Archive of Our Own ^beta

Max had a tendency to talk to himself when he was alone. It was an anxious habit, and one he was routinely mocked for whenever he was caught in the act, but he couldn't stop doing it. Switching to whistling was a defense mechanism to prevent Kinga from eavesdropping on his outer inner monologue. It sounded nice, and it kept most people from listening in on him.

Sure, Synthia knew what he was whistling about, but she mostly didn't bully him because he'd been nice to her while she was still dumb. Once in a while she'd whistle back some commentary on his thoughts, but her accent was so strong that Max only knew what she was on about half the time anyways.

Jonah and the bots could understand him too, but Max tried not to whistle or to talk to himself where they could see any more. It worked less well when they were actually on Moon 13 and Max was going about his usual business, wandering past the vault occasionally to peek in on Jonah working just because he was so tall and interesting to watch when he was all stretched out reaching above his head to work on the film containment unit. Absentmindedly, he let out a low whistle. Jonah dropped the wrench he'd been working with onto the floor with a loud clang and whipped around to stare wide-eyed at Max.

"Really?" he asked, and Max blinked. What had he even said? "Nice ass, really?"

"I mean, it's the truth," Max said, flushing bright pink instantly. "Sorry, I didn't mean to— actually say that out loud."

"Thanks, I guess," Jonah said, looking more confused than anything. He bent over to pick up the wrench and Max bit his lip to prevent himself from making another sound and continued on his way.

"Way to go, Romeo," Synthia snickered as he walked past her. "Don't let Kinga catch you complimenting anyone but her." That was a little unfair, Max thought, because he did spend a lot of time complimenting Kinga already, and just because he gave someone a compliment didn't mean he actually wanted to do anything with them. Complimenting people was a nice thing to do and Max liked to boost morale on Moon 13 by pointing out when people did a thing well.

...but checking out the test subject's butt didn't exactly qualify as pointing out a thing done well. Or a thing he should ever have revealed to anyone, at any time, for any reason. Not that he was in denial about anything. Max was more or less comfortable with his sexuality and sense of aesthetics and... whatever. Jonah was nice to look at. It wasn't a crime to notice. It was dumb to make anyone aware that he noticed, though.

The only way to keep himself from either talking or whistling was to bite his lip. He walked around like that for a few minutes and then crossed paths with Kinga, who smirked at him.

"What are you thinking about?"

"Uh, nothing, not really, not much of anything," Max said awkwardly, and her smirk intensified.

"Are you sure? Cause you tend to do that when you want to be kissed."

"I do?"

"Yeah. You're pretty blatant about it. 'Hey, look at my mouth, now do something about it.' Not that I mind." She pulled him in with a finger hooked into the placket of his coat and gave him a quick smooch.

God, he was never going to get tired of that. He'd spent so long mooning after her that her willingly kissing him felt more like a hallucination than like real life. She gave his coat a tug to put it back into order and... smiled at him. Not a smirk. Just a normal, happy smile, like anyone would give their significant other.

"Where were you going?" he asked, and she nodded in the direction he'd come from.

"Going to check on Jonah's work. Wanna come?"

"Uh, no, I'm going to— I'm going to go look in on Ardy."

"Really? He's fine. He's busy with his stupid dog."

"Actually, Bonesy is pretty intelligent for a dog with the gift of speech. He's not as inane as you'd figure a dog would be."

"If you say so," Kinga said, rolling her eyes. "Fine, tell him to double check the last four film tanks, I don't want anything spoiling the Gauntlet." She didn't do the hand thing when she was just talking to him, which was almost disappointing, because he thought it was very funny when she did it.

"I'll pass the word along."

"Good. Be back up here to start the next movie in a few minutes, okay? We're on a schedule here."

"Yeah, of course, sure thing." She nodded and walked off, and for a second he just watched her go, that same absentminded whistle of admiration he'd aimed at Jonah slipping out again. She stopped walking and looked over her shoulder.

"What was that?"

"You're beautiful," Max said with nothing but sincerity in his voice, and she blew a kiss at him and went on her way. That was... strategically necessary. If he wanted to tell her she had a nice ass, and boy did she ever, he'd do it behind closed doors. But if he wanted to keep his word, he had to hustle down to Moon 14 and back upstairs pretty quickly, and... try not to talk to himself while he was speed-walking.