Hey guys! I've just completed the story for my character Maxmilian and I am seeking some feedback/critique!

[spoiler=the story, derp derp]Maxmilian Clementine is a mild maniac. He is a fighter, fueled by a reverent rage. He is a radical, roused by a careful chaos. He teeters on a pedantic precipice, somewhere between order and madness. He is a good man with a massive grudge. He always said he would never hold anything against anyone. He said that only petty people let the sun set on their anger.

He said he would never let that happen to him.

But that was before his best friend raped his sister.

Max and Jack were fifteen when they met. Jack was good at chess and solving Rubik’s cubes. Max was obsessive-compulsive and never departed from his schedule. Their first encounter found them on medical stretchers with IVs in every inch of them. They were dangerous, Jack told Max. They were dangerous because they were different.

But Max already knew that.

He’d discovered it at a young age, his odd talent. At first, he’d thought his ability to breathe under water was the only special thing about him. But then he realized that, if he wanted, he could suck the oxygen right out of the air. He could breathe without it. Then he found he could put it back again. At his whim, he could fill a limp balloon with hydrogen gas. He could fill a room so full of fumes that fire would ignite at the slightest friction— a snap, for instance. It had always been his secret, his and his sister’s, for she was special, too.

And then one day his secret was not a secret any more. There was a curious little boy, six years old, who watched Max on the play ground. The boy approached him one day and said, ever so softly,

“I know what you can do.”

Taken aback, Max snapped, “What are you talking about? Go away.”

But the boy only frowned at him, shifting the hundreds of freckles on his pale face. “You know what I’m talking about. You’re special. You know why I know?”

Max paused, wary. “How do you know?”

The boy smiled. “I know because I’m special, too.” And he vanished before Max’s eyes, only his freckles left, hanging like a swarm of gnats. And then they were gone, too. Max’s hand raked the air in alarm, meeting nothing but the summer’s stagnant air. “Oh, I’m still here,” the boy’s voice drifted from where he’d stood. “I’ve only vanished.” And then he was back, just like that, looking up with eyes that were older than the rest of him.

“That’s…” Max shook his head, breathing heavy. There were others? He and his sister weren’t alone? “Are you the only one? Are there other special people? Are there more?”

“Oh, yes,” said the boy, nodding calmly, as if he were explaining a simple fact to a dull kindergartener. “There are more. Hundreds more.”

“Where?”

“You’ll meet them soon.”

On the verge of throttling the child and his cryptic answers, Max hissed, “but where are they?”

“Oh,” said the boy, “they’re right behind you.”

Then Max was on the ground, ears ringing, and all he could see for the clouds consuming his vision were two silhouettes hanging over the freckled boy, who watched him until everything fell black.

And when Mat woke up he was on the stretcher next to Jack and needles were in him a tubes were going everywhere and his body felt so numb that he felt he’d pass out again with the effort it took for him to say, “What happened?”

“We’re prisoners,” murmured Jack.

Max’s heart raced somewhere in the vicinity of his mouth. “What! Why?”

Strangely calm, Jack picked at an IV in his arm. “Because of what we can do. We’re different and they see us as a threat.”

“Y-you mean you’re…” Max’s voice failed him, his eyelids heavy, his body like a slab of granite. Electing not to waste his precious breath on stating the obvious, he asked, “What can you do?”

A mischievous smirk overtook Jack’s handsome mouth, and all of the needles dislodged suddenly from Max’s skin. He felt as if he’d just broken the surface of the deepest ocean, as if his body had been removed from a terrible vice, and he was able to sit up, gasping. Jack sat forward and explained before a single question could form on Max’s tongue.

“I can move things with my mind,” the telekinetic explained, a hint of importance in his voice as he willed his own IVs to fall away. “I’ve been here for a long time, and I’ve developed an immunity to this stuff.” He indicated the fluid in the IV bag by lifting a hand to flick it. “They don’t know that, though; it’s easy enough to play weak. I’ve been planning an escape for weeks…” He regarded Max with a wary squint of his eyes. “I guess you wouldn’t mess things up too much, if you wanted to tag along. What can you do?”

Drawing a long breath, Max robbed the room of its oxygen. He watched Jack, who seemed unimpressed, until the telekinetic began to clutch at his chest and choke, at which point Max returned what he’d taken.

“That,” said Jack between rapid gasps, “is— a very— useful— skill.”

And indeed, it was a useful skill. Between the two of them they managed to escape unscathed, breaking into the night and running until they couldn’t breathe any more. The roughed it, after that, picking their way across the countryside until Max was home, where his sister, Elliot, had been waiting for him, terrified for his wellbeing. She was one year his minor, tall for her age and blooming into a young woman. Max didn’t know if he liked the way Jack looked at her, but he ignored it.

“Max! They took you, too!” She flung herself at her brother and hugged him hard enough that he feared he’d suffer broken ribs.

“What!” Alarm filled him, protective instincts going haywire. “You mean they came after you?”

“Yes, they took me and they did— all sorts of things—” she lapsed into sobs, and after the better part of a half hour, Max had managed to extract enough information to formulate a vague story: Elliot had been picked up much like he had, led into an enticing conversation by a stranger, and had woken up on a stretcher, where many tests had been run on her before she was imbedded with a GPS tracking device and sent away with the warning, “You have been classified as harmless, but we will be watching you.” Obviously, they didn’t find Elliot’s ability to fly very as threatening.

The three made what they could of these happenings, turning to Jack for more answers, and it soon became apparent that the boys were wanted. They weren’t safe. They needed to run. Elliot insisted going with them, but the tracker in her arm made her a dead giveaway to their position. “You can’t go,” was Max’s ruling, to which Elliot responded by seizing a knife from the kitchen drawer and gouging at the large metal panel until its little green light flickered out. “I’ll be packing,” she told them, and stomped up the stairs.

It wasn’t much of a struggle to leave; Max and Elliot had no attachment to the foster home where they lived, one of the many scores they’d gone through, and Jack, who did a lot of running away from home anyway, about no scruples about leaving for good. The three managed well by themselves, their abilities and the combined intellects of the boys proving more than enough to live on. They ran by a strict schedule of Max’s design, keeping their movement efficient to evade capture but allotting them time for leisure. It was flawless, really, their plan.

As time raked by, they became fast friends; Jack didn’t mind when Max felt the urge to reach across the table and tap the telekinesis’s fork while eating; they managed to swipe a chess set, which was played into the long hours of the night; intellectual conversations swooned about them at all times; Elliot and Jack meshed seamlessly together, the best of friends. Or, so it passed, more than friends.

Max didn’t like it at all when Jack and Elliot announced they were officially “dating”.

Sure, Jack was his friend. But Elliot was his sister. Elliot was all he had. She was young, gullible. Too gentle and forgiving for her own good. And Jack… well, it had never gotten better, that way he looked at her. Like she was an object, almost. But Max tried to think the best of his friend— he was imagining it, those possessive glances and brushes of Jack’s hand that reached a little too close to his sister’s thigh. He was just overreacting, that was all, just overreacting…

But then, he was lying awake one night, scribbling down the next day’s schedule, checking his watch, tapping each of his fingers every few moments, when he saw it: a journal lying open. Curious because he’d seen Jack writing in it before, he picked it up and read. And read. And read. And Max knew he was not just overreacting.

A week later, in the evening, when the world around him was otherwise warm and serene and perfect, Elliot said, “Jack thinks we should split up. From you, I mean. Max, we need to split up.”

“What do you mean, ‘split up’!?”

“I mean exactly what it sounds like I mean!”

“You’re going off with him, then? Just leaving me, after all I’ve done for you?” His fists were clenched. The air wavered oddly around them; Max knew not whether it was his doing.

“Jack says you’re inhibiting our progress,” was Elliot’s murmur, her eyes downcast.

“What!? Are you serious!? I am our progress! If it wasn’t for me—” Max was seething.

“But Jack says you’re slowing us down!” his sister barked. “You stop to tap or move or count half the things you see, you insist on conforming to your ridiculous schedules, you’re way too cautious—”

“And if it weren’t for that, we’d be stuck in some testing facility right now, wouldn’t we! I’m the one who’s gotten us this far, don’t you forget that! We’ve been running for nearly two years!”

“But Jack says—”

“Screw what Jack says!” Max roared.

“At least he cares! You’re so preoccupied with glaring him down all the time, looking so accusing—”

“I have perfect right to be accusing!”

“Why!? Because he loved me more than you do!?” Elliot’s face was flushed with anger, her teeth bared. Max’s chest heaved. He couldn’t speak. He was shaking.

“Elliot, don’t—”

“No, it’s true! You’re so worried about-about this escape we’ve made, about running—” she trembled, eyes darting with desperation, refusing to look at him. “Max, you’re obsessed, you hardly pay attention to either of us anymore, you don’t treat either of us like you used to, you don’t talk to us, you just glare at Jack—”

“Because he’s taking advantage of you!” He seized her by the shoulders and shook her violently, forgetting she was weightless, forgetting his own strength—

“Let go of me!” She wrenched away, floating in midair, eyes wild. “What’s wrong with you!?”

“He’s what’s wrong with me! He looks at you like a piece of meat, Elliot—”

“Don’t you say—”

“Shut up and let me finish! You haven’t heard him when you’re not around! He’s obsessed with you! He watches you sleep, and have you read what he writes in that journal of his!?”

Indignation flushed Elliot’s face anew, and she flew right up against her brother, floating so that they were at eye level and taking the lapel of his shirt. “You have no right to go intruding on his privacy!”

“I have every right!” He didn’t care that her face was only inches from his; he screamed anyway. “I’m supposed to protect you! I’m your brother, it’s my job! He’s written things about you in that journal of his, disgusting things, he doesn’t love you, he just want to—”

“You’re lying!” She was crying. He was making his sister cry. “Jack’s not like that!”

“Yeah!? Why would I lie to you, Elliot!? I care about you! If he loves you, why do I see you crying alone!?”

There was silence. Elliot sank so that her feet hovered only inches from the ground. Her nose and eyes were red from crying. She looked sick.

“If you really care, Max, then why do I cry alone?”

And she left him standing there alone.

At was after that when Max lost his touch. He couldn’t do it alone. With three people, his plans worked. With one, there was no order. There was no hope. He couldn’t do it by himself. He was sick with loneliness and faint with hunger when he looked up and saw a freckled eight year old looking at him with a look of muted satisfaction.

“Hard to find, aren’t you, Maxmilian?”

And after that, Max spent his days in a cell. All he ever saw were men in gas masks, great bugs creeping upon him with needles and cotton swabs and clipboards in tow. But Max did not waver, did not give in to the despair or insanity that devoured the minds of so many around him. He was constant, quiet, sure as the sound of his ticking watch, his only company in his sterile, cold, grey cell.

And then one day, a year later, there came a person behind a gas bask whose feet floated ever so slightly above the ground, whose doe-like eyes found him behind the fogged glass.

“Max,” Elliot whispered. He stood, ran to the window, pressed his hands flat against it as if he could will his way to the other side, to his sister. She was sobbing.

“Hey, Elliot. It’s okay--”

“I-it’s not okay!” She fell against the glass, hands clutching at the sleeves of her jacket. “You-you where r-right, Max.”

Worry flooded him. “What did he do?”

Elliot shivered for a long time, and then slowly peeled away her jacket, revealing her arms, where the word Jack was carved into her flesh inches deep, over and over and over. She continued to shake, and above the soft clank of the gas mask against the glass, he heard her whisper, “He raped me.”

Max was swallowed whole by disgust, horror, rage, bloodlust, such as he had never felt before in his life. The part of him that might have said “I told you so” was smothered by the part that wanted to murder Jack, then and there, that wanted to beat him until he couldn’t breathe and shoot him in the face and make him suffocate and burn a hundred times over--

“I’m s-so sorry, Max,” Elliot was sobbing, “you we-were right, s-so ri-sight, I was s-stupid, I should ha-have listen-ed to you--”

“Shh,” was all he could say, laying the side of his face against the glass, as close to her as he could get, where he almost swore he could feel her warmth, the simple human warmth he’d been so deprived of, here... “Shh.” He wanted to hold her, comfort her, like he had once done when thunderstorms sent her scurrying into his room at night. “Shh, Elliot, it isn’t your fault. He tricked you, he led you on...” And I’m going to kill him, he added, silently, venomously, I’m going to murder him...

“N-No, i-it’s all my-my fault--”

“Quit your snivelling and hurry up! We haven’t got all day!”

In alarm, Max jerked away from the window and saw a burly guard who he had not noticed before, cradling a rifle and leering.

“M-Max, listen to me.” He turned back to Elliot. Despite the mask, he read the urgency in her face. “They’re going to kill you, Max. They’re going to shoot you. They said-- they said I could see you one last time...” The meaning of the words struck him, but they were only a glancing blow-- painful, yet he could not quite understand why. “Max, I’m so sorry, I’m s-so sorry--”

“What about you?” a hundred hours his mind spun, every thought distant, unsure, broken shadows across his psyche.

“They want m-me to be safe, but not to fraternize with anyone like-like us. S-since I’m not a threat, they can’t keep me here. They’re s-sending me to a college to study music.” A particularly loud sob rattled her. “H-how can I do that when y-you... you...”

“Alright, time’s up, Cinderella.” The guard snatched her roughly by the arm and jerked her feather-light form towards the door.

“Max!” she screamed.

“Don’t worry about me, Elliot.” He was standing, and for the first time in months, in more than a year, he felt strong, alive. “I’ll be okay.”

Th

It is to long.

It's not boring in my opinion, nor is it too confusing. But you wrote 'Mat' instead of 'Max' somewhere in the point just after he was captured and waking up. I like it! I don't have any criticisms really.

Wow! That was delightful to read! It makes me want to know more! Very interesting!

I wanted to say, first, that I've looked at these characters before {agh, so creepy} and man, I've always just loved them. They're so intense. I think it's a rather well written story. Despite it's length however, it still almost feels... rushed? The pacing is even a bit fast, but I guess that works with the material. The part about the initial kidnapping is confusing, along with the intro. The part where you say Jack and Max know eachother, etcetcetc, and then you dive into the main story. I think clear that up a bit, because it seems like they already know eachother from the start? But as the story goes on, they don't so yeah. A bit baffling. UHM OVERALL THOUGH. It's awesome. {sorry if I'm making no sense, my thoughts are pretty unorganized tonight :C}

It's not too long, people are silly. :p

Anyways, I like it. There was a typo where Max was typoed as Mat at one point, but crap that was already mentioned.

Seconding this, though -- at first, I thought they already knew each other, but then there was the part where they met. I can't say I've any advice as to how to rewrite that or make it clearer, but it may prove a bit confusing.

Nitpicks aside, here's the good news.

I really love all of the stories you write - and all of your work in general, it's always a joy to see your pets win the Spotlight - and this is no exception. It's intriguing in the manner of the powers he has, it's sad and sharply true to the real nature of the turns that some relationships can take, it's all around pretty good. Max's power over oxygen is pretty unique, there's a point there; his personality is an attracting one, as I'm always fond of characters with a less-than-stable nature to them, and his utter thirst for revenge is a fun factor in writing and roleplay. Interesting sort of fellow.

Thumbs up, in other words. c:

That was kind of a fun read lol. Like others have said, the intro makes it a bit confusing because it seems as if Jack and Max know each other from the start, and then they meet each other and you kinda just go "huh?" Aside from that, I thought it was pretty well written. It's not that long. I've seen far longer short stories that are impossible to read because they move so slowly. This has a pretty good pace to it. The only thing that bothers me is at the end where he says he can't stop the fire. Max is very intelligent and would know that sucking the oxygen out of the room would put out the fire. Maybe change the line to "I never said I would stop it" or something like that, because he can actually stop it lol. Other than that, nice job

ADDRESSING THE GENERAL ISSUE OF THEM MEETING TWICE: Thank you guys so much for picking at that, I hadn't even noticed it was confusing! My intent was to briefly mention them meeting then kind of tell the events leading up to it before I told the full story, but that obviously didn't work so I'll try and remedy it. Thanks!

Go fall off a cliff. :c

Rrrrr I was so paranoid that I did that somewhere. ;A; Thanks for catching it!

Ahhh okay, thanks! I was thinking it was a little rushed but it was already long so I didn't want to push it. I kind of avoided my usual manner of describing every pebble and leaf so I think that might have stripped down my content a bit? idk I'll try and even it out a bit though.

Thank you so much! c:

Aww, thank you, you're always so nice about my pets. ;A; Weren't you the one who nominated Colbin?

Also I'm glad you think Max is interesting, though; I was a little afraid he was kind of flat.

Ahhh my love for symbolism has gotten me in trouble! Max saying he can't stop the fire is pretty much supposed to be him saying, "You pissed me off! Can't stop me now, losers!" Obviously he stops the literal fire eventually lol.

Wow! I have been stalking your pets for a while now, and I have to admit, although I wasn't too interested in Maxmilian at first, this story changes all of that. It is so, so, so well written! I actually felt like I was living the story, which very few pet stories-including my own, unfortunately-do.

Ahh, I wish I could write like you!!

Only if I get to land in ur bed bb ❤

It's 530am. Im not reading that massive wall of text. BUT I WILL MAKE YOU A PROFILE FOR IT.

I don't find the story too long really. It's long but for the most part it moves quickly. A few people addressed the confusing meeting of Jack and Max at the beginning so I don't think I need to. I see you developing on what you give as Max's key traits in the beginning, the obsessive compulsiveness and need to stick to a schedule, but I'm finding the key traits you give for Jack to be either misleading or unnecessary. You infer with the talent at Rubik's Cubes and chess, that Jack is a logical person, but rather than drawing on that, he ends up acting in ways that are completely illogical (i.e. obsessing over a girl, trying to get rid of the person who is keeping the group safe and on track). I realize that Max is the main focus, not Jack, but something just seems out of place in the way Jack's character develops.

Also, there is no real indication that Max's compulsions are seen as disruptive in his personal relationships until the confrontation scene with Elliott. I was actually kind of surprised when she states that his compulsions are making him distant from his two companions. I went back and skimmed to see if I could find any mention of a growing distance between Jack/Elliott and Max, but I couldn't.

Lastly, while the dialog and vocabulary are, over all, quite appropriate and in some places even elegant, I noticed a few places that sounded awkward. 1.When talking about the foster homes "many scores" is sort of redundant. Scores means many, so I think you can eliminate the word "many". 2."Jack, who did a lot of running away from home anyway, about no scruples about leaving for good." I think the first "about" is supposed to be a "had." 3."conversations swooned about them at all times" Swoon isn't the word you want to use here. Maybe you meant bloomed or swelled, although those aren't the best examples for what you want to say either, I don't think. but swooning is fainting (I included the dictionary link). 4. Max knew not whether it was his doing. This phrasing simply doesn't fit with the rest of the piece. It's almost Shakespearian in tone, which the rest of the piece decidedly isn't. "Max didn't know if it was his doing" is just as effective. 5. burly guard who he had not noticed before, cradling a rifle and leering Assuming the guard also had a gas mask on, how could you see if he was leering?

I know I kind of fine toothed the piece, but that's because I feel it's good enough to do so. I hope maybe I helped a bit. Good luck in your editing!

Yeah, I was thinking about the story on the bus today (I have no life) and it occurred to me that I had left out several small tidbits as to the growth of their relationships and their moving apart... I wrote this at eleven o' clock at night, mostly just trying to get out my main ideas. I completely derped on all of my smaller intentions for this piece; mainly growing their relationships like I mentioned, and a large portion concerning Max's compulsions. Definitely glad you saw that because I probably wouldn't have remembered to add it after I stopped thinking about it this morning. :I

As to Jack, he is one of my other pets and by reading his profile I think his actions would probably make more sense. c:

Thanks for all your little nitpicks, though, I definitely wouldn't have caught any of that stuff... idk what my brain was doing when I put "swooned"; I was going for the word "swirled" haha.

OMG GURL I'D LOVE YOU 4 EVAR AND A DAY IF YOU DID THAT

Oh thank you so much, that's so sweet. ;A;

btw your pet names are gorgeous. Brigette. @ v @

Thanks! I am fond of my pets, but honestly, I wish I knew what to do with them! How do you come up with such interesting ideas for yours?

Ahaha tbh I just have a weird brain and an overactive imagination. :I I really enjoy making characters... plotlines, though, I'm lousy at. The premise of my Subeta pets is essentially a huge X-Men/Heroes ripoff. xD

If you ever want to bounce ideas off anyone, though, I'd love to hear any ideas you have for your pets. c: Subeta pets are the best and everyone should develop them~

Haha, no worries. I'm pretty terrible at plot lines too. XD For me, it's not so much the actual plot as it is carrying that plot out. For example, I know the general outline of Revei's story. I just don't know how to fill it up with an actual story. XD

That's why I think it's really admirable that you're going for a full, lengthy story. =) X-Men/Heroes rip off or no, it's still your own story/take on the idea, and that's pretty cool. =)

I would actually love to be able to bounce ideas off of you! Thank you for offering! The same goes for you! Although your pets are much more done than mine, if you ever need help with plot or ideas or anything else, please let me know! =)

Haha, I know what you mean. For me it's kind of the exact opposite though. I have several events that I want to be carried out, and back stories, and character relationships... but they're all just kind of floating in space and there is nothing significant linking them together. That's why I like Subeta; you don't need a plot! :>

oooh Gurl. You already do. Lemmie know what you want, yo.

Well that's true. :I

Ahhhh idek what I want. Maybe something kind of similar to Baltimore's profile? Or something. :c

Hey guys! I apologize if this is a bother; if you don't want to look over this anymore than just ignore the ping.

ANYWAY I did some revising. Changes and new text have been marked in red.

[spoiler=story]Maxmilian Clementine is a mild maniac. He is a fighter, fueled by a reverent rage. He is a radical, roused by a careful chaos. He teeters on a pedantic precipice, somewhere between order and madness. He is a good man with a massive grudge. He always said he would never hold anything against anyone. He said that only petty people let the sun set on their anger.

He said he would never let that happen to him.

But that was before his best friend raped his sister.

Max was fifteen when he met Jack. Jack was good at chess and solving Rubik’s cubes. Max was obsessive-compulsive and never departed from his schedule. Their first encounter found them on medical stretchers with IVs in every inch of them. They were dangerous, Jack told Max. They were dangerous because they were different.

But Max already knew that.

He’d discovered it years before he met Jack, his odd talent. At first, he’d thought his ability to breathe under water was the only special thing about him. But then he realized that, if he wanted, he could suck the oxygen right out of the air. He could breathe without it. Then he found he could put it back again. At his whim, he could fill a limp balloon with hydrogen gas. He could fill a room so full of fumes that fire would ignite at the slightest friction— a snap, for instance. It had always been his secret, his and his sister’s, for she was special, too.

And then one day his secret was not a secret any more. There was a curious little boy, six years old, who watched Max on the play ground. The boy approached him one day and said, ever so softly,

“I know what you can do.”

Taken aback, Max snapped, “What are you talking about? Go away.”

But the boy only frowned at him, shifting the hundreds of freckles on his pale face. “You know what I’m talking about. You’re special. You know why I know?”

Max paused, wary. “How do you know?”

The boy smiled. “I know because I’m special, too.” And he vanished before Max’s eyes, only his freckles left, hanging like a swarm of gnats. And then they were gone, too. Max’s hand raked the air in alarm, meeting nothing but the summer’s stagnant air. “Oh, I’m still here,” the boy’s voice drifted from where he’d stood. “I’ve only vanished.” And then he was back, just like that, looking up with eyes that were older than the rest of him.

“That’s…” Max shook his head, breathing heavy. There were others? He and his sister weren’t alone? “Are you the only one? Are there other special people? Are there more?”

“Oh, yes,” said the boy, nodding calmly, as if he were explaining a simple fact to a dull kindergartener. “There are more. Hundreds more.”

“Where?”

“You’ll meet them soon.”

On the verge of throttling the child and his cryptic answers, Max hissed, “but where are they?”

“Oh,” said the boy, “they’re right behind you.”

Then Max was on the ground, ears ringing, and all he could see for the clouds consuming his vision were two silhouettes hanging over the freckled boy, who watched him until everything fell black.

And that was how Max woke up on the stretcher next to Jack with needles in him and tubes going everywhere. Fluorescent lights blinded him, so that the slim, blonde young man next to him took several moments to form entirely, like a Polaroid snapshot fading in. Numb and heavy, Max felt he’d pass out again with the effort it took for him to say, “What happened?”

“We’re prisoners,” murmured Jack.

Max’s heart raced somewhere in the vicinity of his mouth. “What! Why?”

Strangely calm, Jack picked at an IV in his arm. “Because of what we can do. We’re different and they see us as a threat.”

“Y-you mean you’re…” Max’s voice failed him, his eyelids heavy, his body like a slab of granite. Electing not to waste his precious breath on stating the obvious, he asked, “What can you do?”

A mischievous smirk overtook Jack’s confident mouth, and all of the needles dislodged suddenly from Max’s skin. He felt as if he’d just broken the surface of the deepest ocean, as if his body had been removed from a terrible vice, and he was able to sit up, gasping. Jack sat forward and explained before a single question could form on Max’s tongue.

“I can move things with my mind,” said the telekinetic nonchalantly, a hint of importance in his voice as he willed his own IVs to fall away. “I’ve been here for a long time, and I’ve developed an immunity to this stuff.” He indicated the fluid in the IV bag by lifting a hand to flick it. “They don’t know that, though; it’s easy enough to play weak. I’ve been planning an escape for weeks…” He regarded Max with a wary squint of his eyes. “I guess you wouldn’t mess things up too much, if you wanted to tag along. What can you do?”

“It’s hard to explain.”

Jack cocked an eyebrow. “Then show me.”

Drawing a long breath, Max robbed the room of its oxygen. He watched Jack, who seemed unimpressed, until the telekinetic began to clutch at his chest and choke, at which point Max returned what he’d taken.

“That,” said Jack between rapid gasps, “is— a very— useful— skill.”

And indeed, it was a useful skill. Between the two of them they managed to escape unscathed, breaking into the night and running until they couldn’t run any more. The roughed it, after that, picking their way across the countryside until Max was home, where his sister, Elliot, had been waiting for him, terrified for his wellbeing. She was one year his minor, tall for her age and blooming into a young woman. Max didn’t know if he liked the way Jack looked at her, but he ignored it.

“Max! They took you, too!” She flung herself at her brother and hugged him hard enough that he feared he’d suffer broken ribs.

“What!?” Alarm filled him, protective instincts going haywire. “You mean they came after you?”

“Yes, they took me and they did— all sorts of things—” she lapsed into sobs, and after the better part of a half hour, Max had managed to extract enough information to formulate a vague story: Elliot had been picked up much like he had, led into an enticing conversation by a stranger, and had woken up on a stretcher, where many tests had been run on her before she was imbedded with a GPS tracking device and sent away with the warning, “You have been classified as harmless, but we will be watching you.” Obviously, they didn’t find Elliot’s ability to fly very as threatening.

The three made what they could of these happenings, turning to Jack for more answers, and it soon became apparent that the boys were wanted. They weren’t safe. They needed to run. Elliot insisted on going with them, but the tracker in her arm made her a dead giveaway to their position. “You can’t go,” was Max’s ruling, to which Elliot responded by seizing a knife from the kitchen drawer and gouging at the large metal panel until its little green light flickered out. “I’ll be packing,” she told them, and stomped up the stairs. Jack was impressed.

It wasn’t much of a struggle to leave; Max and Elliot had no attachment to the foster home where they lived, one of the scores they’d gone through, and Jack, who did a lot of running away from home anyway, had no scruples about leaving for good. The three managed well by themselves, their abilities and combined intellects proving more than enough to live on. They ran by a strict schedule of Max’s design, keeping their movement efficient enough to evade capture but allotting them time for leisure. It was flawless, really, their plan.

As time raked by, they became fast friends; Jack didn’t mind when Max felt the urge to reach across the table and tap the telekinesis’s fork while eating; they managed to swipe a chess set, which was played into the long hours of the night; intellectual conversations swirled about them at all times; Elliot and Jack meshed seamlessly together, the best of friends. Or, so it passed, more than friends.

Max didn’t like it at all when Jack and Elliot announced they were officially “dating”.

Sure, Jack was his friend. But Elliot was his sister. Elliot was all he had. She was young, gullible. Too gentle and forgiving for her own good. And Jack… well, it had never gotten better, that way he looked at her. Like she was an object, almost. But Max tried to think the best of his friend— he was imagining it, those possessive glances and brushes of Jack’s hand that reached a little too close to his sister’s thigh. He was just overreacting, that was all, just overreacting…

But then, he was lying awake, mind filled with the sounds of the morning’s wee hours, scribbling down the next day’s schedule, checking his watch, tapping each of his fingers every few moments, when he saw it: a journal lying open. Curious because he’d seen Jack writing in it before, he picked it up and read. And read. And read. And Max knew he was not just overreacting. The things he read, that night, the dark corridors of Jack’s mind he wandered down, the thoughts he saw between the cramped slants of the script… he hated Jack. Hated him. The man that had been his friend before those few minutes, the man who he’d sometimes dared to call a savior or even a brother… Max hated him.

Hatred did not suit Max. Thus far his obsessive compulsions had only been a minor deterrence; he sometimes tapped at his companions’ fingers or felt the need to nudge someone’s silverware or shift things around, but it was controllable. But now everything about Jack drove him crazy. He didn’t know if it was really his disorder, or simply his abhorrence, but he’d gotten to the point where he simply could not be around Jack. He looked away when they ate together, lest he go after the other man’s eating hand every few moments. When walking, he requested the telekinetic keep his hands in his pockets— but even then, he sometimes had to tell him to shift his wrists or flatten his knuckles so that he didn’t have to look at them, those hands that bothered him so much, those hands that wanted to touch his sister. On long hikes he could not stand how Jack organized his knapsack and made him empty it for rearranging, only to think on it incessantly until he was forced to start the process anew and dump the bag again.

It was happening to Elliot, too. When they played chess it made him squirm until he couldn’t enjoy it anymore, his urge to knock over the chess pieces she set down becoming far too strong. His eyes always watched a point somewhere over her left shoulder when they spoke; he couldn’t stand it, how she talked with her hands and stopped walking when she had something to say. She was wasting time. Valuable seconds, ticking by…

It was getting hard.

And it happened, then, in the evening, when the world around him was otherwise warm and serene and perfect: Elliot said, “Jack thinks we should split up. From you, I mean. Max, we need to split up.”

“What do you mean, ‘split up’!?”

“I mean exactly what it sounds like I mean!”

“You’re going off with him, then? Just leaving me, after all I’ve done for you?” His fists were clenched. The air wavered oddly around them; Max knew not whether it was his doing.

“Jack says you’re inhibiting our progress,” was Elliot’s murmur, her eyes downcast.

“What!? Are you serious!? I am our progress! If it wasn’t for me—” Max was seething.

“But Jack says you’re slowing us down!” his sister barked. “You stop to tap or move or count half the things you see, you insist on conforming to your ridiculous schedules, you’re way too cautious—”

“And if it weren’t for that, we’d be stuck in some testing facility right now, wouldn’t we! I’m the one who’s gotten us this far, don’t you forget that! We’ve been running for nearly two years!”

“But Jack says—”

“Screw what Jack says!” Max roared.

“At least he cares! You’re so preoccupied with glaring him down all the time, looking so accusing—”

“I have perfect right to be accusing!”

“Why!? Because he loved me more than you do!?” Elliot’s face was flushed with anger, her teeth bared. Max’s chest heaved. He couldn’t speak. He was shaking.

“Elliot, don’t—”

“No, it’s true! You’re so worried about-about this escape we’ve made, about running—” she trembled, eyes darting with desperation, refusing to look at him. “Max, you’re obsessed!” she threw her hands up in an exasperated gesture. “You hardly pay attention to either of us anymore, you don’t treat either of us like you used to, you don’t talk to us, you just glare at Jack—”

“Because he’s taking advantage of you!” He seized her by the wrists to stop her hands, and then went for her shoulders, shaking her violently, forgetting she was weightless, forgetting his own strength—

“Let go of me!” She wrenched away, floating in midair, eyes wild. “What’s wrong with you!?”

“He’s what’s wrong with me! He looks at you like a piece of meat, Elliot—”

“Don’t you say—”

“Shut up and let me finish! You haven’t heard him when you’re not around! He’s obsessed with you! He watches you sleep, and have you read what he writes in that journal of his!?”

Indignation flushed Elliot’s face anew, and she flew right up against her brother, floating so that they were at eye level and taking the lapel of his shirt. “You have no right to go intruding on his privacy!”

“I have every right!” He didn’t care that her face was only inches from his; he screamed anyway. He didn’t even think to move her clenched hands from his shirt. “I’m supposed to protect you! I’m your brother, it’s my job! He’s written things about you in that journal of his, disgusting things, he doesn’t love you, he just want to—”

“You’re lying!” She was crying. He was making his sister cry. “Jack’s not like that!”

“Yeah!? Why would I lie to you, Elliot!? I care about you! If he loves you, why do I see you crying alone!?”

There was silence. Elliot sank so that her feet hovered only inches from the ground. Her nose and eyes were red from crying. She looked sick.

“If you really care, Max, then why do I cry alone?”

And she left him there.

It was after that when Max lost his touch. He couldn’t do it alone. With three people, his plans worked. With one, there was no order. There was no hope. He couldn’t do it by himself. He was sick with loneliness and faint with hunger when he looked up and saw a freckled eight year old looking down at him with a muted satisfaction.

“Hard to find, aren’t you, Maxmilian?”

And after that, Max spent his days in a cell. All he ever saw were men in gas masks, great bugs creeping upon him with needles and cotton swabs and clipboards in tow. But Max did not waver, did not give in to the despair or insanity that devoured the minds of so many around him. He was constant, quiet, sure as the sound of his ticking watch, his only company in his sterile, cold, grey cell.

And then one day, a year later, there came a person behind a gas bask whose feet floated ever so slightly above the ground, whose doe-like eyes found him behind the fogged glass.

“Max,” Elliot whispered. He stood, ran to the window, pressed his hands flat against it as if he could will his way to the other side, to his sister. She was sobbing.

“Hey, Elliot. It’s okay--”

“I-it’s not okay!” She fell against the glass, hands clutching at the sleeves of her jacket. “You-you where r-right, Max.”

Worry flooded him. “What did he do?”

Elliot shivered for a long time, and then slowly peeled away her jacket, revealing her arms, where the word Jack was

Looks a good deal better, you cleared up some confusions and added more depth. Max's irrational dislike of everything about Jack, every little thing he does -- that was good, it adds a bit more insight, and goodness do I know what that feels like, so I could understand him a bit better. c:

I think the changes help quite a bit, especially the description of Max's increased quirks and the motivation behind them. And I did look at Jack's profile, so I get him more now as well.