Still, he sighed with relief when a few minutes later, Max’s soft snores were echoing through the open door of his bedroom. He might be more concerned at how much Max was sleeping, but if he was able to sleep, that meant the pain hadn’t gotten bad yet. Hopefully, the pills he’d picked up at the pharmacy would keep the inevitable pain at bay a little while longer.
In a few hours, they’d have to do his first set of exercises to ensure that the knee didn’t freeze with scar tissue, but for now, Felix had some time to put the rest of the groceries away and prepare himself for their next encounter.
He took his time, partially re-organizing the messy chaos of Max’s pantry. You could tell he didn’t spend much time in this house—at least much not time lately. There were lots of canned things that were expired, which Felix threw away, tying up the garbage bag and hefting it to the can outside, because god knew, if Max saw the cans in the trash, he’d retrieve them. Once, Leo had told him it was scary how well he and Max knew each other, hinting that even though Max and Leo had been friends for years and years, living in each other’s pockets during Star Shadow’s first heyday—Max and Felix were still closer.
At the time, Felix had hoped that meant something, like someday they might become more than just close friends. But over the years, Felix had been finally forced to acknowledge that while Max was a hundred percent comfortable with same-sex relationships, he didn’t want one of his own.
Now Felix just had to figure out how to learn to live with that while preserving their friendship. He’d made a mess of it so far, but he could do this. Especially considering that Max really needed him now.
He flipped on the TV, aimlessly flipping through the channels. Mean Girls was on, and he stopped clicking the remote. “On Wednesdays, we wear pink,” he repeated with Regina George, and then settled back on the couch cushions to watch Cady deal, not very well, with overnight popularity.
Felix had been up early to be at the hospital, and now that he was finally sitting down and his worry about Max had faded somewhat, he found himself drifting off as the familiar scenes flashed in front of his droopy eyes.
He woke up to his phone buzzing in his lap, where he must have dropped it after falling asleep.
For a split second, he blinked, eyes refocusing slowly on the name on the screen, and then in a flash, he remembered everything—including why he was sitting on Max’s couch and why Max might be calling him.
“Shit,” Felix swore and jumped up. It had fallen full dark while he’d been napping, and he’d forgotten about Max’s oddly shaped coffee table—hexagonal? Felix was going to have a real talk with his decorator—and he slammed his knee right into the edge.
“Fuck!” he yelped. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“Felix?” Max’s voice echoed through the quiet house. “Is that you? Are you okay?”
Felix looked down and through the semi-dark could see that his knee still seemed to be in one piece despite the shooting pain. “Yeah, I think so.” Gingerly, he started to walk again toward Max’s bedroom, flipping on the light when he entered.
Max blinked sullenly in the suddenly bright light. “You fell asleep?”
“It was an early morning, and unlike you, I haven’t spent most of the day horizontal,” Felix sniped back. He looked closer at the man lying in bed. Max’s face was pale and drawn, his gaze unfocused. “Hey,” he said more gently, after taking a momentary break to regroup, “are you okay?”
Max shrugged, but he clearly didn’t look okay.
“Do you need another pain pill?” Felix asked. Maybe at another moment, when his knee wasn’t throbbing in sympathy, he might resent that Max was forcing him to drag it out of him, but how could he be angry? He cared so fucking much about Max, and he was suffering. And Felix wasn’t such a heartless bastard that he could sit by and do nothing about that.
“I . . .should I? I know they’re not good for you . . .and then there’s Caleb . . .”
“Who was never hooked on pain meds. These aren’t even opioids,” Felix said. He reached over and plucked the pill bottle from the bedside table. “You’re overdue anyway, and I don’t want you to go without just because you think it makes you tougher or more manly or something. Don’t be stupid.” He shook a pill out on his palm and extended it toward Max, who still hesitated. That freaking idiot.
“Seriously?” Felix questioned. “Take the pill, Max. You’re hurting. And it’s going to hurt even more in a minute when we do your exercises.”
A look of what might have been fear crossed over Max’s pale face. “Exercises?”
Felix extended his hand again, insistently. “Exercises. We’ve got to keep everything loose. Your PT starts in about five minutes. I just need to grab some water, so you can take the damn pill.”
“Fine,” Max grumbled, and reached out, but his normally dexterous fingers skated across the sensitive skin of Felix’s inner palm, missing the small blue pill entirely. Felix tried not to shudder at the feel of Max’s calloused fingertips essentially stroking his hand. He’d never have counted this particular spot as an erogenous zone, but apparently, when it came to Max, Felix’s whole body was a freaking erogenous zone.
“Here,” Felix finally relented, flipping their hands and dropping the pill into Max’s palm before he succeeded in making him hard completely by accident. It wouldn’t be the first time or the last, but Felix had been trying to avoid situations where that was an inevitability. Unfortunately, this was one Felix never could have anticipated was going to get him going. They hadn’t even been holding hands! Clearly, he needed to get laid—except that wasn’t going to be happening any time in the next two weeks.
His blood pulsed, hot and heady as he watched Max toss the pill dry into his throat and swallow, his Adam’s apple bobbing under a thin layer of scruff that looked softer than it likely was. It would scratch the sensitive skin of Felix’s throat, if it grazed the skin there, and likely leave a red rash that Felix shouldn’t crave—nobody in their right mind would. But he knew he’d left his right mind behind a long fucking time ago. Especially with Max. Only with Max.
“I’ll get you some water,” Felix said, swallowing hard, like he’d been the one to take the pill. But he didn’t move. Max’s eyes were gray and green and hazel—a thousand different colors that varied into a hundred different tones. Felix thought he’d seen every color, reflected from Max’s surroundings, his clothes, even occasionally, his emotions. But today, Felix watched as they turned a deeper, almost olive green as they stared at him.
“Are you okay?” Max asked, breaking the building, suffocating silence.
“Am I okay?” Felix didn’t know why he’d be asking.
“You sounded like you hit something pretty hard,” Max said softly. And then impossibly he reached for Felix’s hand again, the callouses on the pad of his thumb grazing the skin of Felix’s palm. Felix shuddered, even as he tried to contain it. And that was always the problem wasn’t it? Fucking containment.
Felix stared at him. What was he doing? Didn’t he know that just his regular existence was hard enough for Felix to resist? Well, clearly, he didn’t know, or else he wouldn’t be pushing Felix this way.