stilljustandrew | [ainmhianverse] same as it ever was

Max happens to be making his way down the hall at this same moment. He's zoned-out in embarrassingly deep thought about what kinds of dessert fillings he could make using some of the more unusual plants growing in the wilds. He's so distracted, he almost runs right into the backside of the man as he steps out the door.

"Oh, jeez." Max apologizes immediately. "Sorry. I wasn't watching where I was going. Did I hurt you?"

Andrew recoils with a shrill gasp, half-turning and staggering back until one shoulder hits the wall, cringing against it.

For a moment he's frozen there in a half-crouch, his heart hammering at his ribs, staring up at the stranger. Where am I, he wants to ask, or who are you, but he can't for the life of him force a single sound out of his throat.

That reaction is so far into the extreme Max actually recoils too. Shit, had he broken something or... no. No, this isn't a pain reaction. That's terror written all over the man's face. An unfamiliar face.

"Hey, hey," Max soothes, with the kind of low and slow tone one would use on a spooked horse. He put his hands a little out in front of him, to show he had no weapons.

"It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm Max. I'm guessing you're a new arrival."

Max? His lips shape the name without any sound coming out, and without any lessening of the look of trapped terror on his face.

"Are -- are you --"

His throat works, and the next word comes out in a bare whisper: "Christo."

"Am I-?" Max starts to say. But the whispered word stops him short.

"I don't know what that means. I'm sorry. I'm...just Max. Max Maximum."

No blackness flickering over the eyes, no hissing recoil; this isn't a demon.

The look in his own eyes isn't so much relief as a desperate hope that relief might be justified.

"I'm Andrew," he half-whispers. "I -- please, where are we?"

To Max, it looks like Andrew is waiting to see something. Whatever it is, he can't guess. But the man does seem to, well, calm down isn't quite the right way to put it. If he were a man on a ledge then maybe he's just taken a small step back. It's a start.

"It's good to meet you, Andrew," he reaches a hand out tentatively.

"This place is hard to... Didn't your sponsor call you on your tome and explain it?"

"Tome, you mean the -- the book? I didn't ..."

He shakes his head, and while he doesn't flinch away from Max's hand, he doesn't reach back for it either.

"Yeah. The book acts a lot like a cell phone. It's pretty weird, but so is everything else about this place."

Max comes a little closer, still with his hand out.

"The shortened version is that you've been brought here by a member of the fae court in order to act as entertainment to them. Which... sounds pretty bad when you say it out loud. In practice, it's not as horrible as it could be."

"... Entertainment?"

He says the word as though it could mean a thousand horrors; not with anger or outrage, but with a sickened fear already beginning to slide toward despair.

"What kind of ...?"

Yeah. This is the part he's most dreading having to explain.

"The fae are apparently all voyeurs. They brought us here to watch us get it on like their own personal living porn collection."

He could have sugar-coated it. But, really, how do you make this not sound terrible. It's objectively terrible.

"The good news is, they aren't forcing anyone. Aside from dragging us here. But, they are dangling rewards over our heads as an incentive. If we are good little boys and girls and go along with it, we can ask for a boon. If you have something you want bad enough, there's only one way to get it."

Strangely perhaps, the mention of sex doesn't get any more reaction than a faint furrow between the brows, an expression that might be confusion. But at the words something you want bad enough, Andrew's face starts to crumple and he starts to shake his head, the movement tiny but continuous.

Slowly he sags down the wall until he's sitting on the floor, knees drawn up, hands coming up to cover his face.

"I can't," he whispers, choked almost to inaudibility, "I can't --"

(The sleeves of the plain linen shirt he's wearing don't have a lot of stretch, and ride up his arms a little with the movement. Max may or may not notice: there's a band of slightly sunken flesh visible under the cuff of each sleeve, pale even against Andrew's pale hands.)

Edited 2020-08-16 02:03 (UTC)

That reaction is concerning, to say the least. Max is having trouble deciding if it's a delayed response, or indicative of something worse.

Then he notices the skin under the man's cuffs.

It's like feeling the bottom of his stomach drop open. There's very few things he can think of that leave a mark like that...

Max crouches down. "Andrew," he says gently but firmly, "listen carefully to me. Whoever you were with before, they can't find you here. We are some pace else completely. Some other world. And now that you're here, I'll help keep you safe. Okay? I'll help you. Would you like that?"

"You don't --" understand, the next word almost certainly is, but his voice cracks and crumbles to nothing in the middle of it. He rakes his fingers into his hair like combs, pressing both palms against his forehead as though trying to stave off a terrible headache.

"They'll think I went back to him," he half-whispers. "Or, or they'll think he finally came for me ..."

Abruptly one of his hands lashes out, seizes a handful of Max's sleeve, and Andrew looks up into his face with a desperate urgency. "It doesn't matter. It doesn't change anyth -- I can't belong to anyone here either, I can't, you have to believe me, you have to --"

Understand. That's so clearly what was about to be said, Max feels it in his soul. No, not all of it. But he worries he might understand better than Andrew thinks.

Max doesn't try to evade the man's hold on him. Since he's being held by the sleeve, he can't pull Andrew in the way he'd like to. All he can do is lean in close, and speak softly the words he hope will reassure the man.

"I believe you. Whatever is going on, I'll help you. But you need to know something. This place is out of time and separate from it. Time stopped wherever it is you left. So, you don't need to be afraid of what the others will think. No one will know you're gone. They won't ever know. Okay? Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"No one --" His face is doing that slow crumple again, and his breath starting to hitch, as though the words meant as comfort spell the deepest despair instead. "No one ever knew I was gone."

His hand falls away from Max's sleeve as tears spill from his eyes, and he turns his face to lean his forehead against the wall.

Well. Shit. That did not have the desired effect.

"Oh, Andrew..." Now that Max's arms are free, he really will try to scoop the man into his embrace.

"Whatever you've been through, I'm so sorry. You don't have to tell me everything but... please know that you're safe here. I promise you. It will be okay."

He tries to resist the embrace, he really does -- but the attempt only manifests as holding still for a fraction of a moment, trembling minutely, before he sags into Max's arms, still leaking tears. Weak to kindness, as always.

(Especially, it has to be said, kindness from a tall beautiful man.)

He doesn't return the hug, but after a little while one hand comes up and clings again to Max's wrist.

Max holds firm, waiting for that break in resolve. It comes quickly. He remembers this feeling. Some things he's forgotten (or blocked out) but the need for an anchor in the storm of fear and pain, he remembers that viscerally. There's nothing worse than being utter, utterly alone.

Max lets the quiet wash over them both. He hopes his affirming presence is enough without words. He makes himself take long slow breaths, loudly, in the the hopes that Andrew will instinctively mimic him. When Andrew's hand comes up to cling on, he tightens his embrace just a fraction, to reciprocate that connection.

(There might, in fact, be some things worse than being utterly alone.)

Unconsciously, Andrew does begin matching his breathing to Max's, deeper and slower. After a little while he wipes his eyes with his free hand, an unthinking habitual gesture like pushing up a pair of glasses.

"I shouldn't," he mumbles, in a faint echo of that too-brief resistance, "shouldn't be doing this."

Good. He can see Andrew's breathing evening out. It's working. He keeps it going.

"Why don't we get you back in your room?" Max suggests. Before he asks for any more explanations, maybe it would make Andrew feel better to be somewhere less open?

"I don't really understand? What wrong with it?"

He nods, and tries (without much strength) to pull out of the embrace and stand up.

"I have to -- I have to take care of myself."

Max will stubbornly keep hands on him, and help him back into the room. He'll wait until the door is closed behind them to say anything more.

Now that it is, "Why? Will you really be punished for accepting help from strangers?"

"Not -- not anymore." Andrew's gaze is resolutely on the floor, his shoulders slightly hunched. "It's not that."

He takes a breath, as though to say something else, and lets it all out silently.

Max waits. But nothing else comes.

"Andrew..." He can't really ask the man to trust him without any good reason. He needs to show some trust to earn some.

"I noticed the skin on your wrists. I can make some guesses based off that. They aren't...good ones." No, if they are what he fears, they aren't good at all.

"Can I show you something?"

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