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When I asked ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tigertrapped what she wanted me to write her for Christmas, one of the options was to write more Max and Julian to go with her present that she wrote for me, Glass. As I adore Max and love writing Julian, I couldn't pass up the opportunity. Especially when a rabid plot bunny attacked me and then tigertrapped offered to write the bits from Max's POV.
If you want to read more about Max, Julian, Adam, Gideon, and other members of the Spooks team (including Jools), you can find the stories linked here ontigertrapped's journal.
Authors:rivers_bend and tigertrapped
~6,120 words
Rated: adult
Julian was surrounded by paperwork when Max came home. His secretary had already checked that all the Xs had the appropriate signatures and initials, but Julian found it was best to be cautious. He looked up at the sound of footsteps. Max's hair was wet with rain, his face dark.
“I saw a Christmas tree.” Max hung up his coat and headed for the kitchen.
Julian stood to follow him. “It's the twenty fourth of November.”
Max was drying his hair with a towel and filling the kettle. “In a shop window. Tinsel, lights, everything.”
Unsure what to say, Julian tried, “Tea?” One eye on Max, he got out mugs and milk.
“Thanks.” Max threw the towel in the laundry and went back to the front room.
When Julian came in with the tea, Max was looking out the window. “It's been raining for a week. What is it about London that a week of rain manages to make everything dirtier?”
“Tough afternoon?” Julian could see Max's jaw tighten and his hand fist in his pocket.
“I'm going to Fowey.” Max turned and leaned on the window sill. His eyes slid over Julian's face and settled on the piles of paperwork.
Julian tried to read Max's body language, but he was slouching, shoulders loose, in the casual pose he adopted that could be hiding anything. Waiting for something further, Julian poured out the tea. When nothing more was forthcoming he said, “By ten forty-five tomorrow all this will be the responsibility of someone else. Can you wait until then?” He watched for a tell, some sign of what Max was thinking, “Unless, do you prefer to go alone?”
Max pushed off the sill and paced across the room, picking up his tea as he passed. “I prefer to go now.” His voice was tight with frustration. “But, I also prefer you come with me. We can leave before lunch tomorrow?”
The tension in the room eased. “If you pick me up from the office we can leave at eleven.”
--
Max's mood of the day before had dissipated, and despite the continuing rain, the drive to Cornwall had a hint of holiday air. The farther they got from London the more Max relaxed. Julian drove the last leg of the journey and found Max asleep beside him when they arrived. Max looked young, almost as he had years ago, before Egypt. Julian was loath to wake him and return the care of years to his face.
“Hey.” Julian put a hand on Max's knee. “We're here.” He watched Max's eyelashes stir against his cheeks.
When Max stretched, making a long curve of throat and torso, Julian wanted to crawl over the gear shift, push back the seat and taste the skin of his neck. It still amazed him sometimes how powerfully the sight of Max affected him. Max's voice broke into his fantasy. “What?” Max was utterly still, watching Julian watch him.
Prevarication seemed pointless. “I want you.” More weight behind the words than he'd intended.
Max's hand was on him before he'd noticed the movement. “So you do.”
The touch made Julian clutch at the parking brake. Max's left hand found his neck, pulling him around and into a kiss that answered his need. Julian was twisted almost painfully, ribs dented by the steering wheel, knee wedged against the console. He shifted, trying to free his arm, gain more contact with Max's hand, breathe. “Max,” he said.
Max let him go. Julian hadn't minded the discomfort as much as he did the loss of contact. He turned in the seat, bringing his knees out from under the wheel, facing Max. “Kiss me.” He wasn't sure why he was asking, or telling, or however it sounded to Max's ears, rather than just leaning in and doing it, but tonight something in him needed Max to come to him. Needed Max to lay a hand on Julian's cheek, apply just that pressure that tips his head just so, to close the distance between them and take possession of Julian's mouth. Just like that.
Lips fused, fingers curled around the curve of skull, they were mirror images twinned again in the rain-lashed windshield. Max leaned back, pulling Julian with him until Julian was bent over his own knees, hand seeking purchase on Max's thigh. He sucked Max's lip into his mouth, bit just hard enough to force a noise from Max's throat, said, “There's a bed on the other side of that door.”
Max looked a challenge at him. Julian realised waking hadn't yet aged him, he still looked young. Like a boy who wanted a handjob in the back of his father's car. It was absurd, they were fifteen years too old to be doing this. Julian pulled himself awkwardly upright and squeezed between the seats into the back. Max managed to make the same manoeuvre look graceful.
Without a word, just a look Julian didn't recognise, Max pushed Julian down onto the car's seat. There was nothing careful about his kiss this time. Possessive and hard, with more teeth than finesse, Max's mouth burned Julian's lips, his face, his neck. Somehow, between them, they got Julian's trousers open and Max's hand inside. There was no teasing or anticipation, Max knew what he was doing; he made Julian forget all about the seatbelt digging into his spine, able to feel nothing but Max's heat.
Afterwards, as Julian lay panting under Max, he realised Max was laughing. The sound was lost in the rain pounding on the roof, but there was no other explanation for the shaking shoulders and heaving breaths. He finally got Max to look at him. “What's so funny?”
“Nothing. This. Everything.” Max sat up, pushing Julian's legs out of the way. He had the door open and had slipped out into the downpour before Julian could respond. Julian sat up and watched him stand, shivering, soaked to the skin, in the wash of light from the headlamps. Eventually Max tipped his head back, facing the rain, pushed his hair off his face, and reached into his pocket, pulling out the keys. Without a glance back, he went inside and shut the door.
--
The deluge slowed to a drizzle and Julian carried the luggage and groceries into the house. He could hear the shower running upstairs. He was putting the last of the food away when Max snaked arms around Julian's waist and kissed the back of his neck. “If you want the shower, it's all yours. I'll make some supper.”
Julian leaned back against Max's chest and looked ruefully at his trousers. If he'd known how the drive was going to end, he'd have changed into jeans before they left. “I could do with a shower. And I'm starving, lunch was forever ago.” Max loosened his arms, allowing Julian to turn. Max was wearing threadbare jeans bleached almost white with age and a red jumper unravelling at the cuff. He touched the loose threads, remembering: Max came back alone, cradling his bruised wrists in hands so white they looked transparent. After Gideon left, Julian had thought he knew everything important there was to know about Max's life. In the wake of Adam Carter's visit that illusion unravelled like the strands of wool under Max's worrying fingers. Gideon was nothing. Julian was nothing. Adam was at the centre of all of this.
“That was years ago.” Max spoke quietly, comfort hidden in a statement of fact.
Shaken by Max's ability to read his thoughts so easily, Julian tried to cover, “It fits you a good deal better now anyway.”
Max kissed Julian firmly, a press of lips that said, we don't need to talk about this again, and then nodded towards the stairs.
Julian showered and changed, the smell of cooking hurrying him. He found Max in the dining-room, staring out the window into the dark. When Julian said, “Max,” he leaned his forehead briefly on the glass before turning around.
Max's smile was hollow. “I made pasta. We can go to town and get some real food in the morning.”
“It smells delicious.” Julian served two plates from the bowl in the middle of the table.
“Moon's out. It looks like the rain has cleared.”
Julian wondered how they came to be talking about the weather. “Why are we here? Now, I mean, why today?”
“I couldn't face Christmas in November.”
“We drove six hours because of a Christmas tree in a shop window?”
Max began to eat, gaze steady on Julian's questioning one.
“Where did you go yesterday? What happened?” Julian thought he knew the answer, but needed to hear Max say it.
“It's over.” Max was saying as much with his steel look as with his words.
“It's over?” Julian tried to temper his tone; found he couldn't. “Just like that, after fifteen years, he let you go? No broken ribs? Hell, I'm surprised he didn't break your legs. Or no, don't tell me, he took our conversation to heart and bought you flowers. At long last.”
“Sarcasm doesn't suit you.”
“Sarcasm doesn't suit you. It suits me just fine. I know who he is, Max, I've seen what he does to you, and you aren't going to sit there and tell me I have no right to be angry.”
“You're right.”
“So what happened this time? Why was this time different?”
“He threatened you.”
“So you went to him and told him you'd rather he didn't do that, and he said, 'Ok, it's been nice knowing you, hope you two kids have a nice life'?”
Max's eyes flared. “I went to him and held a broken glass to his throat and told him if he came near you, or me, again, I'd go to his bosses with proof that he's not the nice little spy they think he is.”
Julian blanched, vision overlaid by the sight of Max, covered in blood and looking more like a corpse than anything else, being carried upstairs by Gideon. Adam knew. He had to know what Max had done to the man at Michael's. Julian looked at Max's hand where it lay next to his water glass. An everyday sight, transformed into something deadly. How must it feel, to have that glass held at your throat? How must it feel to hold it there?
“My god, Max.”
“It's over.”
The relief made Julian sick. He pushed back from the table and lowered his head to his knees. He'd expected Adam to extract a pound of flesh, and worse, he'd thought Max would just hand him the blade. Two deep breaths, a third, and Julian felt the nausea recede.
He sat up to find Max looking at him, concern and confusion warring on his face. Julian found his voice. “I'm sorry.”
Confusion gained the upper hand. “Why..?”
The corner of the table that separated them seemed vast. Julian needed to erase the distance. He stood and angled himself into the space between Max and his dinner, straddling his lap. Max slid back to give him enough room. He curved an arm around Julian's waist, lifting his face to a kiss. Julian threaded shaking fingers through Max's hair, gripping, tilting his head back impossibly far, claiming Max's mouth.
Max's hand moved on his thigh, and Julian caught its fingers in his other hand. Max twisted his wrist accommodatingly until they were palm to palm, fingers lacing. Julian needed air and released Max's lips. Gazing into his upturned face, he tried to map forgiveness, desire, need, and was surprised to see all three. Overcome, he released Max's head and lifted their twined hands to his mouth. Max watched as Julian kissed each of his fingers, drew each one into his mouth, marking it with sharp teeth before moving on to the next. He opened the flat of Max's palm to his tongue, tracing the hollow at its centre before biting the skin at the base of Max's thumb. He didn't let go until Max's eyes fluttered closed for a moment.
Palm to palm again, fingers aligned, Julian asked, “Is it hard to break a glass so it's useful?”
“For killing a man, you mean?”
“For saving your life.”
“Don't romanticise what I did. I didn't kill him to escape. I just wanted him dead.”
I meant Adam, Julian nearly said, but instead stood, pulling Max to his feet. “I need you upstairs.”
Max spread him on the bed and fucked him so slowly that he bit his own arm nearly bloody trying not to beg. When Max finally let him come he hovered at the edge of consciousness until he remembered how to breathe. Twisting under Max, Julian pulled him down until he could taste his sweat. He fell asleep with Max's weight grounding him.
---
Rain had warped the window-frame in the dining-room. Rain, and the fact the house had stood empty too long. Max had to struggle to get it open, the wood screeching in protest. Julian would hear, but he couldn’t help that. He put his weight behind it and the lower portion lifted at last, enough to let him out onto the coastal path that led away from the house.
The moon was still out, marking the potholes in the path like milk.
He had to get away, just for a while, from the house and Julian. From him and Julian. The pair of them. He’d thought the hard part was over. He’d thought after holding that broken glass to Adam’s throat, nothing would feel as difficult again. Julian, he’d known, would ask questions and demand answers. Julian was easy, however. Julian was sane.
Max side-stepped a leery reflection of the moon, captured in a puddle of recent rain. He felt himself stumble, the hot breath of hysteria at his heels. It had dogged him from London, muscling in on the action in the car, trying for his attention when he was doing his best to keep Julian from asking questions until the morning, until his head was clear of the smell of Adam Carter, the tang of his blood like a brand on Max’s tongue.
What had he done?
When he stopped stumbling, he found himself in the cove: the first and last place where Carter touched him with real tenderness, so close to remorse it nearly broke Max all over again. He’d stopped Adam then, and he made himself stop now, propping his spine against a sharp slice of rock, not wanting to sit on the sand, the place where Adam sat, holding his wrists, one after the other, long fingers trying to smooth the bruises from Max’s skin.
‘Fuck this.’ Max put his head back and stared up at the pitted face of the moon. ‘Fuck this. He didn’t care then, and I don’t care now.’
He let himself slip down the rock until he was crouching on his heels in the sand, his hands linked loosely at his knees, his head hanging. His spine was marked with pain, scraped by the blunt blade of the rock. Julian would see the damage; if he hadn’t seen it already. Max was good at hiding his tells but he’d never had one of this magnitude before, a wound so raw and recent he could feel it leaching from his skin, bleeding from his eyes.
He made himself repeat the words: ‘He didn’t care then.’
He didn’t repeat the lie: ‘I don’t care now.’
Spreading his hand, he looked for the marks left by Julian’s teeth. Nothing. The sensation was still there, pins and needles in his palm. But there was no evidence because Julian hadn’t wanted to leave any. Well, that was over and done with, whatever else was not.
No more trophies.
He wondered at the effort it had taken Julian not to beg when Max spread him on the bed and fucked him, but not the way Julian wanted because Max was afraid to raise the spectre of Adam Carter so soon after Julian thought it was laid to rest.
He pushed his hands into his hair and left them there, staring out at the black-white surface of the sea. He thought of the moment when Adam’s body went slack under his, fear chasing lust to ground, at last. Adam had never done that to Max: made him impotent with his threats. No matter what Adam did, even when he threw Max like meat at his mate Glenn, Max stayed hard, his head in the game.
Max wondered if he’d learned anything at all from the last fifteen years. He’d been a coward at the start of this, and he was a coward now.
Adam had taken trouble to spell out the differences between Julian and Max, that last night he sent Max home with the bruises and bitemarks. It was bullshit, Max knew that. Adam had manufactured an interest in Julian. He was getting old, running out of ways to hurt Max physically, trying something new. ‘You’re finished, kid. Used up. Anyone who’s not a complete fool can see that from one look at your fucking eyes. Burnt-out.’ And Max, like the complete fool in question, had taken pains to try and prove him wrong. Pathetic.
‘You own me,’ Julian had said.
Max didn’t want to own him, absolutely did not want the responsibility. The power. Knew he lacked Adam’s lust to abuse the ownership, and Adam’s gift for remaining unmoved, intact, on the periphery of what he did. Max couldn’t do that. He’d failed with Adam, and he’d fail with Julian.
Julian’s need scared him. It was too much. He’d valued Adam’s indifference, his distance. It made sense, felt safe. This – whatever it was – between him and Julian was built on lies. For it to work, they’d have to fake too much. Julian’s desperate bid not to beg had driven that home. At least Max and Adam had been honest, in their way. A pair of sick twisted bastards who didn’t care who got hurt as long as they got off.
‘It’s over.’ A lie.
‘I own you.’ A lie.
The idea that honesty was important to him: a lie.
He laughed, the sound spooking him as it was thrown back from the high angle of the rocks. He needed to get back to the house before Julian came looking for him. What the fuck was he thinking, coming back here? To the place where he’d nearly died? Where Gideon Ware held him down as he raged against the withdrawal from Michael’s drug. Where he’d begged Julian Tremont to hurt him, distract him from the pain with more of the same.
‘That was years ago.’
He doubted Julian knew how much Max remembered of that madness. He knew Julian invented excuses for the things he said, the things he asked, blaming it on sickness, delirium. It was a sickness. But the cause wasn’t Michael, and the cure had yet to be found.
Enough. He straightened, shoving his fists into his pockets before he could get the idea of putting them into the rock, marking them the way he’d marked his spine. The moon had gone behind a layer of cloud. He had to find his way home by instinct, in the dark.
---
When Julian woke up he was under a duvet. Max is gone. He wasn't sure if a noise or the moon rising over the curtains woke him. The bed next to him was cold, Max leaving hadn't pulled him from sleep. He stretched, regretting it as a dull ache turned to sharp pain. He turned carefully onto his side and the pain went again, leaving a feeling of being well used in its wake. He listened for sounds of plumbing or creaking floorboards, but the house was silent. Pulling pyjama bottoms and a sweater from his bag, Julian dressed quickly in the cold room.
Even knowing he wouldn't be there, Julian went looking for Max in his old room. It looked just the same, though the smell of sick-room had been baked from the wood by the summers of heat trapped under the eaves. Feet automatically careful of squeaky boards as though Max were here after all, sleeping fitfully, Julian crossed the room to the window. The moon shone on the path to the cove, and Julian caught a flash of shadow where the trail curved out of sight. He wondered if Max would come back before the sun rose.
A broken storm-lantern sat on the chest near the window and Julian shut his eyes against the memory: Max was crouched between the bed and the wall, tears and sweat indistinguishable on his cheek. He'd broken the bail handle off the lantern which Julian hadn't thought to take out of the room, and he was digging at the track marks on his arm with the snapped off end. “Fuck,” Julian said and called for Gideon as he knelt on the bed and snatched the curve of metal from Max's grasp. Max knocked his head against the wall, and then again, harder. Julian threw the bail to the floor, grabbing Max's head before he could slam it back a third time. Somehow, without letting go, Julian crossed the bed and joined Max on the floor behind it. Gideon found them there, huddled together, Julian with his finger bleeding where he'd tried to stop Max hitting the bed frame, Max begging, “Give me something please, or fuck me. Just fuck me until I can't feel this any more.”
The icy touch of the windowpane on his cheek shocked Julian back to the present. He loosened the grip of his fingers from the windowsill and watched the path for a sign that Max was coming back, before turning away from the window in disgust with himself. In all the years he'd been here, he'd never deluded himself that there was anything easy about it. Never easy, but somehow simple. Julian climbed onto the bed where Max had sweated out the drugs and nightmares and waited.
When Julian woke up in the strange bed, his first thought was that he couldn't remember the last time he'd done more than doze. Then he remembered the vodka. And Max. In the bath he considered that he might have fallen in love with anyone who had come for him in that camp, but then he saw Max sitting in the sun. All the psychobabble he expected his father would give him about saviours and heroes and the people they rescue was too complicated for this feeling. Max was like the sun. And like a plant, Julian needed him.
It was months later that Julian realised he'd been naïve in the extreme. He hadn't fallen for Max just because he'd saved him, but that didn't make his infatuation any less based on his idea that Max was some great heroic figure. By the time he saw the joke, it was too late. He'd spent too many hours with Max, as his solicitor and as his friend, watching him. The hero-worship he'd felt since he'd watched Max cut Sands' throat had become genuine admiration; the vaguely disquieting sense of awe had become affection. The urge to be pressed against the nearest wall, to feel Max's hands on him, that hadn't changed, but he could still call it love. And he had.
Six days of hell, waiting for Gideon to bring him Max. Every morning he woke up thinking 'today will be the day' and every night he lay on the sofa-bed sure Max was dead, that whatever Gideon had planned had failed and that he'd never find out what happened. When Gideon finally did arrive, Julian was sure he was being asked to help hide a body. It wasn't possible for a person to have that much blood on himself, to be that pale, and be alive. “Bath,” Gideon said, as he carried Max upstairs, and Julian saw Max's fingers curl and that the blood was mostly dried as he passed them. As the bath filled, Julian helped Gideon strip the ruined shirt and jeans from Max's unresponsive frame.
What they'd done to Max was beyond horror. Beyond expressing with any word Julian Tremont's expensive education had provided.
They roused Max enough to put him in the bath. He flinched away from the cloth, and even the water Julian squeezed from it in an effort to wash away the blood. Julian found himself repeating a litany, 'It's ok, it's ok, it's ok…' and longing for one of them to believe it.
Sure that his presence upset Max more than it helped, Julian concentrated on keeping the house comfortable. Washing sheets was considerably less frustrating than the waiting had been. There is little heroic to be found in a man who tries to purge his demons by gouging at his own flesh, and Julian had watched from a distance as the Max he thought he'd known was stripped down to his essential core. Max fought. He fought the drugs, the memories, the nightmares, the help they tried to give him. Scared, but just as fascinated as he'd always been, Julian had let Gideon deal with as many of Max's nightmares as one man could handle.
Gideon was sleeping upstairs, in the large bedroom, so he could be near to Max if he was needed. He was larger than life to Julian: part monster for getting Max into this to begin with, part gun-slinger for keeping Max alive through the aftermath.
Julian woke up early, went to put the kettle on. He paused at the door when he saw Gideon at the sink. He was wearing the clothes he'd had on the night before, carefully pressed trousers now rumpled almost beyond recognition. His shirt was limp and soaked with sweat, a smear of blood stained one sleeve. He was rolling back his cuffs, revealing forearms that looked sculpted in the dawn light. Julian expected him to splash his face or wash his hands, but Gideon simply leaned his palms on the lip of the sink and bowed his head. All the strength seemed to drain out of him as he stood there; he looked utterly defeated. Julian crept away from the door and went back to bed. He feigned sleep when he heard Gideon passing to go back upstairs.
Julian heard a thump and the protesting squeak of a sash window that had been too long closed. Wanting to give Max space, he stayed where he was when he heard footsteps on the stairs. Max passed the half-closed door without a glance, returning to the master bedroom. Julian thought Max might come looking for him, but when he gave up and went back to their bed he found Max sound asleep.
Julian pulled off his sweater and climbed under the duvet. Turning his back to the empty space in the middle of the bed, he closed his eyes and matched his breathing to Max's sleeping rhythm.
--
Julian woke first in the morning. Max had lost any youth regained yesterday, and looked worn in the harsh morning sun. He turned, and Julian saw his back, a raw scrape along his spine. He couldn't imagine what Adam had done. It was not a wound from fist or teeth, or even a belt, but then Julian noticed that the abrasion was too fresh for this to be Adam's work. Denied Adam's marks, Max had been forced to make his own. A particularly nasty scrape crossed the worst of the scars Michael had left. Julian wanted to shake him.
Max appeared, freshly showered, just as the coffee finished brewing. He poured a mug, added milk, and held it out to Julian. Julian took it, watched Max pour his own, leaving it black, before sitting at the kitchen table.
“Do you need me to put something on your back, or did you get it clean in the shower?”
Max's fingers tightened on his coffee but he met Julian's mild look. “It's fine.”
Julian ran a frustrated hand through his hair, wishing suddenly he'd had it cut before they left. As if that matters. “I just don't want…” Julian couldn't finish. Couldn't bear to return to those minutes that felt like hours of cleaning the mess Michael had left of Max's flesh. “Good. I'm glad it's fine.”
“Do you need to get back to work? I didn't think to ask yesterday.”
“Other people are handling things.” Julian wasn't going to give Max the out. If he wanted Julian to leave he could ask.
“We'd better get some more food in if we're staying. It's the market today.”
“Do you want breakfast first, or should we go now?” Julian wanted Max to look at him, but Max concentrated on his coffee.
“I'm not hungry.” Max pushed his mug away.
“Fine.” Julian took their cups to the sink.
They barely spoke in town. When they got home with meat and bread and vegetables Max said, “I'm going to check the boat. I'll be back later. I don't mind what we have for supper.”
---
The boat was the same as ever, moored in the spot where Ben Lyon kept an eye on it, making sure it stayed weather-proofed, sea-worthy. Boats took a lot of upkeep. One of these days, Max needed to take her out, sail her again. It had been years.
His eyes rested for a while on the buoy in the water. The place he’d hidden his identity for eleven years. The buoy drifted in the harbour, making a hollow sound as it struck the quayside. Empty.
He located the keys and unlocked the cabin, going down the steps into the familiar smell of polish and tar. He sat on the bunk beneath the window, remembering.
Rain. Vodka. Julian.
Max scrubbed both hands through his hair in an effort to dislodge the tension. What was he doing, screwing things up with Julian? They’d trailed around that market like a married couple, not talking. He gave a hard laugh, the last dregs of the night’s hysteria.
That wasn’t why he came here. To drink coffee and cook pasta, and pussy-foot around Julian’s perfectly sane concern. He’d wanted –
He should’ve bought a crate of Moêd and vegetables Max said, “I'm going to check the boat. I'll be back later. I don't mind what we have for supper.”
---
The boat was the same as ever, moored in the spot where Ben Lyon kept an eye on it, making sure it stayed weather-proofed, sea-worthy. Boats took a lot of upkeep. One of these days, Max needed to take her out, sail her again. It had been years.
His eyes rested for a while on the buoy in the water. The place he’d hidden his identity for eleven years. The buoy drifted in the harbour, making a hollow sound as it struck the quayside. Empty.
He located the keys and unlocked the cabin, going down the steps into the familiar smell of polish and tar. He sat on the bunk beneath the window, remembering.
Rain. Vodka. Julian.
Max scrubbed both hands through his hair in an effort to dislodge the tension. What was he doing, screwing things up with Julian? They’d trailed around that market like a married couple, not talking. He gave a hard laugh, the last dregs of the night’s hysteria.
That wasn’t why he came here. To drink coffee and cook pasta, and pussy-foot around Julian’s perfectly sane concern. He’d wanted –
He should’ve bought a crate of Moët, lit a bonfire on the beach and fucked Julian until the stars came out. Toasted the demise of Adam Carter in champagne. Thrown the empty bottles at the sea.
He shifted in the bunk, feeling the dull pull of pain in his back. Shit. He put the heels of both hands to his eyes. God knows what it did to Julian, seeing him hurt again. Great association Max was giving him: Fowey, the pain-capital of Cornwall. ‘We’re going to Fowey.’ ‘Great. I’ll pack plenty of codeine and bandages.’
Sunlight fell through the window, bleaching the salt-stains on his boat-shoes to another shade of pale. The cold light of day. Matchless. Out loud, he said, “Get a grip, you spineless fuck.”
Ten minutes later, the boat was locked up and Max was in the pub, persuading the barman to sell him a couple of bottles of champagne. “As it’s you, Mr Lawrence.” He begged a bucket from the same man, waiting as it was filled with ice, the bottles crunched into place. “Glasses?” the barman quizzed. “No, thanks.”
---
Julian found Max in the cove. Max shaded his eyes and looked up as Julian approached. Completely incongruous to the setting, there was a bucket of champagne tilted against the rocks next to him. "What's this?" Julian smiled at the bucket. Ice and everything.
"Come here." Max held out his hand.
Kneeling between Max's drawn up knees, he took Max's hands and put them on his waist, threading his fingers behind Max's neck. When he felt Max's grip on his hips, he leaned in and brought their lips together.
Max responded quickly, hauling Julian forward and then twisting them so Julian lay underneath him on the sand. Max concentrated on Julian's mouth as though he was trying to learn its shape and taste all over again. His hands were hungry, stroking, pressing, pulling Julian closer. The ice that had frosted the space between them melted until Julian felt he was on fire. He opened himself to Max's kiss, shifted beneath him until they fit together, legs and hips locked, fused by the heat that penetrated even their winter clothes.
Mapping Max's back, Julian was careful not to get too close to the cuts on his spine. As if he sensed and was rebelling against Julian's bid to handle him with care, Max's kisses turned to bites and he slid hard hands up Julian's arms until he held Julian's wrists above his head. Julian bared his throat to Max's teeth and tested the grip at his wrists. Max pushed back, the heels of his hands in the hollow between radius and ulna grinding Julian's wrists into the sand. Julian felt the shift in Max from passion to anger.
"Why are you punishing me?" Julian felt Max's grip loosen in surprise.
Max let go of one wrist completely, pushing himself up so he could look Julian in the eye. "I'm not punishing--"
Julian felt like they were getting nowhere. "Bullshit." Taking advantage of Max's uncertainty and precarious balance, Julian levered himself upwards, tipping Max onto his back. He used a three point hold to keep Max there, a knee in the tendon at the top of Max's thigh and the weight of his hands on Max's shoulders.
Max tried to move and flinched. Even through his sweater the sand was obviously rough on his abrasion. Julian pushed. "Why are you punishing me?"
"You're hurting me." Max was still, his eyes flint.
"I know."
"You're not him." Max's voice was low, menacing.
Julian scoffed, "God forbid."
Max wrapped his fingers around Julian's forearm. "Be careful, I could break you."
Moving his other hand to pin Max's free arm, Julian dug his thumb into the tender hollow of Max's armpit. "I am not as fragile as you think." He hadn%2ocks next to him. "What's this?" Julian smiled at the bucket. Ice and everything.
"Come here." Max held out his hand.
Kneeling between Max's drawn up knees, he took Max's hands and put them on his waist, threading his fingers behind Max's neck. When he felt Max's grip on his hips, he leaned in and brought their lips together.
Max responded quickly, hauling Julian forward and then twisting them so Julian lay underneath him on the sand. Max concentrated on Julian's mouth as though he was trying to learn its shape and taste all over again. His hands were hungry, stroking, pressing, pulling Julian closer. The ice that had frosted the space between them melted until Julian felt he was on fire. He opened himself to Max's kiss, shifted beneath him until they fit together, legs and hips locked, fused by the heat that penetrated even their winter clothes.
Mapping Max's back, Julian was careful not to get too close to the cuts on his spine. As if he sensed and was rebelling against Julian's bid to handle him with care, Max's kisses turned to bites and he slid hard hands up Julian's arms until he held Julian's wrists above his head. Julian bared his throat to Max's teeth and tested the grip at his wrists. Max pushed back, the heels of his hands in the hollow between radius and ulna grinding Julian's wrists into the sand. Julian felt the shift in Max from passion to anger.
"Why are you punishing me?" Julian felt Max's grip loosen in surprise.
Max let go of one wrist completely, pushing himself up so he could look Julian in the eye. "I'm not punishing--"
tigertrapped what she wanted me to write her for Christmas, one of the options was to write more Max and Julian to go with her present that she wrote for me, Glass. As I adore Max and love writing Julian, I couldn't pass up the opportunity. Especially when a rabid plot bunny attacked me and then tigertrapped offered to write the bits from Max's POV. If you want to read more about Max, Julian, Adam, Gideon, and other members of the Spooks team (including Jools), you can find the stories linked here on
tigertrapped's journal.Authors:
rivers_bend and tigertrapped~6,120 words
Rated: adult
Julian was surrounded by paperwork when Max came home. His secretary had already checked that all the Xs had the appropriate signatures and initials, but Julian found it was best to be cautious. He looked up at the sound of footsteps. Max's hair was wet with rain, his face dark.
“I saw a Christmas tree.” Max hung up his coat and headed for the kitchen.
Julian stood to follow him. “It's the twenty fourth of November.”
Max was drying his hair with a towel and filling the kettle. “In a shop window. Tinsel, lights, everything.”
Unsure what to say, Julian tried, “Tea?” One eye on Max, he got out mugs and milk.
“Thanks.” Max threw the towel in the laundry and went back to the front room.
When Julian came in with the tea, Max was looking out the window. “It's been raining for a week. What is it about London that a week of rain manages to make everything dirtier?”
“Tough afternoon?” Julian could see Max's jaw tighten and his hand fist in his pocket.
“I'm going to Fowey.” Max turned and leaned on the window sill. His eyes slid over Julian's face and settled on the piles of paperwork.
Julian tried to read Max's body language, but he was slouching, shoulders loose, in the casual pose he adopted that could be hiding anything. Waiting for something further, Julian poured out the tea. When nothing more was forthcoming he said, “By ten forty-five tomorrow all this will be the responsibility of someone else. Can you wait until then?” He watched for a tell, some sign of what Max was thinking, “Unless, do you prefer to go alone?”
Max pushed off the sill and paced across the room, picking up his tea as he passed. “I prefer to go now.” His voice was tight with frustration. “But, I also prefer you come with me. We can leave before lunch tomorrow?”
The tension in the room eased. “If you pick me up from the office we can leave at eleven.”
--
Max's mood of the day before had dissipated, and despite the continuing rain, the drive to Cornwall had a hint of holiday air. The farther they got from London the more Max relaxed. Julian drove the last leg of the journey and found Max asleep beside him when they arrived. Max looked young, almost as he had years ago, before Egypt. Julian was loath to wake him and return the care of years to his face.
“Hey.” Julian put a hand on Max's knee. “We're here.” He watched Max's eyelashes stir against his cheeks.
When Max stretched, making a long curve of throat and torso, Julian wanted to crawl over the gear shift, push back the seat and taste the skin of his neck. It still amazed him sometimes how powerfully the sight of Max affected him. Max's voice broke into his fantasy. “What?” Max was utterly still, watching Julian watch him.
Prevarication seemed pointless. “I want you.” More weight behind the words than he'd intended.
Max's hand was on him before he'd noticed the movement. “So you do.”
The touch made Julian clutch at the parking brake. Max's left hand found his neck, pulling him around and into a kiss that answered his need. Julian was twisted almost painfully, ribs dented by the steering wheel, knee wedged against the console. He shifted, trying to free his arm, gain more contact with Max's hand, breathe. “Max,” he said.
Max let him go. Julian hadn't minded the discomfort as much as he did the loss of contact. He turned in the seat, bringing his knees out from under the wheel, facing Max. “Kiss me.” He wasn't sure why he was asking, or telling, or however it sounded to Max's ears, rather than just leaning in and doing it, but tonight something in him needed Max to come to him. Needed Max to lay a hand on Julian's cheek, apply just that pressure that tips his head just so, to close the distance between them and take possession of Julian's mouth. Just like that.
Lips fused, fingers curled around the curve of skull, they were mirror images twinned again in the rain-lashed windshield. Max leaned back, pulling Julian with him until Julian was bent over his own knees, hand seeking purchase on Max's thigh. He sucked Max's lip into his mouth, bit just hard enough to force a noise from Max's throat, said, “There's a bed on the other side of that door.”
Max looked a challenge at him. Julian realised waking hadn't yet aged him, he still looked young. Like a boy who wanted a handjob in the back of his father's car. It was absurd, they were fifteen years too old to be doing this. Julian pulled himself awkwardly upright and squeezed between the seats into the back. Max managed to make the same manoeuvre look graceful.
Without a word, just a look Julian didn't recognise, Max pushed Julian down onto the car's seat. There was nothing careful about his kiss this time. Possessive and hard, with more teeth than finesse, Max's mouth burned Julian's lips, his face, his neck. Somehow, between them, they got Julian's trousers open and Max's hand inside. There was no teasing or anticipation, Max knew what he was doing; he made Julian forget all about the seatbelt digging into his spine, able to feel nothing but Max's heat.
Afterwards, as Julian lay panting under Max, he realised Max was laughing. The sound was lost in the rain pounding on the roof, but there was no other explanation for the shaking shoulders and heaving breaths. He finally got Max to look at him. “What's so funny?”
“Nothing. This. Everything.” Max sat up, pushing Julian's legs out of the way. He had the door open and had slipped out into the downpour before Julian could respond. Julian sat up and watched him stand, shivering, soaked to the skin, in the wash of light from the headlamps. Eventually Max tipped his head back, facing the rain, pushed his hair off his face, and reached into his pocket, pulling out the keys. Without a glance back, he went inside and shut the door.
--
The deluge slowed to a drizzle and Julian carried the luggage and groceries into the house. He could hear the shower running upstairs. He was putting the last of the food away when Max snaked arms around Julian's waist and kissed the back of his neck. “If you want the shower, it's all yours. I'll make some supper.”
Julian leaned back against Max's chest and looked ruefully at his trousers. If he'd known how the drive was going to end, he'd have changed into jeans before they left. “I could do with a shower. And I'm starving, lunch was forever ago.” Max loosened his arms, allowing Julian to turn. Max was wearing threadbare jeans bleached almost white with age and a red jumper unravelling at the cuff. He touched the loose threads, remembering: Max came back alone, cradling his bruised wrists in hands so white they looked transparent. After Gideon left, Julian had thought he knew everything important there was to know about Max's life. In the wake of Adam Carter's visit that illusion unravelled like the strands of wool under Max's worrying fingers. Gideon was nothing. Julian was nothing. Adam was at the centre of all of this.
“That was years ago.” Max spoke quietly, comfort hidden in a statement of fact.
Shaken by Max's ability to read his thoughts so easily, Julian tried to cover, “It fits you a good deal better now anyway.”
Max kissed Julian firmly, a press of lips that said, we don't need to talk about this again, and then nodded towards the stairs.
Julian showered and changed, the smell of cooking hurrying him. He found Max in the dining-room, staring out the window into the dark. When Julian said, “Max,” he leaned his forehead briefly on the glass before turning around.
Max's smile was hollow. “I made pasta. We can go to town and get some real food in the morning.”
“It smells delicious.” Julian served two plates from the bowl in the middle of the table.
“Moon's out. It looks like the rain has cleared.”
Julian wondered how they came to be talking about the weather. “Why are we here? Now, I mean, why today?”
“I couldn't face Christmas in November.”
“We drove six hours because of a Christmas tree in a shop window?”
Max began to eat, gaze steady on Julian's questioning one.
“Where did you go yesterday? What happened?” Julian thought he knew the answer, but needed to hear Max say it.
“It's over.” Max was saying as much with his steel look as with his words.
“It's over?” Julian tried to temper his tone; found he couldn't. “Just like that, after fifteen years, he let you go? No broken ribs? Hell, I'm surprised he didn't break your legs. Or no, don't tell me, he took our conversation to heart and bought you flowers. At long last.”
“Sarcasm doesn't suit you.”
“Sarcasm doesn't suit you. It suits me just fine. I know who he is, Max, I've seen what he does to you, and you aren't going to sit there and tell me I have no right to be angry.”
“You're right.”
“So what happened this time? Why was this time different?”
“He threatened you.”
“So you went to him and told him you'd rather he didn't do that, and he said, 'Ok, it's been nice knowing you, hope you two kids have a nice life'?”
Max's eyes flared. “I went to him and held a broken glass to his throat and told him if he came near you, or me, again, I'd go to his bosses with proof that he's not the nice little spy they think he is.”
Julian blanched, vision overlaid by the sight of Max, covered in blood and looking more like a corpse than anything else, being carried upstairs by Gideon. Adam knew. He had to know what Max had done to the man at Michael's. Julian looked at Max's hand where it lay next to his water glass. An everyday sight, transformed into something deadly. How must it feel, to have that glass held at your throat? How must it feel to hold it there?
“My god, Max.”
“It's over.”
The relief made Julian sick. He pushed back from the table and lowered his head to his knees. He'd expected Adam to extract a pound of flesh, and worse, he'd thought Max would just hand him the blade. Two deep breaths, a third, and Julian felt the nausea recede.
He sat up to find Max looking at him, concern and confusion warring on his face. Julian found his voice. “I'm sorry.”
Confusion gained the upper hand. “Why..?”
The corner of the table that separated them seemed vast. Julian needed to erase the distance. He stood and angled himself into the space between Max and his dinner, straddling his lap. Max slid back to give him enough room. He curved an arm around Julian's waist, lifting his face to a kiss. Julian threaded shaking fingers through Max's hair, gripping, tilting his head back impossibly far, claiming Max's mouth.
Max's hand moved on his thigh, and Julian caught its fingers in his other hand. Max twisted his wrist accommodatingly until they were palm to palm, fingers lacing. Julian needed air and released Max's lips. Gazing into his upturned face, he tried to map forgiveness, desire, need, and was surprised to see all three. Overcome, he released Max's head and lifted their twined hands to his mouth. Max watched as Julian kissed each of his fingers, drew each one into his mouth, marking it with sharp teeth before moving on to the next. He opened the flat of Max's palm to his tongue, tracing the hollow at its centre before biting the skin at the base of Max's thumb. He didn't let go until Max's eyes fluttered closed for a moment.
Palm to palm again, fingers aligned, Julian asked, “Is it hard to break a glass so it's useful?”
“For killing a man, you mean?”
“For saving your life.”
“Don't romanticise what I did. I didn't kill him to escape. I just wanted him dead.”
I meant Adam, Julian nearly said, but instead stood, pulling Max to his feet. “I need you upstairs.”
Max spread him on the bed and fucked him so slowly that he bit his own arm nearly bloody trying not to beg. When Max finally let him come he hovered at the edge of consciousness until he remembered how to breathe. Twisting under Max, Julian pulled him down until he could taste his sweat. He fell asleep with Max's weight grounding him.
---
Rain had warped the window-frame in the dining-room. Rain, and the fact the house had stood empty too long. Max had to struggle to get it open, the wood screeching in protest. Julian would hear, but he couldn’t help that. He put his weight behind it and the lower portion lifted at last, enough to let him out onto the coastal path that led away from the house.
The moon was still out, marking the potholes in the path like milk.
He had to get away, just for a while, from the house and Julian. From him and Julian. The pair of them. He’d thought the hard part was over. He’d thought after holding that broken glass to Adam’s throat, nothing would feel as difficult again. Julian, he’d known, would ask questions and demand answers. Julian was easy, however. Julian was sane.
Max side-stepped a leery reflection of the moon, captured in a puddle of recent rain. He felt himself stumble, the hot breath of hysteria at his heels. It had dogged him from London, muscling in on the action in the car, trying for his attention when he was doing his best to keep Julian from asking questions until the morning, until his head was clear of the smell of Adam Carter, the tang of his blood like a brand on Max’s tongue.
What had he done?
When he stopped stumbling, he found himself in the cove: the first and last place where Carter touched him with real tenderness, so close to remorse it nearly broke Max all over again. He’d stopped Adam then, and he made himself stop now, propping his spine against a sharp slice of rock, not wanting to sit on the sand, the place where Adam sat, holding his wrists, one after the other, long fingers trying to smooth the bruises from Max’s skin.
‘Fuck this.’ Max put his head back and stared up at the pitted face of the moon. ‘Fuck this. He didn’t care then, and I don’t care now.’
He let himself slip down the rock until he was crouching on his heels in the sand, his hands linked loosely at his knees, his head hanging. His spine was marked with pain, scraped by the blunt blade of the rock. Julian would see the damage; if he hadn’t seen it already. Max was good at hiding his tells but he’d never had one of this magnitude before, a wound so raw and recent he could feel it leaching from his skin, bleeding from his eyes.
He made himself repeat the words: ‘He didn’t care then.’
He didn’t repeat the lie: ‘I don’t care now.’
Spreading his hand, he looked for the marks left by Julian’s teeth. Nothing. The sensation was still there, pins and needles in his palm. But there was no evidence because Julian hadn’t wanted to leave any. Well, that was over and done with, whatever else was not.
No more trophies.
He wondered at the effort it had taken Julian not to beg when Max spread him on the bed and fucked him, but not the way Julian wanted because Max was afraid to raise the spectre of Adam Carter so soon after Julian thought it was laid to rest.
He pushed his hands into his hair and left them there, staring out at the black-white surface of the sea. He thought of the moment when Adam’s body went slack under his, fear chasing lust to ground, at last. Adam had never done that to Max: made him impotent with his threats. No matter what Adam did, even when he threw Max like meat at his mate Glenn, Max stayed hard, his head in the game.
Max wondered if he’d learned anything at all from the last fifteen years. He’d been a coward at the start of this, and he was a coward now.
Adam had taken trouble to spell out the differences between Julian and Max, that last night he sent Max home with the bruises and bitemarks. It was bullshit, Max knew that. Adam had manufactured an interest in Julian. He was getting old, running out of ways to hurt Max physically, trying something new. ‘You’re finished, kid. Used up. Anyone who’s not a complete fool can see that from one look at your fucking eyes. Burnt-out.’ And Max, like the complete fool in question, had taken pains to try and prove him wrong. Pathetic.
‘You own me,’ Julian had said.
Max didn’t want to own him, absolutely did not want the responsibility. The power. Knew he lacked Adam’s lust to abuse the ownership, and Adam’s gift for remaining unmoved, intact, on the periphery of what he did. Max couldn’t do that. He’d failed with Adam, and he’d fail with Julian.
Julian’s need scared him. It was too much. He’d valued Adam’s indifference, his distance. It made sense, felt safe. This – whatever it was – between him and Julian was built on lies. For it to work, they’d have to fake too much. Julian’s desperate bid not to beg had driven that home. At least Max and Adam had been honest, in their way. A pair of sick twisted bastards who didn’t care who got hurt as long as they got off.
‘It’s over.’ A lie.
‘I own you.’ A lie.
The idea that honesty was important to him: a lie.
He laughed, the sound spooking him as it was thrown back from the high angle of the rocks. He needed to get back to the house before Julian came looking for him. What the fuck was he thinking, coming back here? To the place where he’d nearly died? Where Gideon Ware held him down as he raged against the withdrawal from Michael’s drug. Where he’d begged Julian Tremont to hurt him, distract him from the pain with more of the same.
‘That was years ago.’
He doubted Julian knew how much Max remembered of that madness. He knew Julian invented excuses for the things he said, the things he asked, blaming it on sickness, delirium. It was a sickness. But the cause wasn’t Michael, and the cure had yet to be found.
Enough. He straightened, shoving his fists into his pockets before he could get the idea of putting them into the rock, marking them the way he’d marked his spine. The moon had gone behind a layer of cloud. He had to find his way home by instinct, in the dark.
---
When Julian woke up he was under a duvet. Max is gone. He wasn't sure if a noise or the moon rising over the curtains woke him. The bed next to him was cold, Max leaving hadn't pulled him from sleep. He stretched, regretting it as a dull ache turned to sharp pain. He turned carefully onto his side and the pain went again, leaving a feeling of being well used in its wake. He listened for sounds of plumbing or creaking floorboards, but the house was silent. Pulling pyjama bottoms and a sweater from his bag, Julian dressed quickly in the cold room.
Even knowing he wouldn't be there, Julian went looking for Max in his old room. It looked just the same, though the smell of sick-room had been baked from the wood by the summers of heat trapped under the eaves. Feet automatically careful of squeaky boards as though Max were here after all, sleeping fitfully, Julian crossed the room to the window. The moon shone on the path to the cove, and Julian caught a flash of shadow where the trail curved out of sight. He wondered if Max would come back before the sun rose.
A broken storm-lantern sat on the chest near the window and Julian shut his eyes against the memory: Max was crouched between the bed and the wall, tears and sweat indistinguishable on his cheek. He'd broken the bail handle off the lantern which Julian hadn't thought to take out of the room, and he was digging at the track marks on his arm with the snapped off end. “Fuck,” Julian said and called for Gideon as he knelt on the bed and snatched the curve of metal from Max's grasp. Max knocked his head against the wall, and then again, harder. Julian threw the bail to the floor, grabbing Max's head before he could slam it back a third time. Somehow, without letting go, Julian crossed the bed and joined Max on the floor behind it. Gideon found them there, huddled together, Julian with his finger bleeding where he'd tried to stop Max hitting the bed frame, Max begging, “Give me something please, or fuck me. Just fuck me until I can't feel this any more.”
The icy touch of the windowpane on his cheek shocked Julian back to the present. He loosened the grip of his fingers from the windowsill and watched the path for a sign that Max was coming back, before turning away from the window in disgust with himself. In all the years he'd been here, he'd never deluded himself that there was anything easy about it. Never easy, but somehow simple. Julian climbed onto the bed where Max had sweated out the drugs and nightmares and waited.
When Julian woke up in the strange bed, his first thought was that he couldn't remember the last time he'd done more than doze. Then he remembered the vodka. And Max. In the bath he considered that he might have fallen in love with anyone who had come for him in that camp, but then he saw Max sitting in the sun. All the psychobabble he expected his father would give him about saviours and heroes and the people they rescue was too complicated for this feeling. Max was like the sun. And like a plant, Julian needed him.
It was months later that Julian realised he'd been naïve in the extreme. He hadn't fallen for Max just because he'd saved him, but that didn't make his infatuation any less based on his idea that Max was some great heroic figure. By the time he saw the joke, it was too late. He'd spent too many hours with Max, as his solicitor and as his friend, watching him. The hero-worship he'd felt since he'd watched Max cut Sands' throat had become genuine admiration; the vaguely disquieting sense of awe had become affection. The urge to be pressed against the nearest wall, to feel Max's hands on him, that hadn't changed, but he could still call it love. And he had.
Six days of hell, waiting for Gideon to bring him Max. Every morning he woke up thinking 'today will be the day' and every night he lay on the sofa-bed sure Max was dead, that whatever Gideon had planned had failed and that he'd never find out what happened. When Gideon finally did arrive, Julian was sure he was being asked to help hide a body. It wasn't possible for a person to have that much blood on himself, to be that pale, and be alive. “Bath,” Gideon said, as he carried Max upstairs, and Julian saw Max's fingers curl and that the blood was mostly dried as he passed them. As the bath filled, Julian helped Gideon strip the ruined shirt and jeans from Max's unresponsive frame.
What they'd done to Max was beyond horror. Beyond expressing with any word Julian Tremont's expensive education had provided.
They roused Max enough to put him in the bath. He flinched away from the cloth, and even the water Julian squeezed from it in an effort to wash away the blood. Julian found himself repeating a litany, 'It's ok, it's ok, it's ok…' and longing for one of them to believe it.
Sure that his presence upset Max more than it helped, Julian concentrated on keeping the house comfortable. Washing sheets was considerably less frustrating than the waiting had been. There is little heroic to be found in a man who tries to purge his demons by gouging at his own flesh, and Julian had watched from a distance as the Max he thought he'd known was stripped down to his essential core. Max fought. He fought the drugs, the memories, the nightmares, the help they tried to give him. Scared, but just as fascinated as he'd always been, Julian had let Gideon deal with as many of Max's nightmares as one man could handle.
Gideon was sleeping upstairs, in the large bedroom, so he could be near to Max if he was needed. He was larger than life to Julian: part monster for getting Max into this to begin with, part gun-slinger for keeping Max alive through the aftermath.
Julian woke up early, went to put the kettle on. He paused at the door when he saw Gideon at the sink. He was wearing the clothes he'd had on the night before, carefully pressed trousers now rumpled almost beyond recognition. His shirt was limp and soaked with sweat, a smear of blood stained one sleeve. He was rolling back his cuffs, revealing forearms that looked sculpted in the dawn light. Julian expected him to splash his face or wash his hands, but Gideon simply leaned his palms on the lip of the sink and bowed his head. All the strength seemed to drain out of him as he stood there; he looked utterly defeated. Julian crept away from the door and went back to bed. He feigned sleep when he heard Gideon passing to go back upstairs.
Julian heard a thump and the protesting squeak of a sash window that had been too long closed. Wanting to give Max space, he stayed where he was when he heard footsteps on the stairs. Max passed the half-closed door without a glance, returning to the master bedroom. Julian thought Max might come looking for him, but when he gave up and went back to their bed he found Max sound asleep.
Julian pulled off his sweater and climbed under the duvet. Turning his back to the empty space in the middle of the bed, he closed his eyes and matched his breathing to Max's sleeping rhythm.
--
Julian woke first in the morning. Max had lost any youth regained yesterday, and looked worn in the harsh morning sun. He turned, and Julian saw his back, a raw scrape along his spine. He couldn't imagine what Adam had done. It was not a wound from fist or teeth, or even a belt, but then Julian noticed that the abrasion was too fresh for this to be Adam's work. Denied Adam's marks, Max had been forced to make his own. A particularly nasty scrape crossed the worst of the scars Michael had left. Julian wanted to shake him.
Max appeared, freshly showered, just as the coffee finished brewing. He poured a mug, added milk, and held it out to Julian. Julian took it, watched Max pour his own, leaving it black, before sitting at the kitchen table.
“Do you need me to put something on your back, or did you get it clean in the shower?”
Max's fingers tightened on his coffee but he met Julian's mild look. “It's fine.”
Julian ran a frustrated hand through his hair, wishing suddenly he'd had it cut before they left. As if that matters. “I just don't want…” Julian couldn't finish. Couldn't bear to return to those minutes that felt like hours of cleaning the mess Michael had left of Max's flesh. “Good. I'm glad it's fine.”
“Do you need to get back to work? I didn't think to ask yesterday.”
“Other people are handling things.” Julian wasn't going to give Max the out. If he wanted Julian to leave he could ask.
“We'd better get some more food in if we're staying. It's the market today.”
“Do you want breakfast first, or should we go now?” Julian wanted Max to look at him, but Max concentrated on his coffee.
“I'm not hungry.” Max pushed his mug away.
“Fine.” Julian took their cups to the sink.
They barely spoke in town. When they got home with meat and bread and vegetables Max said, “I'm going to check the boat. I'll be back later. I don't mind what we have for supper.”
---
The boat was the same as ever, moored in the spot where Ben Lyon kept an eye on it, making sure it stayed weather-proofed, sea-worthy. Boats took a lot of upkeep. One of these days, Max needed to take her out, sail her again. It had been years.
His eyes rested for a while on the buoy in the water. The place he’d hidden his identity for eleven years. The buoy drifted in the harbour, making a hollow sound as it struck the quayside. Empty.
He located the keys and unlocked the cabin, going down the steps into the familiar smell of polish and tar. He sat on the bunk beneath the window, remembering.
Rain. Vodka. Julian.
Max scrubbed both hands through his hair in an effort to dislodge the tension. What was he doing, screwing things up with Julian? They’d trailed around that market like a married couple, not talking. He gave a hard laugh, the last dregs of the night’s hysteria.
That wasn’t why he came here. To drink coffee and cook pasta, and pussy-foot around Julian’s perfectly sane concern. He’d wanted –
He should’ve bought a crate of Moêd and vegetables Max said, “I'm going to check the boat. I'll be back later. I don't mind what we have for supper.”
---
The boat was the same as ever, moored in the spot where Ben Lyon kept an eye on it, making sure it stayed weather-proofed, sea-worthy. Boats took a lot of upkeep. One of these days, Max needed to take her out, sail her again. It had been years.
His eyes rested for a while on the buoy in the water. The place he’d hidden his identity for eleven years. The buoy drifted in the harbour, making a hollow sound as it struck the quayside. Empty.
He located the keys and unlocked the cabin, going down the steps into the familiar smell of polish and tar. He sat on the bunk beneath the window, remembering.
Rain. Vodka. Julian.
Max scrubbed both hands through his hair in an effort to dislodge the tension. What was he doing, screwing things up with Julian? They’d trailed around that market like a married couple, not talking. He gave a hard laugh, the last dregs of the night’s hysteria.
That wasn’t why he came here. To drink coffee and cook pasta, and pussy-foot around Julian’s perfectly sane concern. He’d wanted –
He should’ve bought a crate of Moët, lit a bonfire on the beach and fucked Julian until the stars came out. Toasted the demise of Adam Carter in champagne. Thrown the empty bottles at the sea.
He shifted in the bunk, feeling the dull pull of pain in his back. Shit. He put the heels of both hands to his eyes. God knows what it did to Julian, seeing him hurt again. Great association Max was giving him: Fowey, the pain-capital of Cornwall. ‘We’re going to Fowey.’ ‘Great. I’ll pack plenty of codeine and bandages.’
Sunlight fell through the window, bleaching the salt-stains on his boat-shoes to another shade of pale. The cold light of day. Matchless. Out loud, he said, “Get a grip, you spineless fuck.”
Ten minutes later, the boat was locked up and Max was in the pub, persuading the barman to sell him a couple of bottles of champagne. “As it’s you, Mr Lawrence.” He begged a bucket from the same man, waiting as it was filled with ice, the bottles crunched into place. “Glasses?” the barman quizzed. “No, thanks.”
---
Julian found Max in the cove. Max shaded his eyes and looked up as Julian approached. Completely incongruous to the setting, there was a bucket of champagne tilted against the rocks next to him. "What's this?" Julian smiled at the bucket. Ice and everything.
"Come here." Max held out his hand.
Kneeling between Max's drawn up knees, he took Max's hands and put them on his waist, threading his fingers behind Max's neck. When he felt Max's grip on his hips, he leaned in and brought their lips together.
Max responded quickly, hauling Julian forward and then twisting them so Julian lay underneath him on the sand. Max concentrated on Julian's mouth as though he was trying to learn its shape and taste all over again. His hands were hungry, stroking, pressing, pulling Julian closer. The ice that had frosted the space between them melted until Julian felt he was on fire. He opened himself to Max's kiss, shifted beneath him until they fit together, legs and hips locked, fused by the heat that penetrated even their winter clothes.
Mapping Max's back, Julian was careful not to get too close to the cuts on his spine. As if he sensed and was rebelling against Julian's bid to handle him with care, Max's kisses turned to bites and he slid hard hands up Julian's arms until he held Julian's wrists above his head. Julian bared his throat to Max's teeth and tested the grip at his wrists. Max pushed back, the heels of his hands in the hollow between radius and ulna grinding Julian's wrists into the sand. Julian felt the shift in Max from passion to anger.
"Why are you punishing me?" Julian felt Max's grip loosen in surprise.
Max let go of one wrist completely, pushing himself up so he could look Julian in the eye. "I'm not punishing--"
Julian felt like they were getting nowhere. "Bullshit." Taking advantage of Max's uncertainty and precarious balance, Julian levered himself upwards, tipping Max onto his back. He used a three point hold to keep Max there, a knee in the tendon at the top of Max's thigh and the weight of his hands on Max's shoulders.
Max tried to move and flinched. Even through his sweater the sand was obviously rough on his abrasion. Julian pushed. "Why are you punishing me?"
"You're hurting me." Max was still, his eyes flint.
"I know."
"You're not him." Max's voice was low, menacing.
Julian scoffed, "God forbid."
Max wrapped his fingers around Julian's forearm. "Be careful, I could break you."
Moving his other hand to pin Max's free arm, Julian dug his thumb into the tender hollow of Max's armpit. "I am not as fragile as you think." He hadn%2ocks next to him. "What's this?" Julian smiled at the bucket. Ice and everything.
"Come here." Max held out his hand.
Kneeling between Max's drawn up knees, he took Max's hands and put them on his waist, threading his fingers behind Max's neck. When he felt Max's grip on his hips, he leaned in and brought their lips together.
Max responded quickly, hauling Julian forward and then twisting them so Julian lay underneath him on the sand. Max concentrated on Julian's mouth as though he was trying to learn its shape and taste all over again. His hands were hungry, stroking, pressing, pulling Julian closer. The ice that had frosted the space between them melted until Julian felt he was on fire. He opened himself to Max's kiss, shifted beneath him until they fit together, legs and hips locked, fused by the heat that penetrated even their winter clothes.
Mapping Max's back, Julian was careful not to get too close to the cuts on his spine. As if he sensed and was rebelling against Julian's bid to handle him with care, Max's kisses turned to bites and he slid hard hands up Julian's arms until he held Julian's wrists above his head. Julian bared his throat to Max's teeth and tested the grip at his wrists. Max pushed back, the heels of his hands in the hollow between radius and ulna grinding Julian's wrists into the sand. Julian felt the shift in Max from passion to anger.
"Why are you punishing me?" Julian felt Max's grip loosen in surprise.
Max let go of one wrist completely, pushing himself up so he could look Julian in the eye. "I'm not punishing--"
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