Title: Honorable
Rating: TEEN (for some strong language)
Summary: This is just a one-parter, so there’s not much to say. It’s basically what I’d imagine happening on that day in September 1999 if Max had grown up a little bit different. Oh, and the shooting doesn’t happen, either.
Disclaimer: The author of this fan fiction does not own any aspect of Roswell. Those rights belong to Melinda Metz, Jason Katims, WB, UPN, 20th Century Fox, etc. Disclaimer added by moderator.
A/N: To those of you reading Duality of Love, I promise I haven’t abandoned it! I was on a business trip this past week, and this just came out on the plane ride home. Duality’s next chapter is nearly done, as are several segments of other chapters (I have a tendency to skip around as I write!)
Anyway, this story is a sort of response to a lot of the “Player Max” fics I see. No offense is meant to anyone in particular, as I’ve seen some pull off the concept very well. But generally speaking, it really bothers me to think of our shy, sweet boy from the Pilot sleeping around and behaving like a player, then wind up getting a virginal, innocent, trusting Liz to just fall in love with him anyway.
Enjoy!
~ Michelle
I’m Max Evans. For nearly ten years, I’ve wanted nothing more than to fit in. To be a part of whatever is normal and cool and entirely anonymous. But today… Today it’s like that part of me died. I don’t want to be normal anymore.
<center>~*~*~*~*~*~*~</center>
Earlier that day at the Crashdown Café…
“Okay, I have got one Sigourney Weaver, that's for you. And one Will Smith. Can I get you guys anything else? Green Martian Shake? Blood of Alien smoothie?”
I’ve been in love with Liz Parker since the moment I laid eyes on her. So I guess it’s no surprise that I spend all my free time watching her; maybe hoping that eventually she’d actually notice.
“No, thanks. We're good.”
“Are you guys here for the crash festival?”
Today was no different. She was teasing the tourists with this picture of an “alien” that she pulls out occasionally for the extreme believers. I heard her tell Maria once that the tips she gets from that picture alone would put her through college.
“You are sooo bad girl. Oh, and Max Evans is staring at you again.”
Maria’s words brought me back to reality fast. I quickly looked down, and pretended to be wrapped up in a conversation with Michael. Oh, did I mention that besides never getting sick, having some rather unusual gifts, and having no idea where we come from, Michael, my sister and I also have pretty amazing hearing?
“No way. Maria, that is so in your imagination. Max Evans? This? No, uh..it's not... uh..it's not...” Liz said, incredulously.
“And with those cheeks! Preciosita tan linda!” Maria insisted teasingly.
Michael made a face. Something about Maria got under his skin. It’s always great to make him shut up while I’m listening to them, just to see his reaction to Maria babbling, if nothing else.
“Maria!! And, and even if it weren't, I'm going out with Kyle. I mean, he's steady and loyal, and he appreciates me.”
“Sounds like you're describing a poodle,” Maria groused, heading away from the waitress station.
Michael coughed on his drink at Maria’s assessment, and I couldn’t help grinning, too. Something about the idea of Valenti wearing a collar with his hair decked out like Fifi… It was just too good.
“Break time, girls!”
Liz had been working three hours and forty-five minutes straight without a break, which I’m pretty sure has to be against some law somewhere, but I guess that’s what happens when your dad is your boss.
Liz and Maria headed towards the break room, and had barely pushed open the swinging door, when they swung back around quickly and ran back into the café, holding their noses.
“Okay, Mr. P, I love ya, but you have GOT to get a fan installed in that bathroom!” Maria complained, pretending to pass out as she gasped for breath.
“Oh, yeah. Jose just came back from break,” Mr. Parker observed, distracted as he counted back change to a customer at the register. “Sorry about that, girls. Why don’t you grab some cokes and sit over in that empty booth?”
Thank God. At least this way I could still listen in on them. Once they went through the breakroom door, the kitchen noise always kept me from hearing a thing.
“Okay, so like I was saying…” Maria began again as they sat down with their cokes.
“Look, Maria, just drop it, seriously,” Liz interrupted.
I risked a glance in their direction and was confused by the firm look on Liz’s face. This wasn’t the first time Maria had nearly blown my cover. Liz always laughed it off and insisted I was looking at the mural behind her, or something. She’d never looked this…serious.
“Chica, what’s your problem here? Hot, tall, gorgeous drink of manhood keeps staring at you, and you act like he’s the devil or something!”
Whoa, wait a minute, the devil? I’d obviously missed a few of these conversations.
Liz sighed. “Okay, not the devil, alright? I’m sure he’s a nice enough guy. He’s just…totally like every other guy out there, okay?”
“What’s wrong with being a normal guy?”
“What’s so great about normal?” Liz demanded. “Look, you know what a normal guy is like. And you know what his friends are like. That’s not what I’m looking for, okay?”
I was tuning the rest of the world out by now. Michael’s sympathetic look – for him, anyway; the noise of the café; the conversations on either side of our booth; my attention was solely on the destruction of my biggest dream taking place in booth 4, on the other side of the café.
“Liz, you’ve lost me here. What the hell are you talking about?” Maria said loudly.
“Marco? Paul? Eric?” Liz said, counting off the names on her fingers.
“What, the football players he hangs out with? What about them? They’re nice enough guys – for jocks,” Maria shrugged dismissively.
“Maria, they’re total players! They’ll screw anything in a skirt, then spend the next week telling all their friends about it,” Liz whispered harshly.
“So? Who’s telling you to date one of them? And besides, I’ve never heard Max bragging about his latest lay.”
I was mortified by now. Just because the guys from the team played around, didn’t mean I had. I’d never even… Hell, I’d never done anything worth mentioning. Just enough to stay “normal.”
She sighed again, frustrated. “Look, you’re just not getting it. Sure, I haven’t heard Max bragging about who he’s…he’s screwing, or whatever. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t just the quiet type. He’s definitely dated around. And the girls he’s dated aren’t exactly saints.”
“Liz, so what!” Maria hissed loudly, again, ignoring Liz’s frantic motions to quiet down. “You aren’t making any sense! I’m not telling you to marry the guy…geez! So he’s dated a few skanks. So what? If he doesn’t kiss and tell, then what’s the problem?”
“Look, that’s not what I’m looking for, okay? It’s just...look, I want someone who understands what it is to be honorable.”
Maria was now looking at Liz as if she’d sprouted a real set of antennae, and even Michael had turned around to glance strangely at the girls. I punched his shoulder to make him turn around before they noticed him. He shifted in his seat and shrugged, rolling his eyes. Apparently, he was as lost as Maria. But I thought I was beginning to understand.
“Stop looking at me like that!” Liz begged. “Seriously, listen to me for a second.”
“Fine, fine…explain away,” Maria said, crossing her arms against her chest and leaning back in the booth.
“Okay, so, I guess what I’m saying is, I don’t want to be just another notch on someone’s belt,” Liz began. “I don’t want to fall in love with someone, then realize that I’m just someone he’s interested in getting in bed. I mean, I’m 16, Maria, and I’ve barely done anything. How am I supposed to know what a guy’s motives are?”
“By going out there and dating and getting some experience!” Maria interrupted her, then quickly backed down at Liz’s glare. “Fine, fine…shutting up. Go on.”
“Okay, see, I don’t want to go out there and get experience, like it’s just something normal to go fool around with guys and then just…I don’t know, shrug it off like it doesn’t mean anything. What if I want it to mean something?”
“I’m still lost on the whole honorable thing, Liz,” Maria protested, leaning forward as she attempted to follow Liz’s rambling.
“Look, I don’t want to just lose it…or even get close to losing it…to some guy from high school who won’t even remember my name in ten years. Or who is going to go bragging about it to his friends later!” Liz exclaimed.
Before Maria could jump in with the objection obviously on her lips, Liz rushed ahead with her speech.
“And even if Max Evans wouldn’t go around bragging about it, we both know what his reputation is, and his friends are even worse. I don’t want to spend every morning after a date, wondering how many girls in my class have gone down on him or who he’s screwed or if any of them are going to try and compare notes with me in the bathroom between classes. So I’m just not taking a chance at going out with someone like him, okay? So I just want you to drop it?”
I was frozen to my seat by now. I knew exactly what Liz was talking about. My reputation was a lot better than my buddies, but I had never tried to deny it when things were said. It was all part of being normal, right? I mean, if I didn’t actually have to do anything to get a normal reputation, why fight it?
My life depends on being a typical teenage guy. And typical teenage guys get drunk and have sex and play football and then go off to college to get responsible and grow up sometime in the distant future.
So since I couldn’t drink, wasn’t interested in having sex with anyone but Liz, and only played football because Isabel wanted me to fit in and give her rides to the games, I knew that if I had somehow managed to acquire a “normal guy” reputation, I shouldn’t fight the system. I wasn’t stupid.
Making out with Jennifer Landrum in the back of Paul’s convertible had seemed a smart thing to do at the time; same with Rena Neal at that party, Samantha Whitehead in the eraser room and Leigh-what’s-her-name in the band room.
Or at least, that’s what I’d always told myself. I was beginning to realize I may have totally screwed myself out of the only thing I’d ever cared about.
“All I’m saying, Maria, is that I want an honorable guy. And I know it’s totally lame for me to obsess over this in 10th grade, but seriously. If I screw up now, it’s gonna screw me up for life.”
“Yeah, you do tend to obsess over things forever,” Maria laughed sympathetically at her.
“So do you understand?”
“No. I think you’re nuts. I think that just because Max Evans has a little bit of a reputation, doesn’t mean he’s gonna attack you in the eraser room…”
“…like he did with Sam Whitehead?”
Ouch.
Maria was laughing. “Yeah, well, whatever. So is Kyle all honorable and stuff?”
“Yeah, he really is, Maria,” Liz nodded emphatically. “I’m not saying he’s the one I want to be with forever, you know, like a soulmate or something, but he treats me good. And I know he isn’t using me. And I…I trust him, Maria. And that’s gotta count for something, you know?”
“Girls! Break’s over!” Liz’s father called out from the counter where he was currently swamped by customers.
The two girls stood slowly, automatically grabbing their empty sodas and wiping the table down.
“So we cool?” Maria asked.
“You going to quit pushing players at me?” Liz demanded, giving her friend a stern glare.
“Yeah,” Maria rolled her eyes.
“Then, yeah,” Liz grinned back at her.
<center>~*~*~*~*~*~*~</center>
Today I learned that I had exactly what I’d been working to get for ten years – a normal reputation. After all this time of trying to make Michael fit in and take sports and date around, I found out I was the one who was the screw-up. At least Michael didn’t have to worry about being called a ‘Player.’ At least he didn’t have to listen to his dream girl make him sound like some kind of walking STD.
But after today, I’m not going to work toward being normal. I’m going to be honorable.
And maybe, next time Maria tells her I’m staring at her, Liz Parker will stare right back.
<center>The End</center>