Chapter Text
From the moment the Bankman twins began to talk, Mer was always the one who spoke first.
Adults were endlessly charmed by him, poised and confident as he was in any interaction, calm during conflict to a point just shy of psychopathy. And although back then they were still physically indistinguishable, when their mother would indulge herself by dressing them alike, people could instantly tell them apart by their demeanor. Merrill was the gregarious one and Maxwell the shy one, yin and yang, inseparable by circumstance, by choice, and also by necessity. Having Mer as the spokesman of the operation freed Max up to dedicate his mind to the relentless pursuit of knowledge, unencumbered, and allowed his brother’s desire to be the center of attention to be fed without guilt. As with any codependent relationship, however, its comforts came at a price. Even all these years later, Max often glances instinctively to his left when at a loss for words.
But Mer isn’t here to speak for him now. Max, unmoored, unmarried and childless at 46, is entirely alone.
And it’s hard to know what to do on your own, when you spend the first seventeen years of your life as part of an inextricable duo, as the spontaneously autonomous half of what was meant to be a single person. Relentless work had been a fair distraction, but had it made him whole? His brother has managed to find fulfillment, the wife and the kids and the white picket fence, by not doing any of that, so why is Max still floundering?
He’d wondered if the cells that were multiplying in Avery’s uterus might cleave suddenly, even though he knows that scientifically there is no genetic basis for such a thing, that identical twins are a random anomaly. Still, a baby conceived within the love shared by three individuals seemed magical enough that anything might be possible, and so he had let himself get lost in the fantasy. It seemed harmless enough, a soothing balm during a confusing time.
Now he knows that there is no baby, no magical triptic, just three people in a mess who can’t communicate. Just Max alone with his persistent survivors guilt, trying and failing to adopt a carefree lifestyle while the world burns and its inhabitants kill one another in service to petty grievances and false gods. No floating den of hedonism can distract him forever, can make him truly forget.
He longs for Avery, for the scent and that taste of her, even though she’s made it extremely clear that she doesn’t know what, or who, she wants. He longs for Tristan too, for the confident flexing of young biceps and the coy batting of long lashes and the easy laugh that reminds him not to take everything so goddamn seriously all the time. Whenever the three of them put their heads together to solve a problem, Max feels whole again for the first time since childhood, like there’s nothing in life that a quick glance to his left can’t embolden him to conquer. And when they’d taken their partnership beyond the boundaries of professionalism and friendship, the synergy had been immediate and overwhelming. Max had never witnessed a woman come so hard, had never felt so sexually intimate with another man, had never known that anything like that was possible. And they were going to have a baby, a human life to protect and nurture. In his heart he’d believed it was his, but it had been theirs too. They would face up to this challenge and walk this unfamiliar road together, side by side.
He pours himself three fingers of expensive scotch and sits on his cabin’s small balcony, silently regarding the lights of Puerto Vallarta in the distance. They’ll have the day to themselves tomorrow while the passengers disembark, and he plans to talk to Avery and Tristan while they do their weekly inventory and restocking. They’ve been avoiding one another since Avery’s heartbreaking admission in the hot tub, but he can’t stop thinking about them.
Music from the leisure deck’s weekly salsa dancing lesson drifts down, barely audible over the low drone of the ship’s engines and the distant clanging of channel markers as they approach land. Ice brushing his lips as he tilts the glass skyward, Max deposits his uniform in the laundry chute and climbs into bed.
Sometime within the inky, plum-hued pre-dawn, an arm snakes across Max’s waist, rousing him from dreamless repose. “Tell me a boring story,” she whispers in his ear, “I can’t sleep.”
Rather than point out that he’s now in a similar situation, he instead savors the softness of Avery’s skin where it presses against his back. He’s wearing only boxers and can tell that she’s naked from the waist up as well, the stiff pebbles of her nipples pressing into his shoulder blades. He’s instantly, embarrassingly hard.
“When Mer and I were fifteen,” he begins, his voice still thick from slumber, “our father purchased a car, a fixer-upper, from an elderly woman down the street who’d had her license revoked for the serial running of stoplights. I can’t remember her name, but we called her Mrs. Magoo because she had glasses like coke bottles and was unmitigated hell on wheels.”
Avery sighs and snuggles closer, pushing her right thigh between his legs and exerting pressure against his already aching balls. Attempting to ignore the sensation, he continues.
“It was a 1980 Plymouth Reliant, white with maroon velour interior, no air conditioning, lap belts and 45,000 miles on the odometer. Our mother called her Cupcake, because she reminded her of red velvet cake with cream cheese icing. Dad taught us to drive in that car, and eventually sold her to us for $500 dollars which we paid off in chores. She lasted until just after Mer and Danielle's wedding.”
“Mmmm. Where did you guys go in her?” Avery’s slim fingers play gently with the curly hair on his chest, and as his mind awakens more fully, he wonders what exactly she’s doing. It’s been weeks since she touched him like this.
"We went everywhere you could imagine two suburban teenagers might go. The lake, the Dairy Dream, the drive-in movie theater. Sometimes we’d just cruise up and down Main Street with the windows open, blasting Metallica or Nirvana. We were stereotypical 90s kids.”
“How very all-American,” her voice is drowsy, soft and melodic. He wants to kiss her so badly that the pain is a physical ache.
His mind recalls Mer climbing through the second story window of their shared bedroom after midnight on their seventeenth birthday, giddy and manic after going parking at the quarry with a popular cheerleader.
“What’s it like?” Max asks, watching the outline of his brother in the dark as he sheds his clothes and shoes in an untidy pile. He has yet to go on a date, tongue tied as he is when confronted by the fairer sex. Mer has already had two girlfriends, and Max is desperate to catch up.
“If you lick their pussy just right, they go crazy when they come. It’s fucking unbelievable.” Mer’s eyes shine brightly in the light reflected from the nearby street lamp, grinning as he whispers across the gap between their narrow beds. “You have to make sure a girl comes at least once before you fuck, because they don’t usually get there just from sex. That only happens in the movies.”
Studious by nature, Max carefully commits this and all of his brother’s lessons to memory. He promises himself that when he finally falls in love, he’ll make sure to be the most romantic boyfriend, the most skilled at oral, the most attentive during sex, the most loyal and trustworthy companion that any woman could want. He looks forward with a combination of youthful optimism and teenage impatience, to the day when it might be he and Eileen MacLeod from AP calculus making out in Cupcake’s luxurious back seat.
But it doesn’t end up happening like that. Not at all.
“I bet you guys were hot shit back then.” The soft purr of Avery’s voice pulls him from the memory, and he’s suddenly aware that her right hand has traveled from his chest down to his naval, fingers resting lightly just above the waistband of his shorts. Her breathing is shallow and rapid against his back. Fuck .
Unable to stop himself, he rolls over to find her completely, deliciously naked and gazing at him with undisguised need. Wordlessly, he slides his palms along her slim forearms and laces his fingers through hers, pinning her hands above her head before kissing her helplessly. Her mouth opens against his, their tongues wrestling in frantic relief, and he feels that familiar fire building between them, radiating and pulsing from all points of contact, threatening to engulf him entirely. He’s stopped caring why she’s here, why she let herself into his room with the key code that he never changed and she never forgot. The only thing that remotely matters is the way that her hips buck against him in frustration as he keeps her arms trapped in the gentle vice of hands twice the size of her own. When she wraps her legs around him and presses the heat of her core against his throbbing arousal, he moans into her panting mouth.
“I want you,” she whispers, eyes fluttering open to meet his gaze, “I need you inside me, now .”
So bossy. It’s one of the things that he loves about her, but he’s not going to acquiesce to her demands so quickly. Not when he’s spent weeks thinking about what he’s going to do to her if he has another chance. She’ll just have to be patient.
Releasing her hands, he trails hot, open-mouthed kisses down her neck and across her collar bone, tasting and smelling the potent elixir of vanilla sugar, lemon verbena and salty sweat that are unique and arousing and very specifically her. Avery, once freed, is instantly tugging at the waistband of her boxers, unsubtle in her desire to feel all of him. He slaps her hands away gently and moves lower before she can renew her attempts, bringing all but the crown of his head out of her reach as he kisses his way down her smooth stomach toward his intended destination. He takes his time getting there, and she groans with impatient delight as she slips her fingers into the messy curls of his sleep-tousled hair.
When he reaches the indent of her cute belly button, he slides his palms down the curve of her lower back to cup her ass, sliding backward off the end of his bed as he pulls her to the edge. She lays back with a gentle moan as he trails his fingertips along the outsides of her thighs, propping them up on his broad shoulders and inhaling the sweet aroma of her perfect pink slit, already shining enticingly with her arousal. And although his intention was to tease her some more before getting down to it, he buries his face helplessly into her moist heat, desperate to taste her again.
“Oh baby, that feels sooo good,” Avery gasps as he reacquaints himself with the dual application of tongue and fingers that he knows will make her scream. How easy it is to be here again, worshipping her body.
He tries not to think about the way Tristan had groaned with pleasure when she took him into her mouth, Max buried deep and thrusting slowly as the three of them writhed in ecstasy. It has proven difficult to disentangle himself from the idea that Tristan should be here too, even though his rational mind rails against it.
Avery’s thighs press against the sides of his head, her low moans growing more high-pitched as she comes apart beneath his eager tongue. He’ll never get tired of the sound and feel of a woman coming, truly one of life’s most exquisite pleasures, and he carries her gently through the aftershocks until she pushes at his shoulder with the sole of her foot, sighing in satisfaction.
“Goddamn, I almost forgot how good you are at that,” she pants, as he sheds his boxers and climbs back up next to her. He swallows whatever she might have said next as his lips crash into hers with unmitigated need.
Nothing matters now, not the phantom pregnancy, not the threesome, not the admittedly problematic hierarchy of their professional relationship. He drags her gently back up the bed, never breaking the kiss, fumbling blindly in the his bedside table for one of the preposterously anchor-stamped, gold foil wrapped condoms from the infirmary’s ample stockpile. Avery is impatient, dexterous fingers stroking his cock and helping to sheathe it in latex, and suddenly she’s in his lap, sinking down onto him and surrounding him in her snug, wet heat. He cries out, hugging her to his chest and burying his face in her neck.
He wanted to take his time, but it’s simply not possible. Thighs burning with exertion and head fogged by lust, he ruts into her with animalistic fervor. She’s calling his name, nails digging into his back as he growls wantonly against her smooth skin. He was so close to orgasm the entire time he was going down on her that its only a matter of minutes before he’s grunting and pleading and spasming his release deep inside of her.
“Avery, Avery, oh fuck ,” he sobs, and she holds him close as he shudders and allows tears to mingle with the beads of sweat that trail down his cheeks and drip from his chin. Still entangled, they collapse into the crisp sheets. Through the window, the sky has shifted from indigo to azure, heralding the light of day.
“I love you,” he says, pivoting his head to the left to look into her eyes. To his surprise, She doesn’t look away.
“I love you too. I don’t know why I’ve never said that to you before. I don’t know why I can’t decide what I want.”
Max nods. He knows a thing or two about that particular phenomenon as well.
On their first and only date, Eileen MacLeod is beautiful and bespectacled in a vintage cotton dress, and Max opens the car door for her, trying his best to mimic his father’s old fashioned chivalry despite his shaking hands. Across from her in the cramped diner booth, he tries hard to focus on her words as she talks about the SATs and her new kitten and her little brother being an asshole. He pushes his slice of apple pie around on his plate until it’s mush, his fluttering stomach unable to accept solid or liquid. His coffee cools by his left hand, untouched.
The night doesn’t culminate in a makeout session on the red velux of Cupcake’s rear seat - it occurs to him much too late that none of Mer’s well-intended advice had included specific instructions about how one might instigate such an event. Eileen smiles sweetly as they exit the diner but confesses that she has a headache and a sore throat, perhaps the beginning of a spring cold. She does however kiss him on the lips when he drops her off, closed-mouth but lingering and clear in its intent, agreeing immediately to his offer of a second date. He walks into his house as if on air, bursting at the seams to tell his brother.
But there is no second date. A week later Eileen is in bed with mononucleosis, and a week after that Max is in the hospital with painfully swollen glands and extreme fatigue. Hemolytic anemia, the doctor tells his parents, a rare but serious complication of the disease. He spends the next four months in bed while his classmates move about freely, experiencing life without him. And although they had been inseparable since birth, Merrill moves on with them, to his own bedroom, to a steady girlfriend and a place in the starting lineup of the baseball team. Max, alone for the first time, feels restlessness and panic rooting themselves firmly behind his sternum.
With Avery in his arms, he thinks about riding shotgun in the Red Velvet Cupcake, brother to his left, windows down and the radio up. He thinks about the hospital stay that took that freedom from him, and the second one, years later, that nearly took his life. He thinks about how what you want and what you need can be at such extreme odds, when you feel insignificant and alone.
“I think,” he says quietly, cupping her face and smoothing the pads of his thumbs across her cheeks, “that it's time for you, me and Tristan to have a talk.”