game, tall and strong and finally winning. "Nothing to say? Where's that smirk?"

Max's brow quivers. He spits, and Chip dodges to the side. And all the rage floods back into him, a roaring mass. He rips a piece of tape, hears the sticky metallic thing squeal, and slaps it hard on to Max's face. Max makes some kind of sound and Chip rips off another piece, longer. Finn grabs him now.

"Hey, Chip, I know he was awful to you, but—"

"No, you don't know. You don't know what he did to me. How can you stick up for him? Didn't he try to kill you and Monet?" Chip slaps on another piece of tape so that Max's jaw is all silvery. Chip had said sorry. How could he say sorry? How could Max still tug him around like this?

But Kai's just looking at Max, his face twisted with anger. Max's eyes look back, cool. There's dry tears on his face. But he doesn't cry now that he can't get anything out of it. Just looks at them, all haughty, like a king about to be guillotined.

"But we can't act like villains."

Kai squeezes Finn's hand even tighter. "Finn, it's okay. He deserves it."

And Chip heaves Max into the back of the car with a hard 'thunk.' Smartly, Max doesn't make a sound. He just lies there, his jaw a little swollen, ropes glowing around him, this devilish figure reduced to something very small and very human. He shifts burning eyes on Chip, his leg still bleeding. And Chip slams the trunk closed in answer.

"Guess we rescue that dude and we bring him back." Finn sighs. "We'll have to check on that wound. I'll do it." His eyes shift between him and Kai. "One of us can't want to kill him."

But Chip sees it. The way Finn's shoulders relax, the twitch of a smile on his face. Even he, son of a cop, gets some kind of a kick out of the revenge.

Chip slides into the back of the car and grabs his guitar, but playing somehow makes him feel sick. Blood rubs off his finger pads and on to the steel strings, leaving them rusty red.

"Bagging a supervillain? Rescuing a dude in distress? That basically makes us superheroes!" Kai tries to lighten the mood, and Finn offers him an encouraging pat on the shoulder, but Chip is tense.

Because even though it's impossible, he can swear he hears sinister laughter.

***

Everything is darkness. I can't move my hands, I can't speak, my leg hurts. But that's okay. Because he might be right, I'm not much without my superpowers and my pretty words, but I just have to think of myself as a brain in a bottle, my body a useless, detached thing. Let them think they'd gotten their revenge.

I hadn't given them an apartment number. 

***

So so so so, yes, we're definitely getting a very theatrical reading of Max's life. I do have a cape and very cheap makeup. Just, not quite yet. Give me another update, buddies.

xDami