Chapter Text
Max smiled as he watched Izan running into the short waves like a little kid. Max wasn’t a fan of the water all that much, instead opting to stay seated on the sand.
“Cmon! You can stand in it!” Izan hollered, a bright grin on his face.
Max rolled his eyes. “It’ll get my shoes wet!” he yelled back, shaking their head.
“They can dry! Cmonnn I’ll make sure you don’t fall!”
Max groaned before pushing himself up off the sand. “Fine, fine, I’m coming so quit your yelling,” he muttered even though Izan had already turned back to the water.
The water looked, admittedly, very appealing. Max’s nerves, however, apparently didn’t get the memo, as his hands flapped harder in a showing of nervousness the closer he got to the water’s edge. He reached the end of the latest wave and stopped, looking from the water to Izan.
“I think I’ll stay over here,” he called, snapping his fingers as he tried to focus on the solid ground beneath their feet.
Izan turned towards him, face lighting up as he saw that Max had gotten as close as they had. He waded through the water towards him and held out his hands.
“Here, I’ll keep you steady,” he said, a gentle glint in his eyes.
Max looked from his hands to his face and back again. “Mm- I don’t want to go far,” he said quietly.
“I won’t take you any farther than you want to go.” Izan held out his pinky finger. “I promise.”
After a moment of hesitation, Max’s pinky finger met Izan’s, and the promise was made. From there, Max slipped his hands into Izan’s, and stepped forward as Izan stepped back. He jumped slightly when the first tiny wave went past his feet.
“Shh, hey, I got you, remember?” Izan murmured, guiding Max’s attention back to their joined hands.
Max nodded, following him for another step forward. They kept going until the water was fairly consistently up to their ankles. His mind was still yelling at him to leave and get back to dry land, but they simply focused on Izan’s hands around his.
In a split second decision, they looked up to meet Izan’s eyes. The smile on his face surprised Max, as did the unfamiliar look in his eyes. Although, he supposed, the look was growing more familiar, as it wasn’t an uncommon look on Izan, especially when he assumed Max wasn’t looking his way.
“Why do you look at me like that?” he breathed, barely certain the words had actually fallen from his mouth and surprised that they even had.
Izan raised a brow, his smile unwavering. “Like what?”
Max shrugged, looking away and biting the inside of his lip. “Like- I dunno- like I’m the center of the world.” The words felt fairly foolish as soon as they said them, but he wasn’t sure how else to describe what he was thinking. He waited for the possible laugh or snort that it would pull from his current anchor, but there was nothing. Max looked back up, and drew in a quick breath of air. Izan’s face had softened, his expression turning to hold a gentle seriousness.
“Maybe you are,” Izan said quietly, barely above a whisper.
Max’s eyes went wide as he held Izan’s gaze. “Izan-” he started.
“Can I kiss you?”
Max’s breath caught in his throat. “You- what-”
“Can I kiss you, Max.” Izan’s gaze was unwavering, but not sharp. It was solid, but not piercing.
Time seemed to slow, the two of them standing still, locked in a moment, a bubble. Slowly, Max’s head nodded, as his eyes flicked down to Izan’s lips.
Izan leaned forward slowly, leaving a way out until the very end before Max finally closed the distance between them. The kiss lasted for merely a moment before they broke apart, but neither backed away. They met each other's eyes for a moment.
“Izan-” Max breathed before being gently cut off by lips meeting his once again.
Max’s hand untangled itself from Izan’s, instead tangling in his shirt, right above Izan’s racing heart. The noise of surprise that had gotten trapped in his throat turned into a soft hum as the two explored this new feeling together.
Izan’s newly freed hand slipped behind Max’s back and pulled them closer, their bubble getting smaller. The two both had their eyes shut but not to block anything out, no, quite the opposite. As their eyes saw nothing, their focus turned to the feeling. The warmth, the softness- those were their focus. The hands that still remained joined together tightened as they got closer. Although Max typically would have found this proximity to be suffocating, it was anything but. They felt as though he could finally breathe for the first time, with nothing held back.
Izan stepped forward slightly, accidentally knocking Max off balance. He yelped as he fell backwards, eyes blown wide open once again. The awaited splash, however, never came as Izan’s arm behind their back and grasp on his hand was firm.
“Hey, hey, it’s ok; it’s ok; I’ve got you,” Izan said quickly, trying to be soft.
Max stood back on his own strength once again, hands in turn fisting themselves in Izan’s shirt as he hid their face in Izan’s chest. Izan’s hand stayed at the small of their back, gentle but firm, a quiet reminder of their anchor being there.
“Wanna get out?” he asked quietly. Max nodded, only moving back just enough for the two to be able to start slowly making their way back to the towel they had set out on the sand.
Izan gently guided him with his hand staying on his back. Max’s hands finally released his shirt as they eased down onto the towel. He was quiet, their breathing irregular. They fidgeted with his hands in his lap.
“Are you ok?” Izan asked softly, concern in his eyes as he watched Max from their side. Max merely nodded, biting the inside of his lip once again.
Izan frowned. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have made you come out there; I know you don’t like the water.” He looked away, watching as the sun started to creep towards the horizon in front of them.
“Mnm you- you didn’t,” Max murmured.
Izan hummed in reply.
“You didn’t. I’m glad- I’m glad I went in.”
Izan turned to look at him again. “But you got scared?”
Max shrugged, looking down at his hands. “I’m scared of a lot of things. You make it better.”
Izan gaped slightly at the matter-of-factness of the statement, taking a moment to process. “I do?”
“Mhm. Never goes away- no one could just take it away, but you make it easier. You make it worth it. You-” Max cut himself off with a quiet hum.
“I-?”
Max turned to face Izan. “You kissed me.”
Izan froze, the words catching him off guard. He admitted his mind hadn’t quite caught up to that part of the happenings quite yet.
“You kissed me,” Max repeated. “Why?”
Izan let out a nervous chuckle. “To be fair, you made the last move.”
“Izan.”
He sighed. “Did you not like it?”
Max’s brows furrowed. “That’s not- why?”
Izan met his eyes with a small, sad chuckle. “I like you, Max. I know how ridiculous that might sound as it’s only been a few weeks but- but I do. I like you, and you don’t have to say anything back because I know th-”
Max cut him off with another short kiss, barely a graze, but enough to short circuit Izan mid-sentence. “Me too.”
“You- you too?”
Max nodded, looking as though this was all very common knowledge.
“You mean you like me? Or-” Izan asked, trying to keep his tone level.
Max smiled in amusement. “Yes, Izan, I like you. I would have thought the kisses were fairly telling,” he teased, although there was no real bite behind their words.
Izan grinned, that stupid goofy grin of his that Max loved to roll their eyes at. “Ok, yeah, ok, you like me; I like you, yeah, yeah ok,” he stammered, gaze flicking down to the fingers tapping at his leg. “You’re such a dork,” Izan said, his grin now facing Max.
Max rolled their eyes. “No you.”
Izan laughed again, his giddiness bubbling up. He plopped his head down on Max’s shoulder as the two watched the sunset. “I’m glad you’re here, Max.”
Letting his head rest slightly on Izan’s, Max replied softly, “I am too.”
“I don’t know when I’ve ever felt this happy,” Izan whispered, the smile on his face evident in his voice. He turned slightly to look at Max, still resting his head on their shoulder. “Seems like our ‘road trip to nowhere’ really did lead us somewhere.”
Max raised an eyebrow at that.
“It led us here, to each other.” Izan smiled and took Max’s hand in his.
They smiled softly in return, squeezing Izan’s hand before looking back out towards the setting sun.
After a few minutes, a poke to his arm drew Izan’s focus back to his companion.
“I’m hungry,” Max said as though the previous conversation had come to a close. Although perhaps for him it had.
“I- pft- yeah, ok, we can go get something in town.” Izan pushed himself up to stand. “Can we maybe talk about- all this- when we do?”
“Talk about what?” Max asked, accepting Izan’s hand to be pulled up.
“I- Like- Like us?” Izan replied, confusion lightly tinting his words.
Max looked back at him quizzically. “Us?”
“Like the kiss? Like- us liking each other?” Izan’s heart started to beat faster as his mind spun, trying not to overthink.
Max’s expression stayed confused. “Yeah? What else is there to say?”
Izan looked down at his feet as he kicked at the sand lightly. “Well- I mean we have to talk about you know, what this means for the trip and for us. I mean I don’t- I don’t want us to go into anything or not go into anything without getting on the same page.”
“Why does it have to mean anything?”
Izan stopped, his line of sight jerking back up to meet Max’s. “You don’t- you don’t want it to mean anything?”
Max shrugged and looked away, wringing his hands together. “I mean- I just don’t want anything to change.”
Izan looked away as well, arms going tense. “Right, yeah, ok. Sure. I uh- I’m sorry for assuming.” He let out a breath of air and picked their towel up. “Let’s go get something to eat,” he said, walking past Max towards the car. Max stood in place, mind scrolling through what he could have done wrong before defeatedly following behind.
As the next few days went on, Max came to the realization that something had definitely gone wrong between the start of their day at the beach and the end of it. His first thought was obviously the kiss- well, kisses- but Izan had seemed happy about those. They’d tried bringing it up with Izan, but was only met with vague reassurances of nothing being wrong despite the distance that dragged between them.
Four nights after the beach day, the two of them ended up back at the hotel fairly early, right after dinner. Izan, as he had for nearly every night as of recently, muttered something about being too tired to stay up. He went to lie down, turning to face away from Max. Max stammered out a half-hearted reply about hoping he had a good rest before sitting in the other bed. They rested his back against the headboard with their knees hugged to his chest.
A podcast played in his headphones as Max tried to drown out the rest of the world. They typically were able to zone out until time passed him by, however, this time it seemed to only slow and meet him there. He didn’t understand- had he done something to upset Izan? Were they going to be left behind by the beaches of Virginia? Had he ruined things forever once again? What had changed?
After another half hour of painful silence, Max finally spoke up.
“Did I do something?” he asked, a slight shake to his voice.
Izan sighed before sitting up, still facing away from Max. He shook his head “Just- trying to process stuff I guess. I’m sorry,” he said. He sounded tired, regardless of how much sleep he had apparently been getting with his early turn-ins the last few nights.
“You didn’t exactly answer the question,” Max said quietly, fidgeting with their phone case.
“I’m just confused about what you want, Max. That’s all, really.”
Max’s head whipped around to look at Izan. “‘What I want’? What do you mean?”
Izan sighed and stood up, pacing around the bed he had been sitting on. “I mean the other day, at the beach.”
Max turned back to look at the foot of his bed, brows furrowed, as he questioned, “What do you mean? What about the other day?”
Stopping by the window, Izan ran his hand through his hair. He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “You still don’t get it, do you? I- you-” He grunted and shook his head. Izan slipped on his shoes and headed towards the door. “I’m going for a walk.”
“What- wait what? It’s raining- where are you- Izan?” Maz stammered, getting up and trying to throw on their shoes to follow him. “Izan wait-”
By the time Max finally got his shoes on, Izan was already headed down the stairs towards the first floor.
“Izan- just wait- we can talk this out,” he called, trying to catch up down the stairs. “Please- just wait-”
Izan didn’t even pause as he went outside, walking against the wall under the overhang as the rain fell right outside of the covered area. He sighed as Max emerged from the building and called for him again.
“Can I not just go for a walk,” he muttered, a frown clear on his face.
“Izan please- I just- I just want to know what I did wrong,” Max pleaded, closing the distance between the two yet still keeping back. “I just want to be able to fix it so we can get back to normal.”
Izan scoffed. “There you go about normal again,” he muttered, an unusual sharpness to his words. “Why don’t you go fall for normal instead, Max, cause apparently that’s what’s important to you.”
Max paused. “What? What are you talking about?”
“You said you like me, right?” Izan questioned. Max nodded. “Then why the hell- why would it not matter to you? Why would you not want it to matter?”
“What are you even talking about? Of course it matters- you matter, Izan.” Max said, a pleading tone barely hidden behind his words.
Izan let out a sad laugh. “You yourself said you don’t want it to matter. That you don’t want anything to change, Max. That you want your goddamn normal. If you wanted it exactly how it was before, then why would you kiss me? Why would you let me kiss you?” Izan huffed and bit the inside of his lip, trying to calm himself. “You know I would never want you pressured into something, and please, fucking- please tell me if I ever have, but that doesn’t mean you can just- that doesn’t mean you can fucking lead me on and then say you don’t want anything.”
Max stared at him, eyes wide, breathing shallow. “I don’t understand,” he breathed.
Izan let out a strangled scoff, desperately trying to hide the collecting tears. “Of course you don’t.” He shook his head, wiping at his eyes. “I can’t do this right now. I can’t- I can’t do this.” He turned into the rain to walk towards his car.
“Wait! Izan! Where are you going?” Max yelled, trying to follow. They reached out a hand towards Izan, only to meet open air and rain. He watched as Izan got into the car he knew well now and start it, desperately hoping that he would come back to them and say it was all some kind of sick joke.
“Please, please,” he gasped out, watching Izan drive out of the parking lot. “Please no- no no no, please I- I can’t- I don’t know how to fix this,” Max choked out, his tears mixing with the rain.