#except** omg this is why i shouldnt be allowed to write w/o grammarly

[lilyrizzy]

From my own cloud: Daniel on the phone struggling to articulate the issues they're having (before anything is ever public)!

Sorry mate this is kinda different than what you asked for but it ran away with me... Hope you like it anyway! Thank you to @catofthecanals289 for helping me with the ending, ly girl

Cw: implied past trauma but like everything is so vague, nothing specific!

Calling home has always been like pressing on a bruise. One already turned yellow-green at the edges, the pain long gone and replaced with a dull ache. A reminder of hurt more than the real thing.

Outside on their balcony, the November night is colder than the temperatures Daniel usually subjects himself to, but inside Max is sleeping. Picturing his mum as her tinny voice chatters away in his ear, it's easy. Halfway across the world, sunny's on and feet up, his dad lighting the barbecue in the yard. Both of them warm, the way he hopes Max is too, buried in their bedsheets.

"How's Izzy, how's Isaac?" Daniel asks, running through all the obligatory questions. He's not uninterested in the answers, just- It's more that the answers never change. "How's Michelle? Dad?"

Everyone is fine, fine, fine, fine according to his mum, and everyone is more 'worried about you Danny'. Her questions are always the same as well. Is he eating enough, is he sleeping enough? Did he see the photo Michelle posted on 'the cloud thing,' and didn't Daniel think it was cute?

Except-

"Are you really not coming home for Christmas?"

The bluntness shouldn't startle him, not after years of living with Max, of more spent growing up with his mum.

You'd like each other, he thinks not for the first time, if you really got to know each other.

He kind of wants that more than anything. To explain Max in a way that would make her love him too, but he knows the eyes through which she sees Max are different to Daniel's in a way that's impossible to resolve.

If he knew how to, he'd explain that Max can drag a laugh out from the belly of him in a way that no one else can. Most of the time without even meaning to. That he's honest in a way that is very rarely cruel, and so when he does come out with some cutting remark you know it's deserved. That when he first moved Jimmy and Sassy into Daniel's apartment, he slept belly-down on  the floor in front of the sofa which Sassy hid underneath, hand holding a battered felt mouse out to her, so she will know of course, that this is home now.

That Daniel maybe thinks he knows what love, deep fucking life-changing love is because of Max.

"Yeah mum, I'm really not coming home for Christmas," he says instead because he also knows what it's like to listen to someone- Michael usually- wax poetic about their partner and think can't you just get to the fucking point already, mate.

There's a disapproving pause that Daniel uses to consider how dirty the grout between the tiles of their balcony is. To contemplate how and where he could hire a jet wash from, so Max doesn't have to do his workouts with Brad an inch away from what he is increasingly worrying might be black mould.

"I don't think it's very healthy, Daniel," she says evenly, and it's showtime if his full name is being used. "The two of you alone in you're apartment, no family, no-"

"Mum," he interrupts, the words muffled around the nail bed he's chewing on, "Max asked me to stay, I'm staying. It's not really up for like, discussion."

"Sweetheart, we just- Issac and Izzy were so excited to have you home."

He laughs, not mean or anything it's just- Funny.

"Come on," he tries, aiming for lighthearted but no doubt missing the mark enough to have him flaming out and into the boards, "you can't plead with me to leave good old bachelor Ric behind me and then throw a wobbler you guys are no longer number one."

"Can't you bring him home with you?" She tries stubbornly as ever, and Jesus what is that saying about men marrying people that are like their mothers?

"No," he says, shaking his head though she can see it. "Mum, please- He asked me for this. Don't try to make me feel guilty for giving it to him."

"He should think about what you want too, honey," she rounds, and it's a close call to Daniel throwing his phone off the balcony and into the sea, but- It's not fair. It's not her fault.

After all, there are other things he can't explain. How Max still flinches sometimes when Daniel reaches for him in bed, then says sorry so quickly in a miserable-sounding voice, it's like he believes he's running out of chances. Like he's not the fucking, heart line on Daniel's palm, the artery pumping his blood, or whatever else the shitty love songs on the radio talk about.

"He does mum, he-"

Rubber screeches against glass as the door behind him slides open, and before Daniel has even turned all the way around Max is saying his name like a question. Stood in the doorway in Daniel's too-big merch, he would look like every one of Daniel's romantic dreamings come to life if not for the tightness of his jaw, and the height of his shoulders.

"Hey baby," he says, voice softer than anything he's been using so far on the phone. He tries not to cringe. "Just talking to mama, is everything-"

"Can you come back to bed?" Max interrupts a little desperate sounding. Shifting from one foot to the other, he won't quite meet Daniel's eye. Instead, they focus on a spot behind Daniel, the shine of the inky sea in the moonlight most likely.

Daniel doesn't hesitate. He knows what Max's nightmares look like. Wishes he could siphon them from Max's brain into his own, one less hurt for Max to feel, one more way to know him better.

"Mama, I gotta go," he says, and he can hear her protests even as he presses the button to end the call.

In Daniel's arms, Max presses his face to the hollow of his throat, lips catching against the stubble there as he says, "sorry." Then, "I woke up and I wanted you here."

It's not always like that. Some nights, he wakes up from sweating and writhing and Daniel knows not to touch.

Now, he kisses Max's forehead, leads him back to bed and tells him the same as always.

"I'm always here, Maxy. Promise."