At the words I will, Andrew looks up in a combination of sickened dread and desperate, exhausted hope, both emotions naked on his face.

As Max approaches him, both the dread and the hope grow stronger, until the conflict of eager joy and terror is visible in his eyes, in his hitching breath, in his increasingly violent trembling. His mouth opens soundlessly, tries to shape a word, can't.

He goes completely rigid when Max's arms wind around him, struggling against the pressure bending his head down, in a stronger resistance than the last time -- and then gives way completely, all at once, collapsing against Max as a wrenching wail breaks free of him.

Be mine, and rest, and let me take care of you; it's what he's ached to hear for so long, and pushed away and rejected for all that time, and tried so hard to stop wanting, and failed.

Andrew clings to Max with shaking hands, as if afraid he'll be torn away, and sobs convulsively with despair and relief.