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Chad can already tell that they’ve gone a little bit overboard on the grogs this time around, well Max definitely has at least. He’s defaulted to a giggling, giddy sound machine that only knows one volume and it’s maximum.
Heh, Max volume.
Warring feelings of irritation and what mortifyingly feels like fondness bubble up in his sternum as he watches Max sitting bonelessly with his cheek pressed flat to the table, so fucked he can’t even pick his head up. From his own seat, he can barely make out the corner of a toothy grin on Max’s face as the man mumbles on about leg and deez and about a dozen other dead memes. Even though he can’t see him, Chad can picture his face: glazed blue eyes, flushed cheeks, and that charmingly crooked smile that made his best friend’s face light up. Whenever Max got out-of-his-mind drunk like this, Chad couldn’t help but compare him to a puppy. Noisy and clumsy and so very prone to putting himself in harm’s way… but admittedly kind of adorable.
At Scott’s silent insistence, Chad snags a fistful of Max’s hoodie and uses his newfound handle to haul Max up, and Max splays up against his chest like a particularly heavy ragdoll. With the lethal amounts of booze he’s been fed, and the sweltering hot studio lights above them, Max ought to smell a lot worse than he does to Chad. He’s commented on it before; how Max has the weird superhuman ability to always smell kind of pleasant, even when covered in eggs and spaghetti sauce and youtube’s former sweetheart Joji’s vomit. The last time he’d mentioned it had been ages ago, slumped on Max’s moldy sofa that was a hand-me-down of a hand-me-downs, with George and Ian all squashed onto the one couch with them. It had been after Edward Watermelon hands, and Max had scrubbed most of the shitty makeup off of his face by then, but a smudge of purple remained stubbornly on his lips. Sitting back in that memory, he remembers how Max had looked away from all of them, that sheepish and uncertain smile on his face that he always made whenever he was being complimented. Ian had remarked that that was “an incredibly faggy thing to say” and George had laughed and poked hard at Max’s pink cheek.
“Think you’ve had a bit to drink, eh mate?” Chad chuckled back in the present, not sure why he was pitching his voice all soft and gentle like that. Max certainly had no qualms about screeching at the top of his lungs, although now that they didn’t have to perform for the cameras, he’d seemed to wind down. He was now the sweet, dopey drunk Max that Chad loved, the one that brought motherly instincts out of him. Momma Chad was a long-running joke amongst his friends, a sort of caretaker persona he always wound up putting on because all of his friends were morons who lost critical thinking skills after two or three shots. It wasn’t his fault! He’d just been blessed with an absurdly high tolerance, one he’d honed after years of binge drinking underage.
Max giggles, looking up at him through a messy fringe and long eyelashes, and shakes his head ‘no’ cheekily. The sight again feels like a kick to the stomach, and pulls him into yet another memory from years past.
They’re in the kitchen, midway through shooting Gentlemen’s Guide, and yet again Max is bleeding all over his apartment. He glares up at Chad, the latter of whom had forced him to sit down and stop filming, due to the massive chunk of glass currently embedded in the meat of his palm.
“‘S just a fuckin scratch.” He snaps, protesting like a child when Chad tries to grasp his wrist. With a grunt, he tries to tug his hand away, but Max is incredibly drunk and Chad is only about a three out of ten buzzed. Chad also tends to surprise Max with how strong he is, it seems like the older boy forgets that if need be Chad could absolutely kick his ass. His eyes widen in shock at the firmness of Chad’s grip, mascara clumped eyelashes impossibly long and making his blue eyes stand out even more than usual. For a second, with his red-stained slack mouth and fluffy hair, Chad can’t help but think the evil little fucker looks kinda…
“You’re bleeding fucking everywhere, and if you get it on the cocksucking dress, the continuity will be fucked man.”
Chad knows threatening the quality of the video is the only thing that will get Max to give a fuck about himself; it’s playing dirty but Chad Roberts is always more than willing to play dirty if it’ll help someone he cares about. And Max is absolutely someone he cares about, whenever he allows himself to think about it. He’s probably one of Chad’s best friends, this silly drunken mess in a charity shop wedding gown that’s bursting at the shoulder seams. Max sits there, allowing him to pick shards out of his upturned hand, but glowers petulantly up at him the entire time.
“Quit fucking
pouting
.”
“Chaaaaaad.” The all too familiar sound of Max whinging snaps Chad back to the present, and more importantly back to the current Max he ought to be lecturing. Current Max is still smiling at Chad and poking at his chest, looking like he’s got a terrible secret he’s hiding from the world. But Max always kind of looks like a naughty little boy who snuck sips of his daddy’s beer and thinks he’s gotten away with it. “You fucky, bro?”
“Hah, that’s rich comin from you.” Chad teases, watching that pouting face reappear from his memories into the present day. It’s doing Chad's head in trying to compare and contrast; Max is the same but also so different, his face fuller and softer in a way that suits him, stubbled chin where it would’ve been completely smooth back in 2016. No makeup but he still looks…he looks…
“M’ not fucked! Aww, okay Chad maybe a little bro. Maybe a little. Maybe a spoonful!” Chad watches as Max cracks himself up, laughing that iconic Maxmoefoe cackle that’s the soundtrack to some of his most treasured memories. His hair is around the same length that it was back when they were teenagers, but not stiff with a metric fuckton of hair gel this time. Chad likes it better when Max keeps his hair natural like he tends to nowadays, even though he cites it as a product of laziness. The wavy brown locks always look so fluffy, so tempting to touch, and knowing that Max would bite him if he tried it sober, Chad allows himself to indulge. Combing his fingers gently through the fringe that peeks out of Max’s beanie, he’s pleased when Max doesn’t immediately snap insults and threats of death at him.
“Why’re u pettin me, Chad?” He grumbles, sounding more bashful than mad. Wanting to even the score, Max reaches over and cups one of Chad’s pecs, giving it a jiggle (a classic drunken move of his). “You gay, faggot?”
It’s a joke until it isn’t, right? Chad can't count the number of times he or one of his mates have used that exact phrase to tease and taunt each other. More importantly, Chad can count on
two
hands the amount of times he’s seriously pondered that notion. The very first time, to quite literally zero people’s surprise, was during the filming of Super Trash Bros, and a glance at the comments section assured him he wasn’t alone in his suffering.
Max insisted he despised being in front of the camera, that he only wanted a single scene of himself in what was sure to become his Magnum Opus. But Chad had his doubts. The dress and the makeup and even the viscously hacked red flats were quite the production all for two shots, Chad reckoned. And he knew that Ian shared in his sentiment, the two of them glancing at one another knowingly while Max bent over the world’s shittiest, dirtiest mirror to apply Ruby Woo he’d “borrowed” from the local Aldis. He had yet to put on the infamous dress, which was truly a crying shame, but the black shorts he wore didn’t exactly scream ‘modesty’ with the way the stitching pressed into his asscrack. His best mate had always had a nice ass, even when he was so thin Chad got worried he’d blow away with the next gust of wind, but he was taking care of himself marginally better in those days, and it showed in the curves in his arms and chest and waist and ESPECIALLY in his ass. He glanced quickly away from said-glorious ass only to look over and find Ian doing the exact same thing. If George wasn’t a fuckhead who was always AT LEAST two hours late to shoots, Chad would bet his life that he’d be looking too.
Checking out Maxmoefoe was an unspoken but sacred past time of the Cancer Crew’s, something they’d literally die before admitting, but truthful nonetheless. What was different, he felt, was that George and Ian truly only wanted to
fuck
Max. And maybe not even that. Max was George and Ian’s friend and occasionally a hot piece of ass to look at, end of. Chad, gun to his head, would say the same. But all three of them knew he was a rotten, filthy fucking liar. Max was Chad’s
best
friend, his favorite drinking buddy and brainstorming partner, and he’d recently started making special guest appearances in Chad’s dreams. And Chad wished to christ that they were the same filthy, horndog,
Brazzers worthy material that Ian and George’s dreams about Max undoubtedly were made of. But..they weren’t. Not always, not just.
Sometimes they were stomach turning soft: moonlight and blue-green eyes and Chad’s name slipping through slack, full lips. Images of white knuckled fists grasping at satin sheets, shampoo in dripping brown curls that slipped like ribbons through his fingers. Max always looked angelic and unblemished in Chad’s sleeping mind, which was a nice thought but also cosmically far from reality.
“CUNT! How the fuck do girls actually wear this stupid, fucking shit?! It’s on my fucking teeth!” Max, reality Max, whipped around to show the room the evidence. Chad stifled a laugh at the sight of pinkish-red smeared on the other’s two front teeth, the bright color nearly masking the gap in-between them that Chad was ashamed to admit he was terribly fond of. The gap was cute, alright? A cute detail on a fucking gremlin of a man, and one of a fucking thousand.
“Might be funnier?” Ian offered half heartedly, scrolling through twitter to
really
sell how little he gave a fuck.
Max, as both men could’ve predicted, huffed and stomped his feet like a little girl who didn’t want to wait to open up her birthday presents. Er, little boy, Chad meant. Max was a boy, a hairy, belching disgusting fucking boy. He also happened to really suit girl’s makeup…and clothes…and he always smelt weirdly fruity in a way none of his other mate’s did. But, yeah, totally nasty.
“No! Would Princess Peach have fucked makeup, Ian?”
“Nah, but she also wouldn’t have a cock and balls.” Ian drawled, the classic shit-eating smirk painted across his smug face. It does the job of shutting Max right the fuck up, and also bringing a hint of blood to the apples of his cheeks. He throws a barely audible retort over his shoulder before facing the mirror once more and ignoring them.
It’s exchanges like this that have Chad wondering. There’s something in the way Max and Ian interact with one another that Chad finds…suspicious. I mean, there’s absolutely no way in hell that Max actually would take it up the ass, but what’s a casual handjob between bros from time to time? Ian pokes and prods at Max like he’s tugging on his pigtails, and Max
always
rises to the bait. And while Max is
Chad’s
best friend, Chad knows in the pit of his stomach that Ian is rapidly becoming Max’s. Max probably likes how much of a prick Ian is, that the American matches him in his fucked-up ways. Chad knows he’s much too cloying for Max’s taste; sincerity and affection are like acid to Max;they make him spit and hiss like an alleycat. But Chad can’t help himself from caring about his friends, and he especially cannot help himself around Max.
“What if I was? Would that be a problem?” Chad shoots back at present day Max, making his tone so thickly-laden with humor that even though Max is so incredibly wasted, even HE can’t mistake its intent.
“Nah, man, I love’s you Cad!”
“Cad?” Chad insists, ignoring the stupid fluttering in his ribcage at Max’s casual admission. Chad was pretty certain up until this point that Max’s lips didn’t even know how to form around that four letter word. He recalls a conversation- tipsy, of course- about relationship troubles wherein Max had complained that his current girl was pissed at him for not saying the dreaded “L” word back to her. Max’s words, not his. Chad loved all the fucking time, openly and big and unabashedly. For Chrissakes, he’d told
hookers
he’d loved them after a fat nut.
“How much do you love me?”
Max blinked big, wet eyes at him in cartoonish confusion.
“I don’t think you’ve EVER told me you so much as
like
me in the, what, near decade we’ve worked together?” He cringes at how much he sounds like a whiny ex girlfriend to himself.
“Wha? I like you heaps, mate! I’ve..I’ve definitely told ya, I mean..you know.” Hurt and discomfort is clear in Max’s expression as he wriggles in his chair. It looks as though he’s calculating all of their interactions over the years, combing through a database in search of concrete proof.
“Prove it.”
Max jumps a little at the sudden firmness in Chad’s voice, and then laughs a little to ease his own concern. “Haha, okay?”
“Okay what?”
“Okay, how do I prove it?”
He looks and sounds so fucking innocent that Chad wants to blow his brains out, or maybe blow Max’s back out. Yeah, that second option actually sounds mint… He’s had dreams that are exactly like this before, but actually none that took place in the studio. Chad supposes his own professionalism barred that.
“I dunno, cunt, how do you usually show people you love them?”
C. had suddenly finds himself with his arms full of warm, drunken Max as he’s swept into a sloppy bearhug, Max completely misinterpreting Chad’s words. Not a huge shocker there; Chad’s witnessed about a dozen women hitting on Max’s so bluntly it would melt hairs off of you, with the fucker blissfully unaware. And with Max nearly as fucked as the Lethal Alcohol vid, Chad honestly ought to have known better.
“Love ya, brotha. You’re a good mate. Best mate,
my
best mate.”
It’s not the hot mouth around him he’d been picturing, but the slurred words are still a balm on his soul.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The rest of the week went by relatively normally for them, brainstorming in the office and boring pitch meetings; all the behind the scenes shit that nobody really gives a fuck about. It’s only when they’re sat in front of a camera, yet again, that things take a turn.
This time, they’re filming a video that doesn’t involve them drinking throughout (unthinkable) which can only mean one thing in the Cold Ones office: pregaming. And whenever they pregame for filming, Chad
swears
the videos that result are always at least halfway unusable, because the liquor hits them halfway through the shoot rather than mainly towards the end/afterwards. That means,
funny video
, but also the likelihood that they’re either going to get noise complaints OR Chad’s going to wind up flashing his cock and balls for the 100th time goes up exponentially. And well, with the headspace Chad’s been in the past week, stripping does NOT seem like a good idea this time.
Unfortunately, Max seems to be a little bit obsessed with Chad getting naked as a bit. “
As a bit!”
Chad reminds himself, a tad bitter and a lot stung, because of course Max would never actually
want
to see Chad naked. It’s all one big fat fucking joke to him.
Chad
is one big fat fucking joke to him.
“MAX! I’m not putting that up my ass!” Chad intercepts Max’s hand from slipping down his basketball shorts a fourth time. “ I said ‘no more things going in or up my ass on the show’!”
“Well I can’t do that, Chad!” Max insists in-between giggles, the point of the video all but lost at this point. Sorry Rowey, Yuri, and Scott! He states it like it's obvious, a roll of his eyes and everything, and it stops Chad in his tracks.
“What do ya mean ‘oh i can’t do that’?! You can pull my pants down and shove things up
my
asshole every episode, but I can’t do the same thing to you?!”
Chad turns to glare at his irritating friend only to find Max is staring at him with blue eyes the size of dinner plates.
“
Chad
, what are you saying, bro?” His voice is pitched upwards, bewildered and embarrassed, and maybe it’s the booze, but Chad swears there’s something in his eyes. It’s the glimmer, that shine of intrigue and the nervous little flickering smile on Max’s lips that makes him press onwards.
“I’m
saying
fair’s fair! It’s your turn, bitch.”
The insult makes Max flinch a little, and the spark in his eyes intensifies like he’s been challenged. Maybe Chad’s just imagining things; he feels fucking
crazy
right now. His eyes drift over to the wax strips laid out just off-camera for when/if they can guess whether the photoshop memes are from Reddit or one of the office guys (plus a few submitted by friends of the show) and slide back over to Max, assessing. Max is grogged, but he’s not incoherent like he was a week or so ago, and more importantly, Max looks anxious but he doesn’t look
upset.
“Okay, so next one, yeah? You get it wrong and let me wax your ass.”
Blue eyes meet each other, the three cameras on them completely fading into obscurity as Chad lifts a single, taunting eyebrow. For a split second, Max’s nose twitches and it looks like he might even say
yes
(he’s not one to back down from a challenge), but Chad watches as his gaze darts towards where Scott is holding the camera and trying not to look impatient.
“Off camera, obviously.” Chad adds quickly, reading Max’s worries all over his face.
That’s stupid and pointless; why do ANYTHING on Cold Ones if they can’t monetize the ever-loving shit out of it? Chad knows it and he’s bracing himself to hear that very sentiment come out of Max’s mouth when Max blinks, pulls his gaze back to Chad, and
smiles.
“Kay.”
…kay? Chad blinks rapidly, barely resists the urge to fucking clean his ears to make sure he’s hearing that right. Now it’s
Chad’s
turn to look dumbstruck as his co-host fixes him with the world’s smuggest grin, even going so far as to cross his arms in front of his chest. The longer Chad looks at him like a dead fish with his mouth stupidly hung open, the more Max seems to lean into this cocky, self-assuredness.
“Why do you suddenly seem so confident?!”
“Just look at the track record, bro! I’m pretty sure I’ve won every time we’ve done this guessing shit before. You’re like, almost as bad at guessing as you are at reading, Chad.”
This fucking brat.
The two of them bicker for a few minutes before Scott gently prompts them to click over to the next photoshop file, something so horrifically deep-fried that it’s more pixels than any concrete image. The only thing that Chad is really able to discern is the Bang Bus logo and the vague outlines of five bodies. Beside him, Max’s front burns a hot line down his side from his armpit all the way down to his thighs as his friend leans forward and squints cutely at the screen.
A brief, responsible and far less inebriated, voice in the back of his head murmurs that it’s not fair for Max to be playing this game without his glasses. But there’s a much louder pouding in his ears and throat that reminds himself what’s on the table here, and just how badly he needs Max to get this answer wrong. Saliva pools in Chad’s mouth as he silently takes in the way Max’s nose crinkles with concentration, and the force of his desire is somewhat startling.
Chad’s libito has always been like this; once he’s horny, he is
horny
, and that feeling will not go away until he’s taken care of things. Even when he’s pleading with his body and his racing thoughts to calm down, his subconscious is like a dog with a bone bombarding him with obscene imagery. This has resulted in MANY, MANY jerk off sessions in public restrooms, his car, the occasional broom closet etc. He’s fucked in so many public places that he’s pretty sure if they added up all of the public indecency charges he should’ve been served , he’d qualify for the electric chair. This is the one instance, though, in which Chad
really
has to cool down, and fucking fast. But Max’s behavior, this stupid fucking doe-eyed, zero thoughts in his head act is driving him up the walls.
“Wait…wait a minute!” Chad’s heart plummets as an all-knowing grin slowly stretches across Max’s face, blue eyes sparkling as he tosses a glance over to his best friend.
“Fuuuuck! Do you know it?!”
Max wriggles his eyebrows at Chad and then turns to give the cameras the same treatment, and Chad’s ball sting as he feels himself losing control completely of this game. Come to think of it, he’s not even sure Max wants to
play,
or if he even fucking knows what Chad’s doing.Well, that makes two of them. However, there’s something there hidden in the shadows of Max’s eyes, he swears to Christ he’s not making it up. It’s visible in the constant little looks Max keeps throwing him, the way his knee keeps ‘accidentally’ knocking into Chad’s underneath the table.
“Do you both have your answers?” Scott’s voice sounds so far away, Chad can barely hear him over the sound of his own screaming thoughts. Max nods, smiling at Chad without breaking eye contact and Chad parrots him thoughtlessly. He does
not
in fact have a goddamned clue, and desperately his eyes scan and trace over every inch of the laptop screen.
“Give me a minute!” He barks, flinching as Max’s laughter peals out.
“He wants to prove me wrong so bad!” He informs the audience, shaking his head like it’s a hopeless endeavor. His brown curls bounce around so prettily and send a waft of his shampoo over to Chad’s overclocked senses; something minty and almost clove-like about it. “Just give up, bro and lemme wax your balls!”
It takes every ounce of his willpower to not focus on how Max’s tongue wraps around the taunt, cradling the word
‘balls’
in his mouth greedily like a whore would cradle his actual balls. Like Max would if-
THERE. He briefly registers Scott counting slowly down from ten, amusement in his voice, but everything in the room pales as Chad focuses one hundred percent of his attention on the right hand side of the pixelated meme. A blob of every primary color, a
familiar
shaped blob, and a wide expanse of greyish-beige behind the brightly colored blob’s head. This wasn’t just a random fucking jpeg; it’s a fucking screenshot.
“I’VE GOT IT.”
Max inhales in a surprised little gasp and the blood in Chad’s ears rushes madly at the sweet little intake of breath. To add to the madness, Max’s hand suddenly comes down onto Chad’s exposed kneecap, and it’s hot and slick with sweat even though the look on his face is calm and confident, staring Chad down once more. As the number one leaves Scott’s smiling lips, Chad and Max both suck in a massive anticipatory breath and shout at the same time:
“FAN!”
“FRIEND OF THE SHOW!”
A moment of stillness as the two take in each other’s answers, identical looks of confusion mirroring one another as they absorb what the other just said. Scott waits for a beat, somehow sensing the tension or perhaps just for comedic timing’s sake. After all, it’s not like Scott can see the way Max’s fingers are now white-knuckling with the intensity of his grip, squeezing with rhythmic nerves; from the torso up, there’s absolutely no funny business going on.
“Chad, would you care to elaborate on your answer?”
And now the look in Max’s eyes are like blue, flickering flames; he looks like he’s holding his breath. Chad feels almost dizzy himself, adrenaline surging throughout his body while he tries to work out what Scott’s question means. He’s taking a risk, a massive fucking risk considering what he may be losing, but as each second ticks by, Chad feels more and more certain of his answer.
“Scott,” he starts, forcing himself to rip his gaze away from Max’s frozen expression even though it physically creates a pang inside of his sternum, “I believe that
this
image was submitted by none other than Matthew Watson himself.”
He can feel the way Max is wriggling in the rolling chair beside him, like a little puppy that’s begging for Chad’s attention, silently pleading to get Chad to look at him again. With a terrific amount of self-restraint, Chad forces his body to stay completely still, not giving Max a single inch (even though he’s been waiting several years to give him SEVERAL inches). There’s an unexpected sound as Yuri loses the battle to keep a shocked laugh in, a look of giddy disbelief on his face just visible behind the lense.
‘...sorry, Max.” Scott says, not looking sorry whatsoever.
Holy shit, holy fuck, Chad’s cock may just rip straight through his pants. Every centimeter of his skin feels overwhelmed by a foreign tingling sensation as the entire crew jokingly begin to chant ‘take them off, take them off!’ for the meme. Unable to resist any longer, Chad whips his gaze to Max and is delighted to see his cheeks are burning a deep, lovely pink. His hand had slipped entirely off of Chad the moment Scott announced the fucking impossible: Chad had won.
Chad had won.
And Chad can’t stop his eyes from flicking over every inch of Max’s body, playing it up for the cameras and letting a truly lecherous grin pull over his features. He’s aware that he’s looking at Max like he’s about to
devour him
, but he reassures himself that it’s all going to come off as part of the bit.
As much as Chad is fucking loving the shell shocked look on his best friend’s pretty face though, his keen gaze pick up on something that halts the white-hot pleasure that’s threatening to take over. It’s so subtle that if he wasn’t sitting inches away from the other boy he probably wouldn’t have noticed it, but Max is
shaking.
And just like that, for the first time since Chad can remember, Chad’s horny caveman brain is shoved violently aside by that ever-present protectiveness for his best friend. Before he can even blink, Chad snags a fistful of Max’s oversized t-shirt and pulls him half out of his seat so that he has no choice but to sprawl awkwardly with one of his knees on Chad’s seat. To the audience, it’ll probably look like Chad’s whispering some disgusting, graphic shit in his blood-hot ear.
“You okay? Tap me on the thigh if we’re going too far.”
He feels Max bodily shiver as Chad’s hot breath warms the side of his face and there’s a painful lurching in Chad’s chest as he watches Max’s finger twitch minutely closer to his leg before freezing in midair. Chad watches as Max makes an active decision and they both feel something click into place.
Without another word, Chad scoops up a handful of wax strips in one fist and drags Max to his feet with the other. He makes a beeline to the door and secretly relishes in the sound of Max stumbling to keep pace with him, allowing himself to be bodily steered towards the bathroom up the stairs without a word. When they reach the door, Chad feels his muscles moving on autopilot, swinging Max around like he weighed absolutely nothing.
A punched out sound echoed from Max as his back impacted with the bathroom door, his surprise at Chad’s rough handling clear as day on his face. He forced himself to take a step back and removed his hands completely from Max’s heaving chest, wanting to drink in his desperation.
Max looked like something ripped straight out of his wet dreams, flattened against the wooden door and panting like he would die without Chad’s touch, with his head tilted back to expose the long pale column of his throat. He forced himself to hang tight, staring Max down with a carefully bored look on his face. Chad had never felt so powerful, feeling like he had Max dangling from his fingers like a puppet with tangled up strings. The longer that Chad stood there and just
looked
with long greedy sweeps of his half-lidded eyes, the most visibly impatient Max grew. A feeble whine loosened itself from Max’s throat, sounding and looking like a kicked puppy as he begged Chad to do
something
wordlessly. Still, Chad let it stew, contemplating if he wanted to make him beg for it this early when he remembered a rather important detail.
At a glacial pace, Chad reached out and delicately flicked the white lav away from Max’s cheek, taking care not to make contact with the pink, overheated flesh. Then just as gingerly, he reached behind him and clicked the mic pack switch over to ‘OFF’ enjoying the way Max struggled with whether or not he wanted to lean into or away from the other man’s searching fingers. Before he could make up his mind, Chad quickly pulled away from him and schooled his features back into something cold and indifferent.
“Open the door, bitch.”
He waited with baited breath for Max to scoff at him, to balk at being given literally any order whatsoever. But Max looked dumbstruck, almost like Chad had him in some sort of trance. Chad barely kept his jaw from hitting the floor when Max blindly reached for the doorknob, his sweat-slicked digits slipping off the smooth metal several times before he finally gained purchase.
When the door finally swung open, Max went with it, nearly tumbling on to his ass and only just catching his balance, never once taking his eyes off of Chad, like he was worried Chad might lose interest and walk off at any moment. And for a fleeting moment, he takes in how adorably needy Max is looking up at him, and considers giving him exactly what he wanted.
…he’d just have to tell Chad exactly what that was first.
“Well? A-Are we doing this?”
His heart surges with affection when he hears how small Max’s voice is, so thickly laden with nervousness that Chad wants to sooth away. But he knows that that’s the second this all ends; the moment he treats Max with any sort of kindness is the instant he’ll back out. Fighting against every instinct, Chad grasps Max by the chin with firm fingers and forces Max’s eyes up from where they’ve glued themselves to Chad’s Yeezy’s. Max looks like he’s forcing himself to maintain eye contact, a brave little wobble in his lower lip that Chad itches to sink his teeth into. Seeing how much the other man was trembling cracked a tiny bit of his resolve, and in spite of himself, Chad allowed his voice to drop down into a softer register.
“C’mere.”
For the very first time since Chad had yanked him out of the office, Max looks like he’s hesitating. His mouth opens, tongue darting out to moisten his bottom lip and the beginning of a word pops out before he swallows whatever he was about to say back down. Frustrated, Chad wishes fleetingly that Max was just a hair better at communicating his thoughts and feelings.
“Do you want me to kiss you?” He asks patiently.
Max opens his mouth to speak about four times before he finally clamps his mouth shut and shakes his head, looking embarrassed and overwhelmed. Chad knows he’s being too mean now, but goddamnit he is NOT going to force Max to do something he’s not explicitly comfortable doing. Deciding to take pity on the clearly-floundering man, Chad moves his grip from Max’s jaw to his shoulder and spins Max around so that he’s facing the grimy bathroom wall rather than Chad. Again, Max seems too overwhelmed to even think about moving, let alone speak, and so he’s pliant and obedient as Chad positions him like a doll, mechanically taking each wrist and slapping Max’s palms flat against the wall to bow out his back so that his ass is presented for Chad’s greedy gaze.
Now that Max isn’t forced to face Chad head-on he seems to loosen up a little, allowing a few breathless gasps to slip out as Chad takes a single finger and trails it down the curve of Max’s spine.
“Pl-ple-” He sputters when Chad slows and stops to trace the waistband of Max’s shorts, grinning victoriously at finally getting Max to speak up. As a reward, he hooks two fingers in and rips Max’s pants and boxers down without any more excessive teasing. Once Max’s plush, pale ass was exposed to the cool air of the bathroom, they both froze in place. Chad has waited for this for so fucking long, years and years of friendship and late night bickering and it’s all accumulating to this? To some disconnected, rush-job fingering where Max can’t even stand to look at him?
“D-d-do it, pussy.” Max spits back, the venom he was hoping for undercut with how badly his lips were trembling.
Deftly, Chad placed his palm against one pillow-soft asscheek, marveling at how much heat Max’s skin was giving off. Slow but steady, he applied pressure, exposing a flash of pink when a sudden buzz burst the tense bubble of silence. The two different shades of blue met as Max looked over his shoulder, emotion shining wetly beneath thick dark lashes. Chad felt clumsily around for his phone and brought it up to his ear.
“Uh, you guys okay?” Scott's voice was a strange mixture of playful and irritated, “Something weird happened with the mics.”
Chad and Max exchanged a silent conversation, seconds ticking by before Chad was forcing the gears to turn rapidfire in his head.
“Hah, oops sorry mate; yeah Max’s mic must’ve gone fucky when he started throwing up everywhere.”
“Oh shit!” Scott barked a laugh before his voice smoothed out into something more well-meaning, “ Is he alright?”
Chad nudged Max, prompting him to clear his throat with a little cough and speak up, “Yeah! ‘S all good. Just, too much when Chad started throwin’ me around.” Max reached for Chad’s hand as he talked, surprising Chad yet again by rubbing tight circles into his palm in a rough show of affection, his eyes sparkling playfully like they were teenagers hooking up in the living room and one of their parents had just come home, sharing something private that only existed between the two of them. The sweet, cheeky little act flooded Chad with relief, feeling like
his
Max had come back to him. While he finally had captured Chad’s attention, he took the opportunity to pull Chad’s hand to his mouth and lick a fat, wet stripe up the center of his palm.
“Ew,you little fucker!” Chad snapped, using that same spit-streaked palm to cup Max’s forehead and shove him away
“Alright you two, get back so we can film this fuckin outro before the cameras overheat, please.”
Chad ended the call swiftly while Max awkwardly yanked his shorts back into place. He politely averted his eyes, waiting until Max had made himself presentable again and in doing so, his gaze falling to the pile of abandoned wax strips. He must’ve dropped them somewhere in the shuffle between trying to get Max into position, falling from his grasp in favor of pinning the little brat in place. Distantly, he heard Max calling his name, and when he looked back up, Max was smiling at him toothily.
“Stop fuckin’ around and move your fat ass.”
And with that, Chad left the moment they’d just shared behind them to never be brought up again, and reached out to take Max’s outstretched hand, in the same way he knew he always would.