#larks writes

Max felt the phone buzz against his leg. He flipped it over discreetly to see who was calling him. He answered immediately, “Hallo. Just one second.” He pressed the phone to his chest and then turned to Kelly. “It’s my manager, I need to take this.” 

She smiled at him gently, “Of course. Do you want to do it out here?”

Max shook his head, “No, no. You keep watching the movie. I’ll go in the other room.” She lifted her head off his shoulder so that he could get up from the couch. He smiled at her and tried not to hurry too noticeably to their bedroom. 

He lifted the phone from his chest back to his ear. “Okay. I am here. Sorry about that.”

“Are you going to start calling me Raymond now?” The Australian accent was thicker than it had been when Daniel had been in the paddock. It curled around Max’s ear and settled in his bones. 

“No, of course not. But. You know.” Max shrugged even though Daniel could not see him. 

Daniel laughed and Max felt the warmth of it through the phone. “I’m going to get a complex if you treat me like the other woman before we’ve even kissed.”

Max knew it was just the way Daniel had said it. That it was a joke. His heart still started to race at the thought of kissing Daniel. Max shook himself, trying to refocus. “If you were the other woman, I certainly would not call you Raymond. Now, why did you call? I thought you said that you were going to be at your parents’ today.”

“I am.” Daniel left the sentence floating there without an end. As if that made any sense at all. 

“Are you okay?” Max couldn’t stop the question from spilling out. There was something in Daniel’s voice that set him on edge. Made him think of dark eye bags and too prominent ribs. “Please, Daniel, tell me.”

He heard Daniel take a deep breath on the other end of the line. “Oh, Max. Maxy, Maxy, Max. I’m okay. Sometimes I just.” He let this sentence dangle, too. 

“Daniel?” Max prompted. 

“Sometimes I just really wish that you were here in Perth with me. There are things I don’t want to tell you. I just want you to be here with me for them.” Max could hear Daniel’s smile; but it was one of the small, wistful ones. 

Max expected Daniel to let go of him but he didn’t. Instead, Daniel took Max’s hand, pulling Max along. Max let his eyes wander around the house. He had never been to Daniel’s farm before. It was cozy. Cozier than Daniel’s apartment in Monaco had been. There was framed kid-art all along the walls. On many of them, Max couldn’t make out which child had done them; the name becoming illegible after the first shaky I S. 

Daniel stopped and Max nearly crashed into his back. “Whoa there, Max. You okay?” Daniel laughed, crinkly-eyed and wonderful. Max forgot how to speak for a second. Daniel’s smile softened until he just looked fond. “Come on, get in and get your kit off.”

Max dropped Daniel’s hand and stepped into the bathroom. The walls were a soft blue. There was a cartoon drawing of a fish over the toilet. Max saw himself in the mirror, travel stained and bleary-eyed. All of a sudden, the multiple flights and the drive all caught up to him and he felt a little dizzy. He turned to look at Daniel, “Maybe I am not so gross. Maybe we could just go to sleep now?”

Daniel shook his head and stepped into the bathroom as well. “No, you’re real gross. But I’ll help you?” He reached out, hooking a finger in the sleeve of Max’s t-shirt. “You’ll feel better once we get you under the water.” 

Daniel had noticed Max’s blush. Of course he had - Max knew he’d flushed all the way down to his chest. “Well. That is. It’s not the style.” He looked away from Daniel’s face before he continued. “People want statues in the style of the antiquity and they did not give the statues. Well. It’s bad for the sculpture if it’s too.” He got impossibly redder. “Big. It could, of course, more easily get knocked off. Broken.”

Max chanced a glance at Daniel. He was nodding agreeably. “Sure, sure. Still doesn’t answer why I am not in the style of antiquity. Surely my buyer didn’t request something that would be so easily broken.” He grinned at Max, teasing. 

Max turned away from Daniel completely. He brushed some stone dust off the nearest workbench. “There is no buyer. Not for you.”

He heard Daniel hum in acknowledgment. “So why did you carve me, Max? I heard you talking. You can’t afford to just waste a piece of marble on a whim.”

Max whirled back around, a tightness in his chest. Hurt. “You’re not a whim. I saw you.”

Daniel raised his eyebrows. One lifted higher than the other. “Saw me?” Max nodded once, sharp. “Where?”

“In the marble, Daniel. I got the block and I could. I could see you in it. I didn’t design you. Not really. You were already there. I just had to get to you.”

Daniel stepped lightly across the room until he was right in Max’s space. He stepped so close that he was breathing the same air as Max. “And now that you have?” Max blinked at him in confusion. “Now that you’ve gotten to me?”

He pressed against Max’s front. A long line of heat. Daniel was so warm for someone who had started out as marble. Max swayed into it - him. Pressing his own body forward into Daniel’s. 

“Well, you are your own person, of course. You could do anything. Go anywhere.” The final words were hardly more than a breath. Max could feel Daniel’s exhales against his lips. 

Daniel rolled his hips forward. He was hard. Max was not all that surprised to notice that he was as well. Daniel leaned in to speak against Max’s lips. Max felt the softness of them as they formed the words. “And if I want to stay right here?”

Max stood in front of the open window, feeling the late morning air on his face. The coffee maker dripped quietly to his left. He closed his eyes and just felt the sun falling on his face. He smiled when he felt the hands grab his waist. “Good morning.”

The hands shifted to circle around Max. A line of still-sleep-warm heat pressed against his back and he felt the scratch of two-day-old scruff on his neck when Daniel pressed a kiss there. Daniel’s voice rumbled, still rough with sleep. “Good morning, baby. Whatcha doin’?”

basically, i put every day that had a little writing into a spinner wheel to pick which day to go from and then rolled two d20s to get how much time i would write for

Over the next few days, he assumed that’s what she was listening to in the apartment. Over and over. But he couldn’t fault her for that because he could get the same way. It wasn’t a big deal. 

Then he had a phone call with Max. It was just about coordinating flights and taxis and boring shit so it didn’t matter that T. Swift was loud in the background. 

I love you, it’s ruining my life. 

y’all if i was a better writer,,,, lots of vibes, lots of self-reflection and growth, grief at losing the best relationship of your life because you didn’t know that’s what it was cut off at the knees because you get them back, long walks together in the cold, long walks alone in the cold, long walks alone in the warmth of spring and the heat of summer, long walks together in the cooling days of fall