DISASTER GAYS: The Miraculous Adventures of Max and Sawyer (NAME PENDING)

Ch.3 - Bath

"Uhhhh... I don't think I can fit in there, Soy," Max says, gesturing to the tiny tub.

"Aww, but I know you're an expert at... squeezing into tight, wet spaces."

"Oh my god, I can't do this," Max mumbles, burying his face in his hands. "You're drunk, Soy. I need to make sure you don't slip and hit your head."

Sawyer shrugs, gropes for the shower handle, and steps in before the water grows warm. "Mmm... you should join me. Really, it'll be quick. Come in. Five years without you - it's not the same."

"Ah... I'm not in the mood right now, Soy. I'm sorry. I just got to know you and... you're just. So different from back then."

"Max, please. It'll make me so happy."

"And then you'll go right on hurting yourself again," Max remarks quietly.

"I'm fine," says Sawyer, "You know this is the best I can do when RêverEnd is breathing down my neck. Listen. I like you. You like me. We got along talking about feelings and shit, so now let's get to the fun part."

"Sawyer, I can't help but realize you're just looking at me like... a hunk of meat. Is it because you just want to use me to... make the pain go away for a while?"

"Shut up. You know you want it."

"But I don't. I know that if you were sober, you wouldn't just give yourself up to a guy who abandoned you five years ago, who you haven't even talked to for more than a day. And you sure as hell wouldn't self-deprecate and get wasted out of your mind and forget to shower for a goddamn week."

"You don't know me," shrieks Sawyer. "Fuck you. This is what I've become! It's who I am now! Maybe - Maybe I am pathetic, and I- and I hate everything I've done, but fuck it, at least I had you! You're the only one who understands how I feel. I thought you loved me. I thought you understood me."

"I fell in love with a man that's real and creative and sensitive, and not a guy that's okay with living knee-deep in garbage. You sang to me once, remember? Under those stars, in the middle of that stupid war, and even if I didn't understand the damn words you said that it represented how we would stay with each other forever. And you said, you said, even if it all went to pot and we never saw each other again, we should look at the great things all around us and think of how lucky we are to be alive.

"You see that version of Soy? You take care of him for me because I don't give a fuck if you've forgotten him already. He showed me what I exist for. What all humans that came before us existed for. RêverEnd tried to prove that humans do nothing but cause pain and suffering, that our only reason for living on this earth is miserable and pointless. But I know it's wrong. No, it's dead wrong. Because I fell in love once. And one time was all it took to endure everything."

For a split second, Max glares defiantly at a camera in the corner of the room. He wants the machine to know that its dog has disobeyed the order to stay silent, if only for one moment. And Sawyer is terrified out of his mind for what it might do to him the next morning.

Quietly, Max hands him a bottle of 3-In-1. Sawyer pumps it into his palm and claws it through his scalp, overpowering the overwhelming scents of sickeningly sweet perfume, blood, and sweat. He rubs it everywhere across his shoulders, across his chest, everywhere, cursing in his mind. This body of his will never be clean. He permanently dirtied it a long, long time ago.

"What's left in me to love?" Sawyer says shakily. "RêverEnd took everything from me. All I have is my own skin, and this house, and even then... I'm not so sure if I own any of those either."

"I don't care that you have nothing to offer," insists Max. "I always loved it when you talked to me, and when you told me stuff about the world that I had no idea about. I just... I loved it when you made an effort to make me happy."

Not his flesh and bone. Not his candied eyes. Not even his sinful little tongue with the bead of mercury in the middle.

Max just wants him, the real, authentic him, so why...

Why is it so difficult for him to just be a human again?

Max scoops his hand from the edge of the tub and he flinches. "Let me help you, Soy."

"Help me how?"

Max's lips part for a moment, and then he looks down and wets them nervously. "Look, Soy, I don't know. But I know that if RêverEnd is telling the truth, and we're both gonna live forever as long as it's alive and running, one of these days you're going to be okay. Hell, maybe we'll have two days where we'll be okay. Doesn't that sound amazing?"

"What, suffering together? Jesus Christ. It's almost like dragging someone else into your sick fantasies is the only way you'll ever cope with all the torture. You're selfish as fuck, Max."

Max's silver ears, pinned back against his skull, blaze molten white. "Sawyer, this isn't about me. I'm trying to make you feel better, but you just don't want to feel better. I don't wake up every day just to tell myself that it's pointless, it's pointless to keep trying, I'll just keep hurting, nothing matters. Even if tomorrow's shitty, even if the week is shitty, even if my whole life's shitty, I am not moving a fucking inch. Because you're right that nothing matters. That just means we can do whatever the fuck we want to." Max clenches his hand tightly, gripping the edge of the tub. The bathwater sloshes and drips quietly as Sawyer turns to face the wall. RêverEnd would have a field day just listening to this. 'Good days'? Free will? Pathetic and laughable.

"Baby. I mean - I -" Max sighs, defeated. "Look. I'm sorry for lashing out at you, Soy. You can hate me all you want now, just... just know that I care about you, okay? I'm sorry. I'll leave now." The floor creaks as he rises, his long silver locks obscuring his face.

"No. Stay."

Max turns around slowly to face Sawyer, his eyes pensive and shining. "Why?"

"I don't want to be alone anymore," Sawyer says, his whispers barely audible. A tight pain wells up in his throat. He hadn't seen another human being for nearly four years after the massacre, not after he gave Tate to the machine. Max is everything. He can't lose him. Every mistake he's made with Tate, he will not make them now, because if Max ever leaves, he fears he will truly go insane.

"Can I touch your hair?" Max asks.

"Yes."

Slowly those solid fingers bury themselves in his hair, carding shampoo through the roots. He rests his cheek on his forearms, which are folded on top of his knees. Little by little, his eyes droop shut. He bathes in the calm, wet dark, relishing the hand that scrapes irritating dust and impurity from his skin. No matter how much he washed himself he always thought of himself as filthy, but now, another human being has willingly let him lie on his lap and asked to touch him, without demanding any favors. He wonders if this is what Heaven feels like - crouched in the murky waters of the universe's womb as he is tenderly caressed by an entity that loves him much, much more than he could ever love himself.

"你问我爱你有多深 (You asked me how deeply I love you)..."

Sawyer's head snaps quickly in his direction. His breath hitches. "Where - how -"

"我爱你有几分 (How much I love you)..." Max continues humming noticeably off-key, then grows quiet. "I just remember the tune, that's all. I still don't know what it means, Soy. But it was beautiful when you sang it."

The water in the tub is cold now, but their hands, fingers locked together, are still unrelentingly warm. Two warm droplets drip down into the tub, followed by the sound of muffled sniffling.

"It doesn't matter," Sawyer sobs quietly, "It doesn't matter what it means."