Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“Be fucking careful.”

Max kept a straight face but he had a death grip on his end of the twinkle light bundle or as much as he could with a dense pair of mittens. It was his job to follow David along with it as he strung them up around the rooftop edge and around the porch supports, occasionally wobbling on the ladder. “You couldn’t wait to get the stupid cast off?”

“What else would we do all day until then?” David balanced himself before reaching down for Max to extend more of the wire to him and smiled brightly. Idiot , Max thought. At least he’s acting normal again . They hadn’t talked much about the letter incident but he could tell it took time for David to really recover. He heard him wandering around the house at night unable to sleep and noticed an increase in Gwen taking over basic responsibilities to lift the pressure. She wasn’t staying at a hotel anymore. 

Max could hear hushed phone calls late at night with David anchored to the landline, awkward and tense with a touch of hopefulness. He knew who was at the other end and he was desperate to ask David about it. He just wanted to know if it was a good thing.

But Gwen had pulled him aside one morning while David ate his breakfast alone on the porch. “You can’t ask him about his dad,” she said, holding him firmly by the shoulders. “I know you want to help but he wants to do this alone until he’s ready to involve you. Let him treat you like a ten year old.”

“I’m eleven, Gwen.”

“Fuck. Stop growing.”

“I’ll get right on that.” He rolled his eyes. “I won’t ask him, as long as you’re making sure he’s not gonna walk into the forest and never come back.”

“Do you think I should microchip him just in case?” Gwen asked, and Max couldn’t stop himself from snickering at the idea.

But David gradually reemerged from his shell. They were back to him being the first one up in the morning making breakfast, cheerfully singing as he folded all the laundry and annoyingly doting on Max during their bedtime routine. Max couldn’t admit he missed that most. The night terrors couldn’t get him when he watched David smile and wish him “I love you, Max, see you in the morning,” before he turned the light off and left the door cracked with light trailing in from the hall.

Now he had entered the dreaded Christmas cheer stage. He dragged decorations out with one arm, throwing out fake curse words because he definitely had enough of the cast, and was singing carols constantly.

“Is this gonna take much longer?” Max cut David off before he got to six geese a laying.

“Maybe another fifteen minutes,” David climbed down so he could hoist the ladder onto his shoulder and move it to the next spot. “How’s your asthma?”

“It’s not bad.”

“You’re warm enough?”

“You’re the one that smothered me in four god damn layers!” Max exclaimed, unwinding more of the lights. “You don’t have to do all this stuff for Christmas to be fun, we’ve been over this.”

“It’s your first real Christmas--”

“Second if you ask Nikki.”

“Okay, first real calendar Christmas,” David didn’t skip a beat. “And we’re going to make sure you don’t miss out on any of the best stuff, that includes the pretty decorations. Trust me, when we light these, you’ll feel so warm and fuzzy, it’ll be like magic! I loved doing this as a kid! My mom saved every ornament I ever made, and now I get to save yours.”

It sounded disgustingly cheesy and Max hid his smile under his scarf. “Don’t expect me to use glitter or censor anything.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. I can finish this, how about you go inside and warm up? There’s a box by the fireplace, that’s our first arts and crafts project.”

“Ugh. Fine.” Max set the lights on the ground and scampered up the steps, the salt and melting ice making satisfying crunch noises under his boots. “You want hot chocolate?”

“Yes, please!”

Gwen was furiously clacking away on her computer and looked up with a pen sticking out of her mouth, the back of her screen covered in sticky notes. “Hey,” she said before going back to her project. “Hey. I’m going to make hot chocolates, do you want one? Or something else?”

Without looking up, she held her coffee mug out and he took it. He didn’t even realized how programmed he had become to all the small things. He knew how to make David’s tea, Gwen’s coffee, how everyone’s toast was done and other little things like that. He came back with two mugs and handed Gwen’s to her. She took it with a loving smile, “Thanks, shithead.”

“Welcome, bitch.”

He only popped out onto the porch for a few minutes to put David’s hot chocolate on the railing before he ran back inside before he got scolded for not having a coat that time. He settled by the fireplace and noticed it was burning low, so he picked up a log and began to move the screen aside. “David doesn’t want you touching that stuff,” Gwen said, scrawling something down.

“So go snitch to him,” Max carefully laid it down and closed the screen. The birch popped and crackled merrily as the heat began to eat away at it. This smell is the best . He settled down on the floor and popped open the box David told him about, noticing it wasn’t one of the beaten rubbermaid bins from the attic. “Huh.” he moved the contents around. It looked like craft supplies and...three huge stockings?

He began laying everything out on the coffee table and finished just as David came inside, stomping the snow off his boots and looking pretty triumphant. “Lights are done! I only got tangled up once, but I didn’t even fall.”

“Proud of you,” Gwen said and closed her computer. “Is it time?”

“Sure is!” After he stashed his winter gear in the closet, he hurried over and picked Max up under the arms to move him to the middle of the couch and sat down where he once was. Max glared at him. I’m glad he’s feeling better but the audacity.

David explained all of the supplies and passed the stockings around to them, so excited about it that Max could only make a few mean jokes. By the time the glue had dried and David hung them up over the fireplace, Max felt accomplished and happy. As they dangled all in a line with their garish accessories, with the rustic garland strung over the mantle and all of the antique nutcrackers standing at attention above, the house never felt more lived in and loved than it did then. Gwen cleaned everything up and David searched through boxes for the Christmas records to stack by his treasured turntable. Max took back his seat by the fire, cracking open the book he was on and letting the warmth of the fire against his back calm him.

“Have you finished your list, kiddo?”

Max pulled his eyes away from the story and squinted at David. “My what?”

“Your Christmas list,” David let the needle fall and music began to play softly.

“Uh. I didn’t know I could do that.” He felt embarrassed. David picked up Gwen’s pen and a sticky note and sat down across from him, never once showing judgement on his face. “Better finish it by tomorrow, the big day comes up quick.”

“Alright,” Max took the pen and tried to think about what he could possibly ask for. He drew a blank. There wasn’t a single entitled thought in his head when he needed one. “What other stuff do we do?”

“On Christmas Eve, we decorate our tree and we get to open one present each. Then Christmas day we have a big brunch, stay in our pajamas all day long and open presents. And of course, the yearly dodging of Granda’s Catholic guilt tripping…”

“Have you talked to him?”

“A little bit, we still get coffee every week. We haven’t talked about...you know,” David coughed into his sleeve awkwardly and wouldn’t look at Max. “I think it’s best that way. He’s just going to ask so many questions and pick it apart, and I can’t deal with that until I know what to say.”

“Do you think he’ll ever stop hating your dad?”

“I have no idea. But it’s not for you to worry about. Finish your list,” David got up from the floor and ruffled Max’s hair as he walked past him. “And don’t forget to study a little, I’ll check it when you’re done.”

“ ‘Kay,” Max watched him go, wrinkling the paper in his hands. There was no bounce in David’s gait anymore. He just seemed so weighed down and Max still couldn’t shake off feeling responsible. Gwen kept reassuring him David had the right to know and Max hadn’t done anything bad, but it didn’t feel that way. Speaking of, he thought as he eyed Gwen’s laptop, carelessly left open.

Don’t do it.

Max got up and tip toed over to the coffee table.

You little shit .

Gwen placed the last box on the shelf neatly with the rest of David’s endless arts and crafts supplies. I’m memorizing where things are, she realized as she looked up and down the hallway. She knew what towels were on which shelf in the linen closet and all of the sheets, well enough that she could put everything away properly when she helped with the laundry. She finally knew how to fold a fitted sheet, thanks to David. Chatting over a washing machine and sweeping up dust bunnies reminded her of cicada-song filled nights back at camp.

There was a simplicity about that time she missed, before she had learned about things she would have blissfully lived never knowing. Don’t be selfish , she thought. Things needed to change .

Gwen made a stop at Max’s room and gathered up his laundry, only a few stray pairs of socks and pajama pants around. He mostly put everything in his basket now, and she was impressed with how tidy he actually kept his room. He always cleaned so carefully. His bed was perfectly made, all his belongings were placed just so on his shelves and he never had garbage anywhere. Maybe impressed wasn’t the word. She was surprised. She expected him to be apathetic at best, but maybe having his own space and things to take care of meant more to him than he would say.

She balanced the basket on her hip and shut his door respectfully, then went to David’s room to see if there was any tidying she could help with but he wasn’t there and she wouldn’t go in alone. That’s probably weird . The next place he would be was his office.

The door was actually partially open and she saw him hunched over his desk, leaning his forehead into his hand and studying a book. “Hey,” she announced herself and he snapped his head up. As soon as he saw her, he quickly closed the book and tried to shove it into his desk drawer, his freckles vanishing under a flush of embarrassment. “Hey!”

She couldn’t help taunting him. “David,” she said with mock incredulity, “Did I catch you reading something risque?”

“What?” He blinked at her, then he understood and turned redder. “No! No, no, no, far from it!”

“I’m just teasing you.” She set the basket down and pushed the door the rest of the way open so she could venture inside and took her usual spot leading against the side of his desk. Something caught her eye. A circle of beautiful polished wooden beads, resting in a coil near David’s hand. Before he could hide it, she picked it up. They made a pleasant clacking noise together, like wood chimes, and were comfortingly smooth to roll between her fingers. At the end dangled a carved wooden crucifix.

“It’s not even mine,” David stood up. “It’s just-- it’s an heirloom.”

“It was your moms,” Gwen hadn’t seen in pictures but she felt it and knew she was right when the vulnerability darkened his eyes. “It’s beautiful.”

“Thank you,” he held out his hand and she laid it in his palm. “It helps me think, you know? She would always fidget with it when she was working out a problem.”

“Catholic fidget spinner?”

He smiled and even laughed a tiny bit. “Kinda.”

“So what’s the problem you’re working out?” Gwen asked.

David’s eyes fell back to his palm. He let the beads run over it and he brought it close against his chest, twisting them and wrapping them around. He swallowed thickly. And then he blinked away tears and inhaled sharply. Without even thinking, Gwen turned and shut the office door so there was no chance of Max walking in and seeing this. One way or another, he would find a way to feel like it was his fault.

“Sorry,” David said breathlessly, wiping his eyes quickly on the cuff of his sweater, trying to laugh it away.

Gwen wasn’t having any of that nonsense. She switched her school to online, she put her whole life in California on hold, quit her job so she could stay here and help look after Max and tackle everything else, which included being there for David who had taken on the monumental task of fatherhood. We’re in this together . “You can talk about it with me, Dave.” She tried for a soothing tone of voice and reached out, rubbing her hand up and down his arm. “Maybe I can help, even if I just listen.”

He needed a few minutes to find his voice but he started with nodding and getting the book out of his desk. She saw immediately it was a worn out copy of a bible and he had a page marked, which he opened to. “I don’t normally even take this out anymore,” he said, his voice audibly choked. “I just needed to get out of my head. I wanted to remember what I learned about forgiveness as a kid and-- and if I still think any of that is true.”

“You’re the only person I know who really believes in forgiveness,” Gwen frowned. “That’s changed recently?”

“A little, but it’s more about the people around me. I try my best to give everyone a chance but then the people who taught me that in the first place don’t think the same. There’s even one Granda would say all the time when it fit into the lecture of the day,” David flipped quickly to a page and turned it around, pointing at the verse. “Ephesians, four thirty one to thirty two. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving in each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. But then he conveniently forgets it when his own bitterness is laid out in the sun.”

Now she thought she knew what this was about. “So you want him to put his problems with your dad to bed?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“I think you do. What do you want?”

“I don’t know ,” he insisted, putting the bible back on his desk hard. He was getting worked up and Gwen loathed to see him that way, but she knew sometimes he needed a big push in the right direction. “Yes, you do, just say it! It’s never going to happen if you don’t try to make it!”

“I want to see him!”

They were both silent, equally shocked. David clenched the rosary tight and tears spilled over, two perfect trickles down his cheeks. He looked so lost and desperate, almost like a kid, and Gwen had to hug him. He let out a sigh when she did and leaned his head against her shoulder gratefully. “We have good talks,” he mumbled. “He wants to hear me play my guitar and he doesn’t live far away. He says he never wanted to go far in case I ever needed him…He said he won’t tell me where until I’m sure, and if I only ever want to talk on the phone, that’s okay.”

Peter sounded like a man who was trying. She hoped that was the case. “He hasn’t asked you for anything?” She rubbed his back.

“No,” good. If he asked you for money, I’d find him so fast …

“ Fuck what everyone else thinks. You want to meet your dad?” She pulled back and held him tight by his shoulders. He was chewing his lip anxiously but he nodded. “Then do it. I support you, so will Max and I think Aster will, too. Your grandfather loves you and that’s not going to change, even if he’s shitty at showing it sometimes.”

“Do you really think I should?”

“I think life will go on if you make a decision not based on how you’re afraid of other people reacting.”

“Okay,” David showed her a real smile. “Good point...Thanks, Gwen. You-- you’re my best friend, I hope you know.”

“I’m the best,” She corrected him and let him go, relieved he was feeling better. She was proud of him. It was no small act of courage to contact an estranged father. “I can make Max lunch, you take a breather.”

“He can eat in his room if he wants to.”

“I know the house rules.”

“Right,” he got the door for her, smiling brighter now. “You practically live here after all.”

I do, she realized and made a face once he couldn’t see. Her parents better not be getting any wrong ideas. It was still quiet downstairs and she caught Max moving back to his pile of blankets in front of the fireplace in a hurry when the bottom stair creaked under her foot. “I saw that,” she said firmly and gave him the best look she could. There wasn’t anything on her laptop she thought would do any harm, but he needed to stop. Snooping. God. Dammit! Even when it paid off, it was a bad habit and it had to go.

“Saw what?” he asked and turned around, giving her an innocent look.

Gwen dropped the basket promptly. Dribbling down his front lip was a steady gush of blood from his nose, only one side, but it was so starkly there that her heart frog leaped into her throat. “Max!”

“What?”

“You have a huge fucking nosebleed!” How the hell did he not notice?!

Max squinted at her but wiped his hand under his nose. When it came away bright red and wet, he looked pretty damn surprised and not nearly concerned enough. Gwen forced herself to walk calmly over and leaned down to look at him. He leaned away but she put a steady hand on his shoulder, “Just let me look, dammit.”

“I’m fine, don’t touch me.”

Her heart thumped quicker. He’s slurring his words, she thought and took his face in her hands. No weird temperature and his eyes looked normal. “Do you feel okay?” She asked, grabbing a tissue from the box on the coffee table and cleaning him up, then giving him another to pinch his nose with his clean hand and began wiping his other off for him. “My head kinda hurts,” he shrugged. She knew he got headaches when he was tired or particularly upset, and the doctor had told David it was normal. “Let’s just wait and see if it stops on its own,” she decided and put the box of tissues in his lap.

It ended up doing just that. She sent him to the bathroom to wash up and then up to his room with a kids tylenol and a big bottle of water and a crisp, “Nap, right now.” just in case it was an issue of exhaustion. She made sure to stuff the bloody tissues deep in the garbage and cover them a little. If it was a problem, David could learn about it through her, not through a gory scene that would send him into a tizzy and just annoy Max.

When all of that was done, she logged back into her laptop to see what she knew Max was looking at. It was just an article she had been reading about tarot cards, focused on the Hanged Man. Nothing that would freak him out, she was sure.

She closed out her work and rummaged in the kitchen for a while to make something easy. David would just have to accept the frozen pizza she tossed in the oven. Gwen could forget about it for twenty minutes while she went to check on Max.

His room was dark with the curtains drawn and she knocked two times before peeking in, but the kid was just a lump under his quilt, his face shoved into his pillow and Mr. Honeynuts crammed in his arms. It’s just the dry air, she kept reminding herself but Max’s odd behavior still scared her. It wasn’t his normal level of apathy. She stopped by his bed and picked up his water bottle, then growled internally when it was full.

And she nearly dropped it when she saw Max was staring at her with piercing eyes, wide awake. Gwen recovered quickly, “I told you to drink this.”

“I wasn’t thirsty.”

“Doesn’t matter, you can’t take medication without water, it’s not good for you. Sit up,” Gwen rolled back his blanket and fixed his pillows, as Max dragged himself upright unhappily. He held patiently still as she laid the back of her hand against his forehead and then cheek, still finding no fever. “I didn’t take it,” he muttered.

Gwen held her tongue. Max reached down between the bed frame and mattress, and pulled out the tylenol and a few others, which she recognized as vitamins David tried to give him each morning. She held out her hand expectantly and he surrendered them to her, looking reasonably abashed. Gwen put them aside and looked back at him, trying so hard to not look or sound angry. “Why are you hiding them?” she asked.

“So I can throw them out later…” he hung his head low, and kept worrying his teddy bear’s ear. “Are you going to make me take them?”

Before she could answer, she heard a whisper so tiny she was almost certain it was her imagination. He did . Gwen didn’t need to ask which he Max meant. He curled up against his pillows and pressed his bear tight against his cheek and his little body visibly trembled at the memory. “Let me in,” she said and lifted the blanket up so she could climb in under it. Max scoffed but didn’t stop her, not even when she pulled him close against her side and tucked the blanket around him snugly. In fact, he burrowed his face in her shirt and closed his eyes, openly accepting it without a peep. I still can’t believe this is the same kid, Gwen thought with a warm smile and ran her fingers through his thick hair to comfort him.

“Max?” she asked after a little while, petting her fingers up and down his cheek. “If this is happening a lot, you have to tell me.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do, you little tyrant.”

“It’s not , so fucking leave it alone.”

“Fine, fine. I have to go finish making lunch,” She eased her way off the bed but made sure to tuck him in again and then dropped his journal onto the blanket. “Finish that Christmas list, got it?”

She made sure to open his curtains and let the light back in so he wouldn’t fall back asleep before she left and nearly ran smack into David in the hallway. “Jesus Christ!”

“Just me, actually.”

“Funny,” she swatted his arm and he gasped in pretend pain, “Owie!”

“Shut up, I know it’s healed.”

“Yeah. I bet I could take the cast off myself--”

“ Abso-fucking-lutely not !”

“Kidding,” he said wimpily and followed her downstairs. “Max okay?”

“Yep, he’s in his room journaling.”

“Aw, that’s good. It really helps him.”

Gwen pulled the pizza out of the oven and began cutting it as David got plates and cups down from the cupboard. “Have you taken him to the doctor recently?” she asked, “Since the last of his vaccinations?”

“No? Should I be?”

“I’m just asking, relax.”

David ran Max’s plate up to him and rejoined her at the table so they could eat their lunch together and chat. Before he sat down, he put a paper up on the fridge and studied it proudly from his chair.

Shit I Want

-One metric fuck-ton of yarn
-More film
-New piano music book
-Video game picked by Gwen and NOT David
-Macrame stuff/beads
-I want to make stupid Christmas cookies with you guys

“You can’t get him anything above a PG-13 rating,” David said.

“You have no impact on this decision. The list hath spoken.”