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Max had already been in a bad mood when he’d stepped in the kitchen. David wasn’t sure if it was because of something that happened today or if had just been building up over time. He likely wouldn’t find out. He wasn’t planning on asking and even if he did Max wouldn’t tell him. As much as David would like for the kid to talk to him, prodding at him would only serve to make him even more pissed off. He couldn’t force Max to talk with him, but he had to admit it was a bit of a pain when it seemed expected for him to magically fix the problem when he had to guess what it was half the time.
Max was not good at communication if it didn’t have something to do with manipulating people. David was pretty sure it was because the boy didn’t want anything to do with getting in touch with his sensitive side. If he even thought David might have seen an emotion on his face other than a cruel smirk or an irritated frown he threatened him. Half-hearted threats, David took effort to note.
“What do you want for dinner?” David asked, keeping his tone ever light and cheery. “I was thinking maybe spaghetti.”
Max slowly wandered across the tile and came to a stop by the counter. His figure was tense. He was trying to play himself casually, but all David saw was how stiffly he laid his arm onto the counter.
“We had that last night.” Max ran his fingers across the countertop, drawing invisible swirls.
“I know. There’s nothing wrong with having it again, is there?” David said.
“Yeah, as leftovers. Nobody makes the exact same meal twice in two days.” Max grumbled. “We have other food.”
“I asked what you wanted for dinner. Any suggestions?”
Max drew his fingers into a fist. David opened the cupboards, listing out the options for a meal in his head.
“No.” Max said.
The word ‘trap’ popped into David’s head. It made him frown for the association to come to him so easily now, but when dealing with Max he’d learned a few things. Like now, for instance. The answer David received implied that he was supposed to take the decision into his own hands. From this point though, no matter what he said, Max was going to nit pick it.
“Are you sure?” David asked.
“I don’t know what we even have.”
Max pushed away from the counter and sat down at the table. He slouched low in the chair until his shoulders nearly hit the seat. David kept himself turned towards the cupboards, his eyes flicking absently over the items on the shelves. He could try all he wanted to avoid what Max was doing. The boy would only end up finding something else to torture him with. Max was in a bad mood and lashing out at him.
Knowing it didn’t make it any less annoying though. David threw his hands up into the air.
“Sandwich, pizza, mashed potatoes,” He listed off.
“I don’t like mashed potatoes. Why do we even have that?” Max scowled.
“I eat them.” David said, glancing behind him. “No one said you have to.”
“You’re suggesting meals I’m supposed to be interested in.” Max pointed out.
“I was suggesting meals.” David said in a tight voice. “If I mentioned salad, which we have, it wouldn’t be something you’d like but you’d still eat.”
“What, because you make me?”
David closed the cupboards with more force than was needed. Often times, he would let Max off easy when he got into trouble. He let him do a lot of things he probably shouldn’t. Like letting him stay up late or watch PG13 movies or pretend he was a little adult that got to talk down to David. It was partly because it tended to be an easier thing for David to do as opposed to giving the boy several lectures each and everyday. It was also partially due to the fact that Max was already accustomed to doing most of those things, making any sort of ban rather pointless.
What he didn’t want to happen was for Max to think he got to take advantage of those allowances.
“Yes.” David said.
“Oh, yeah. That’s real convincing.” Max scoffed.
Instead of answering, David pulled out a pot and stuck it under the faucet to fill it with water. He was starting to feel more than annoyed at this point, Max’s irritation rubbing off on him. Despite how cheery he always tried to be there was a temper that sometimes shined through. Leave it to Max to get him to slip up with his patience.
“What are you doing?”
“Making spaghetti.” David said, placing the pot on the stove. The burner clicked as it tried to ignite the flame.
“Why? I already told you we had that yesterday.”
“And you didn’t suggest anything else, so I’m choosing for you.” David turned off the burner for a moment, letting the gas disperse before trying to get the flame to ignite again.
“You could pick literally anything else that isn’t fucking spaghetti.”
“Language.” The flame burst up under the pot.
“Are you trying to piss me off?” Max asked. “Because it really feels like you’re trying to piss me off.”
“You are already pissed off.” David snapped. “You’ve been in a bad mood since you walked in here.”
Max sat up rigid in his chair. A fierce animosity burned in his eyes.
“Sure, blame me! I’m always angry, what’s the difference?” He said bitterly.
“Knock it off. I’m not blaming you for anything.” David said, crossing his arms.
“Oh, yes you fucking are!” Max got up and stood defiantly before David. “You always manage to do shit that makes me really fucking annoyed and then you decide that I was mad long before you did anything.”
“No, sometimes I make you annoyed. Sometimes you’re mad before then and sometimes you’re not.” David corrected. “But right now you’re lashing out and you’re getting even more angry with me because I’m not letting you use me as your verbal punching bag.”
“You’re not letting me?” Max let out a sharp laugh. “David, you are the biggest push over I know. You’re not doing shit.”
David rolled his eyes up to the ceiling and let out a deep sigh. He was tired of these arguments. Despite supposedly allowing Max to blow off steam, these trivial bickerings were occurring much too frequently to be doing any good. In any case, at some point, David was bound to say something he’d regret. So he turned away from Max and peered into the pot on the stove. It had started bubbling but wasn’t quite boiling.
“Are you fucking ignoring me?”
“You’re throwing a tantrum.” David said calmly. “It’s a little hard to talk to people while they’re throwing a tantrum.”
“A tantrum? I’m not five fucking years old, David!” Max exclaimed.
“You don’t have to be five years old to throw a tantrum.”
Max let out an angry little noise that sounded a lot like a growl and his fists shook with barely contained malice. For a minute, he seemed at a loss for words, wildly glancing around.
“Okay!” He finally blurted out. “You want me to throw a tantrum?”
Max stalked over to one of the cupboards and threw it open. Before David realized what he was doing, he picked up a plate and held it high over his head.
“I’ll throw a fucking tantrum!” The plate smashed onto the floor.
David startled at the action. As he took a moment to register what happened, Max picked up another plate and threw it across the kitchen.
“Max!”
David was behind the boy in two strides and grabbed him right as a third plate was picked up. Max threw it across the room as well. He began to struggle in his guardian’s grip as he got dragged away from the remaining dishes.
“Let go of me!” He screeched.
David had no intention of doing so until Max had obviously calmed down enough to stop trying to break plates. Getting hit, kicked, and even bitten, David kept a stubborn hold. His earlier annoyance had mellowed into concern and slight panic. Max wasn’t really physical with his anger, usually sticking to degrading obscenities.
“Max! Max, stop. Listen to me-” David flinched back as one of Max’s arms nearly smacked him in the face. “Max!”
“Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!” Max spat out.
Then, suddenly, he stopped. He went nearly limp in David’s arms, breathing heavily. Slowly, David eased up on his hold. When Max didn’t deceitfully sprint towards the dishes the moment he was free, David relaxed.
“Max?”
He settled them down onto the floor, avoiding the areas with shattered plates. Max was faced away from him. David wasn’t giving much more than a tug on his shoulder, but the boy was refusing to let himself be turned around. Or rather, he was refusing to let his face be seen.
“Hey, look at me.” David reached out and cupped Max’s cheek, trying to firmly but gently turn his head to face him.
Max resisted, but it was a weak fight compared to moments before. All of his feisty energy seemed to have drained out of him. He still kept his focus downward. He hated expressing his vulnerable emotions and once he’d completely turned around David could see that he was crying. Another thing David knew was that Max hated to be smothered by his overbearing care. However, David wasn’t really sure what else he could do but pull the boy close and hug him tight.
It surprised him when Max looped his arms around his neck and hugged back. Max wasn’t a clingy kid, but from the way he was holding onto David, it seemed like he was afraid of being ripped away from his guardian’s comforting hold at any second. Though, if David thought about it, that may been a more likely scenario than it should have been.
There was a reason Max didn’t know how to handle all the positivity that was being thrown at him. As a result, it stressed him out. As much as David would like for Max to be happy all the time, to feel comfortable reaching out to David before it escalated to this, the boy couldn’t. Maybe eventually, but not right now. Right now even David was having a difficult time muddling through his thoughts of what he should do. So he started with what he knew shouldn’t be happening.
“This isn’t healthy for you, Max.” He said. “Keeping everything bottled up inside. It’s hurting you.”
Max only pressed himself further into the crook of David’s neck. David glanced up at the stove. The pot was still boiling.
“I know you like to pretend it doesn’t happen. I know you don’t want to tell me. But we can’t keep doing this,” He gently pried off Max’s grip, just enough so that the boy could look him in the eye. “Mainly because I don’t think we have enough plates.”
The corners of Max’s mouth twitched into a smile. David smiled back. He smoothed back the boy’s dark curls before resting his hands on his shoulders.
“I’m sorry.” Max said quietly, a slight rasp to his voice.
“It’s okay.” David paused. “Well, it’s not okay, but you know...”
Max rubbed at one of his eyes. David stood, pulling the younger up along with him, and led him back to the kitchen table. Then he pulled out a box of pasta from the cupboard and poured it into the water bubbling on the stove.
“I need you to start talking to me.” He said after a few moments of stirring the thin noodles. “I need you to tell me when you’re feeling upset, whether it’s because I’m stressing you out or because of something else entirely.”
David pulled out his phone from his pocket and set a timer. Max watched him with bloodshot eyes.
“Sometimes I don’t know why, though.” He said.
“I need you to tell me that, too.” David sat down at the table. “I’m guessing, right now, Max. Whenever I think something is up with you, I have to guess what it is your dealing with and I have to make up some way to handle it. A lot of the time I don’t feel like I ever get it right.”
Max pulled his knees up to his chest. “You do okay.”
“The point is I shouldn’t have to be doing it at all. I can’t read your mind.” David explained. “I know you don’t want me to ignore you. I don’t want to ignore you either. But in order to avoid doing that, we need to communicate in a way that doesn’t involve one of us losing our tempers every other day.”
Max dropped his gaze to the floor, to the plate shards still scattered across the tile. David glanced down at them as well. He should probably clean that up.
“I don’t expect us to get it perfect immediately. It’s gonna be hard and it’s gonna take some work. But I need you to at least try. Can you do that for me?”
A pained expression, almost comically so, overtook Max’s face. He took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders, stalling. David waited patiently for his answer.
“Yeah. Yeah, okay.” He said eventually.