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Today was going to be one of the most stressful days of Max's life. Despite being excited and pacing around the house, worry grew deep in the pit of his stomach and in the corners of his mind like a mould. See, he was going to be moving today. He had been planning it for months with Richie and his uncle, Paul, and today was the final day in the process.
They had worked at removing Max's items from his house piece by piece so Max's dad wouldn't find out. Like a frog in boiling water. It helped that his dad hardly noticed him anyway, so it wasn't much of a surprise that he wouldn't even realise that the shit only Max used started to go missing.
Max had also suggested that, in order to make it a little more fun, he takes short videos of the final day to post. He had added on that he'd also reveal that he was dating Richie in it, since he was the main driving force behind keeping the relationship a secret. Richie had found the idea fun and had agreed, saying it would be funny if his identity was hidden throughout the whole thing until the end.
A text came through on Max's phone, pinging to interrupt the silence and pacing. Max looked at it to see that Richie had messaged that he was on his way to help with the final things. A smile instantly grew on Max's face and he sent back an okay message.
Time to get this show on the road.
He opened the camera app and resumes pacing as he puts it into selfie mode and starts recording, occasionally looking from the phone to make sure he doesn't accidentally walk into something. "Okay. So I'm having company. But the rule is that I can't show who it is." A laugh escapes Max before he looks at the camera and realizes the angle isn't that great, he stops walking and re-adjusts the angle before continuing. "Trust me on this. You don't want to miss it."
Max re-watches the recording to check it all went fine before writing a caption and posting it to his social media.
He ignores the comments coming in from his friends and waits for Richie to arrive.
...
He receives the text that Richie is almost there a minute before he actually arrives. Max makes sure he's recording as he opens the door, camera pointed to the ground. He gestures to it when he sees Richie, but smiles all the same.
Richie smiles back and shakes his head, "You know we can just edit it so it's impossible to tell it's me, right?" Richie laughs slightly.
"Ah, yeah... Does that mean I can do... This?" Max swoops the camera so it's now recording Richie. He just smiles and shakes his head.
"Come on, Max. This is just going to cause more work in the long run, you know?" Richie walks past Max to put his bag against the sofa as Max swivels and puts the camera in selfie mode, his smile still present on his face as he stops the recording.
He pockets the phone and heads into the living room where Richie hugs him. He quickly returns it, putting his face in Richie's hair.
"You ready for this?" Richie asks into Max's shoulder. Max squeezes Richie a little tighter but nods, pulling away.
"As I'll ever be." He removes his phone from his pocket. "Now how do we edit this so you're not immediately obvious?"
...
Max is recording his reaction to Richie's dumbass doing a shitty little dance from the other side of the living room. Richie knows full well that he can't even be called out for hiss stupidity, so he's got this grin on his face that makes Max want to say 'fuck it' to the whole shtick and just put a recording of it on his account. But he can't do that, so he settles for this.
"You look so stupid, right now." Max knows he looks like a fool as he watches Richie, he's been caught in the background of so many of Richie's photos that he's honestly surprised that nobody has found them out by how he is looking at the nerd alone. Richie grins from where he's got one arm above his head, pulling a goofy pose.
"Yeah well thank god they can't see any of what I'm doing then." Richie winks at him before twirling and sticking his other hand out. He stares Max dead in the eyes and silence falls.
Richie narrows his eyes and, with the best poker face he can muster, gently pats his ass.
Max bursts out laughing, feeling his finger tap his phone screen. "Oh fuck!" It's difficult to get out while laughing, but he manages. He's still laughing by the time he manages to press record again. "Shit, dude. I didn't mean to stop recording."
Richie walks over to him, a smile still on his face as well. "You should still post that, it's hilarious."
"Yeah, okay." Max says, watching as Richie stands in front of him. They stare at each other for a moment before Richie looks down and sees that Max is still recording. He snorts slightly and Max feels warmth.
"Are you seriously staring at me while still recording?"
Max stops the recording again before placing his hands on Richie's sides and pulling him so he's stood between his knees. Richie shakes his head with a fond smile and puts his hands on Max's shoulders. He lowers his head to press their foreheads together as they look at one another. Richie kisses Max's nose before pulling away, grinning at him.
"Food?" He asks.
Max groans, flopping back on the couch. He throws his hands up slightly. "Sure!" He gives Richie a look that said 'look at what you're doing to me'. Richie's following grin was more than proof that he knew exactly what he was doing.
Max quickly edits the two videos they had just recorded before also heading into the kitchen.
Richie was stood leaning against the side, eating an apple. Max didn't know where he'd got it - he didn't even know he had fruit in the house. Max pulled out his phone as Richie threw the core into the trash, resuming leaning against the counter with his arms crossed against his chest.
"We need to give you a name. I can't just keep calling you Company."
Richie silently laughs. "I don't know. I think anything I would come up with would make it too obvious who I am. And that's not the aim of this is it?" He tilts his head and raises a brow.
Max hums. "I could call you..." His mind goes blank before he gets an idea. "Babe."
Richie doesn't do anything. He just stands, staring at Max with a raised brow. He lets Max slowly regret his decision. Max doubles down. "Okay, fine. How about... Mine?" He winks, a smirk on his face. Richie somehow looks even more disappointed in him and picks up the nearest object to him - a roll of kitchen paper - and throws it at Max's head. It missed by a small way off.
"You're an asshole." A smile grew on Richie's face as he chuckled, shaking his head. Max bent and picked up the roll of paper to show to the camera.
"Did you really just throw a roll of kitchen paper at me?"
Richie reached beside him to open a drawer that contained miscellaneous baking crockery. He lifted a rolling pin. "There's more where that came from, so don't try me."
Max stopped the recording and laughed as Richie slowly lowered the rolling pin back into the drawer.
...
The pair were laying on the couch, scrolling through their phones as Max saw the comments containing the name "Spoon". Then he watched the video he didn't post. Richie started laughing and turning his head so his face was hidden in Max's chest. Max sighed, shaking his head with a smile.
Richie started swatting at Max's hand gently. "Wait, start it, they'll go insane for this." He grinned up at Max who rolled his eyes but complied. As the recording started, Richie got more comfortable laying on top of Max and asked, "have you even told them what this is for, yet?"
Max laughed, shaking his head and wrapping his free arm around Richie. "No. It's more fun to watch them be idiots while we know what's happening." He pressed his face into Richie's hair and sighed slightly. Richie chuckles softly, nodding in agreement. "Why did you pick spoon for your name though? Of all the things? You could have at least had some fun with it. Make it a clue or something."
"How do you know it's not a clue?" Richie tilted his head up to look at Max with a smile that made warmth fill him again. "I could have some deep history with spoons and you'll never know. Now that's what I call being a bad boyfriend." Richie laughs at his own poorly emphasised insult.
Max mock gasps, playing along. "I'm the bad boyfriend? No, you're the bad boyfriend." Richie reaches up and covers Max's mouth, grinning wide.
"No! It's too early for those details yet!"
"Too early?!" Max grins from under Richie's hand, tightening his hold on Richie's side. "You were the one that mentioned it first!" He starts to slightly tickle Richie's side, who bursts out into laughter.
Somewhere in the scuffle, the recording is stopped and the both of them are smiling at it when they watch it back to edit Richie's audio and appearance out.
...
Richie is sat on the side when Max walks back in, filming. The day has been doing what it was meant to, and was relieving a lot of Max's stress about the moving situation.
Richie was laughing at his phone.
"What're you laughing at?" Max asks, vaguely interested.
"Just something I read. Here, don't show them." Richie gestures to the phone in Max's hand as Max stands against the counter beside Richie.
Richie's phone displayed a group chat conversation between him and his friends - and Stephanie Lauter apparently - where Ruth had complained that she wasn't getting a response by "spoon" despite being in the same group chat as him. It was kind of funny. Max couldn't help the laugh that escaped him at the irony of it.
A moment passes and Max turns to Richie, hushing his voice so the mic on his phone wouldn't pick it up. "Is Paul almost ready for us to move in?"
Richie looks at his phone and nods slightly after a moment. "He says that he'll be ready around 4." Max hums, absently stopping the video as he slumps sideways into Richie, who wraps an arm around his shoulders. "We're getting you out of here, okay?"
Max inhales and nods, lifting his phone to his line of sight but not moving from where he was resting against Richie's side. He began to edit the video.
...
Max was, again, pacing in the living room. He didn't know exactly where Richie was. Probably checking they'd gotten everything from the other rooms. Max pressed record on his phone, starting his little speech he'd been working around his head for a short while.
"Spoon isn't here." The name still felt foreign on his tongue, looking at the camera dead on. "I still think that's a stupid fucking name, by the way." He looks back at his living room. It looks empty without his belongings in it. Even though he was always told he shouldn't leave his shit everywhere, he had preferred that to this stock photo-esque room. "They're handling something in the other room." He waved his hand in the air. "Just wanted to say that like. You know all of those times in assemblies where they tell you all sorts of bullshit about seizing the opportunity as soon as you can and you're just sat there like 'this is bullshit' because it is? Well. Turns out it's not. This is one of those times. And recording it all is supposed to be a fun way of documenting it, with the reveal at the end for, again, fun." Max didn't know when he'd stopped walking around the room. But he knew he was staring at Richie as he was paused in the doorframe to the room. "This opportunity wasn't ever going to arrive again."
Richie rushed towards him, knocking his hand and accidentally making him drop the camera. Arms wrapped around his waist as he reciprocated the hug. Holding tightly onto one another, the pair stood in the void living room just existing for a moment.
Once they parted, Max picked his phone up again and they cut most of the footage of them hugging from the end.
"You can leave that frame in." Richie had said, regarding the final frame of the video, the one where he was just coming in to hug Max. Max nodded his agreement.
...
Snickering before he got a notification was what had tuned Max back into what was happening. He and Richie had just been killing time procrastinating on the last bit of packing they needed to do by hanging out in the living room. And when Max received the notification that he'd posted something, when he knew he hadn't, he knew something was up.
Richie had somehow gained access to his account and had posted a photo of him on the couch. Max wasn't certain how Richie had managed to get the image to look so blurry, but he had. Max looked across the room at Richie, who was laughing into his hand.
Max retaliated by taking a photo of Richie's hand, covering the very obviously anime phone case with a scribble, and posting it. He didn't stop watching Richie, even as Richie took another photo of what was bound to be a photo of him looking unimpressed. This was confirmed when he received the post notification again. The stupid pun that had been made into the caption mad him sigh and hold back a smile.
He looked over at Richie. "Really?"
Richie just grins with all his teeth, eyes closing at the size of it.
Max melts a little bit more inside.
...
Okay so maybe telling certified nerd - not prude - Richie that he didn't understand why Richie was so enthusiastic about Minecraft music wasn't the best idea.
"No, I have seen you play Minecraft, Max. What have you been listening to while playing it?" Richie was pacing around in the kitchen.
"I don't know? Nothing?" Max furrowed his brows, smiling. "Why is this a big deal?"
"It's a big deal because you haven't experienced the full Minecraft experience!" He threw his hands up in exasperation. "I'm putting Mice on Venus on. You're missing out on a major life experience."
Max discretely got his phone out and starts recording, it's just pointed at the wall.
"And clearly you don't understand the importance of the music in Minecraft because there's so much atmosphere that comes from the music alone." Richie drops his phone to the counter and sighs. Max flips the camera view so it's pointed at himself, showing how much he's smiling at Richie's ranting. "I mean. I can't believe you played Minecraft - which I appreciate, don't get me wrong-" Richie nods slightly at Max, "but without music? Really? You're missing the inherent nostalgia factor that comes with playing it with music. You never forget the first time this song comes on naturally while you're playing."
Max doesn't say anything at the pause he's clearly supposed to. He feels his smile widen as he raises his brows slightly. Richie spots the phone, his own face erupting into a smile as he does.
"Are you recording this, you dick?" Max laughs at the affronted amusement that Richie couldn't hide. Max pushes the camera against his shoulder, knowing that it couldn't see any of what he was doing now. Richie approaches him, shaking his head. "What am I going to do with you?"
Max hums, his hand settling on Richie's hip as he gets closer. "I could think of so many things. But the camera is still on."
Without even a second passing, Richie takes the camera from Max and stops the recording, placing the phone face down on the counter beside them. Max was laughing slightly at the immediate action taken, ducking his head to Richie's level and pulling him closer. Richie's arms landed themselves on Max's shoulders and they spend a moment like that. Hesitation at being in his dad's house doing any of this settles in Max's stomach but it melts just as quickly as any tension as their lips meet.
They eventually part, and Richie pats the back of Max's neck gently. His voice has hushed subconciously as he whispers, "You should tell me about those things later." He smiles as he gently pulls away before clearing his throat.
Max readjusts his posture, chuckling slightly.
...
It was probably the lack of blood in his brain that had made Max suggest that they save the time on censoring Richie's body by making him wear Max's clothes. But, Richie had agreed. So he wasn't about to punch a gift horse in the mouth. Instead he was going to be stupid about it.
He set up the camera against a desk lamp he never used and pressed record, standing next to Richie who already looked done with the whole ordeal.
"Welcome to finding Spoon clothes so h- they don't have to blob out their entire body and instead just their face." Max hoped the panic at messing up didn't show.
"Alright, asshole. I agreed to this. You don't need to be an idiot about it." Richie rolled his eyes, smiling at Max.
"Final product will be posted separately." he walks over to the phone and stops the recording just as Richie sits down on the bed.
"This is going to be an awful idea, you know?" When Max looked over, Richie was smiling at him. "I mean. All of these are going to be way too big on me." Richie laughed slightly and shook his head.
Max smiled back. "Well, we don't have to post it." He shook his phone slightly. "Nobody has to know." Richie blinked and leaned back.
"Fine, we'll go through with it."
Finding a shirt was the easy part. Finding jeans that wouldn't immediately fall off of Richie was the harder part. They eventually settled on a pair that were a few years old along with the aid of a belt.
Stood in the bathroom, Richie looked at himself in the mirror and Max looked at Richie. Richie turned to Max, humming slightly. He placed his hands on Max's neck and slowly tipped his fingers under the fabric of the letterman that Max was wearing. He didn't break eye contact or even crack a smile as his hands trailed to Max's shoulders under the item of clothing.
Max felt the air grow thick.
Richie began to smile as he removed the Letterman. He then put it on and bit his tongue as he smirked triumphantly. Max took a moment to process what had just happened before groaning and rubbing his hand against his face that he knew wasn't hiding anything. Richie looked again in the mirror.
"Much better." He grinned at Max's reflection.
...
Max was sat on his bed, watching Richie move around his bedroom, picking up items to ask if they would be staying or going with them. Max answered each of the questions as they came up.
Max watched as Richie answered a text.
"We've got like. 3 hours left. And you're sat doing nothing. I mean, Paul is going to be here soon, and we don't want to be halfway done with the packing." Richie complains, and Max looks proud of himself before stopping the recording, getting off of the bed to stand by Richie, gently holding his face.
"We're going to be fine. I mean, look around, Rich." Max gestured around them at the empty room, Richie followed the gesture, looking around the nearly cleared room. "Does that look like it needs any more packing?"
Richie shook his head slowly.
"There you go, then. We won't be halfway through anything because we're already done, okay?" Max smiled at him. "Relax." He gently rubbed Richie's upper arms.
...
Richie looked over to Max from where they were sat on the couch, bags at their feet. "Paul says he can pick us up early since we're ready."
Max hesitated a moment before nodding and smiling. "Sure. Let me just." he shook his phone slightly to demonstrate. He paused before he hit record, however. "You intentionally pushed it closer to now, didn't you?"
Richie turned his face away, chuckling. "You said we were all packed to go!"
Max laughed a little, which set Richie off. "Whatever." He pressed record. "Since Spoon can't help themselves." He turned the camera around to show Richie, laughing his ass off opposite him. "We have to speed this thing up a little bit." returning it to face himself, max continues. "See you next time."
They edit the video and post it in just enough time for Paul to get there,
...
Richie is watching his phone with a smile as they drive to beanies. He turns the screen to Max to show him the exchange between Stephanie and Ruth in the group chat. Max laughs a little but pauses.
"Does Steph actually know?"
Richie looks at him with raised eyebrows and a smile. "She guessed it."
Max pauses a minute to be impressed by her ability to guess what's going on.
Once they reach the coffee shop, Paul parks and looks back. "Do you boys want anything?"
They both shake their head, and Richie adds "no offence, Paul, but the only reason we're here is to watch you make a fool of yourself in front of that barista in there." Richie smiles to top it off and Paul reaches back to flick him gently on the forehead.
"Okay, that's enough. I'll be back shortly."
Paul leaves and enters the small coffee shop as Richie and Max sit in the back of Paul's car. Max was honestly still trying to process that he was even out of that house. He didn't ever have to go back.
He extended and clenched his fingers slowly. Richie leaned across and intertwined the one closest with his own. They both kept silent. Richie's thumb brushed gently across the back of Max's hand.
...
He'd been in Richie's house for ten minutes and he had already lost his phone. He called, "Rich? Have you seen my phone?"
"I've got it, bathroom."
Max blinked but then went over, walking into the bathroom to see Richie facing the mirror with the camera pointed at it too. Despite having the option to change back into his clothes, Richie is still in his shirt and letterman. Max holds back a small smile at that. He walks behind him, wrapping his arms around his waist and placing his chin on his head. A moment passes before he looks Richie's reflection in the mirror.
"Are you alright?"
At that, Richie stops recording, turns around and pulls Max down into a kiss. Max holds onto him through it, confusion still simmering in his head but this was good too.
Richie pulls away after a moment. His hands balling into fists against Max's shoulders. "You're such an idiot. I should be asking you if you're okay." Max pulls Richie closer.
"Of course I'm okay. I'm here now." Richie hugs him tightly and Max reciprocates the hold.
"Good. Good. Okay. Okay." Richie nods, repeating the word 'okay' a few more times before calming down. He pulls away only slightly, to smile up at Max.
He finds himself smiling back. "You back with us?"
Richie chuckles, but nods. "Yeah, sorry."
Max just shakes his head. "Don't worry about it. Lets upload that and go and lay down." He nods towards his phone. Richie nods and they separate again in order to go and lay down.
...
Richie is half asleep on his chest when Max decides he's going to post the reveal post. With his free hand, he carefully runs his fingers through Richie's hair and presses record. He smiles at the thought of this finally being out there.
"This is it, you ready?"
Richie, to his credit, catches on pretty quickly as to what's happening. He does, however groan and try to press his face further into Max. "Do we have to do this now? We just got in."
Max thinks about the reactions of their peers and laughs slightly. "I think your friends would kill me if the reveal happened any later. Specifically Steph." Max manoeuvres the camera so it can see Richie. He looks up and gives a cheeky grin before Max stops recording.
They post it.