Timed to a week after V-Day

[minimumbullshit]

The worst part?

He remembered every second of it. Every moment, feeling this blissful, shallow delight at the very thought of Max Carrigan. The warmth. The impossible certainty that they were meant to be together forever. Hell, he'd almost bought a ring. Instead, he'd seared the bastard's name into his goddamn flesh.

At least he hadn't had it tattooed onto his ass.

Instead, it followed the line of his collar bone, in delicate, black script. Why he'd fucking put it there, where the edge of it peaked from under the collar of his shirts, almost impossible to explain away, he didn't have the first fucking clue. But there it was, permanently.

Or for a few weeks, when he started the rounds of exorbitantly priced laser treatments to have it removed.

The first few days afterward, when it was still tender and healing, he'd been able to hide it under a bandage. He'd blamed it on a freaked accident at work, and Max, being Max and wrapped up in his own shit, hadn't asked many questions.

Nearly a week after Valentine's Day, and the lie just seemed pointless.

He'd come home from work and ducked upstairs for a shower. When he came down, towel slung low on his hips, he was peeling at the curling edges of the tape holding the damp bandage over the evidence of his fucking humiliation.

Okay, maybe he was exaggerating, but the goddamn i was dotted with a heart.

"So," he said, approaching Max with a stern look, "Something fucking roofied me on fucking Valentine's Day." He peeled back the bandage. "And you're not going to say a fucking word about it."

Comments

[silverhammer]

Max is most of the way through making a sandwich when Brian walks downstairs, and he's thinking that he might even be used to the weird, fancy mustard that Brian insists they keep in the apartment. If it were up to him, he'd be fine with peanut butter and jelly, but as it is, Brian spends more on the expensive crap than his parents ever did back in Brookline.

He doesn't look up at the sound of footsteps, but does when Brian actually starts to speak, just in time to see him start to pull off the bandage from that accident he had at work the week before.

At first, Max isn't sure what he's seeing. What he expects is a healing over cut or burn or something underneath the bandage, not his own name etched into Brian's skin.

There's a long moment where Max just looks at it, not sure how to react, but just a moment.

"Does this mean you don't wanna see the matching one I got on my ass?" he says, pointing in Brian's direction with the butter knife in his hand, and he sputters out a laugh.

[minimumbullshit]

"Funny," Brian said, with mocking sincerity, and leaned across the counter, his hand clamping around Max's wrist.

Affecting a grin, his eyes wide and adoring, he said, "Honey, if yours matches, then it must be fate."

He smirked.

"Come on, let's see it."

He knew there wasn't any fucking tattoo. This humiliation was all his own.

[silverhammer]

Max knows that Brian's counting on him to drop it there. Because he obviously doesn't have a tattoo of Brian's name on his ass, and they both know it. But that's never really been Max's style.

With a small shrug, Max doesn't hesitate before he turns around and drops both his pants and underwear all at once.

"Two N's in 'Kinney,' right?" he asks, waving his bare and untattooed, ass back and forth a few times for good measure.