March 11, 2016

[silverhammer]

Max only makes it home because somebody's nice enough to give him a ride. Somebody figures it's safe to pick up the guy on the side of the road without shoes or a phone, or even any cash and give him a ride halfway across town. Max figures it's the first bit of good luck he's had in days. That and the fact that he didn't drive Linda after parking her at Ocean View.

Though, it's not like anybody put the bottle in his hand Tuesday night.

"Thanks, man," Max says, as they stop near the building, and Max climbs out of the guy's sedan, "I... I owe you one."

"Just take care of yourself," he says, and Max nods, though he doesn't know what the hell that even means. The only thing he knows is that whatever happened to him the last couple of days can't happen again. He was supposed to come home, and now here it is, three fucking days later and he doesn't even know where to say he went. There's a black hole there now that sucked him in, and now he doesn't know how to pull himself out of it.

Max's head is still pounding, even as he boards the elevator and rides it up to the top floor, putting his key in the lock to the apartment and opening the door.

He's told himself, told Brian and Lucy, that nothing about this is a big deal. He's tried to ignore the fact that he's been trying to ignore how his head buzzes when he walks into a crowded room, how a flask became his go-to whenever he felt like just hiding for days at a time...

He can't ignore this.

Comments

[minimumbullshit]

He was waiting for it.

Since Lucy turned up in his office, desperate and sincere. Before then, if he was being fucking honest with himself. They'd been in a holding pattern for months, and this wasn't the kind of anticipation that got Brian hard. This was the grind of everyday life, of building his agency from nothing and being a father to his son, while he watched his partner's life fucking unravel.

Waiting for it, knowing it was happening, knowing that rock bottom had to be hit before anything would change, wasn't exactly preparation for the reality of the situation. The reality was a hell of a lot more mundane than the explosion he'd braced himself for. Instead, Max didn't come home one night, and that in itself was noteworthy. He couldn't remember if they'd ever laid out that particular ground rule in so many words, but coming home at night was something they both did. No matter what.

One night was noteworthy. Two nights, and Brian spent the day shouting at interns and underlings, his darkening mood sending most of his employees running home early for the day. The third night, Brian didn't sleep. He sat at the window, smoking cigarettes, his own glass of whiskey sitting largely untouched on the sill.

That morning, he called out of work, if only because of the risk of lighting fire to the fucking building or tearing it down with his bare goddamn hands. He was furious, fucking livid, or that's what he thought, until he stood in the kitchen, blending a fucking kale smoothie for his breakfast, and realized that what he was... was terrified.

Before was able to stop himself, he shattered his glass in the sink, and sent Kimmy scrambling to hurry Gus out the door for the day. Distantly, as he watched them go, Brian made the decision to give her a bonus check, at the end of the week. She deserved it.

When the door unlocked and swung open around midday, Brian stood at the kitchen counter -- Christ, he didn't know if he'd even moved in the last fucking hour -- his hands braced against the marble. The worst of it, the part he hated most, was the relief that swelled up, sick and weak, in the pit of his stomach.

Because there was Max, in somebody else's goddamn pants, no shoes, looking like shit-- smelling like shit, and Brian loved him. Just fucking loved him, and wasn't that just fucking great.

"At least you didn't lose your keys," Brian said, with his special brand of mocking levity, "We won't have to have the locks changed."