Opened Eyes and Yellow Bellies

Now it was Jack's turn to be confused.

Those two words were not unfamiliar on Max's lips. A long time ago... the January of last year, actually... he had been asked a question that had required that response. "So, do you agree to be Ms Dyllan's lawful obligation?" Jack had been thoroughly humiliated throughout the entire ceremony, if it could even be called that, but they had gotten through it. Jack had never needed said it, sticking to a classic "yeah" and the whole thing had been done. Paperwork signed, jokes made, board games played, and two roommates had been married because their government told them too.

It was as simple and as complicated as that.

But he was saying those words again. And not to a question she had meant to pose. She had just been guessing the truth, the truth that did not take much to imagine. Max was a simple guy with simple tastes. He didn't even get too adventurous with the types of jams he put on his toast. She had spelled out just how dangerous it was for him to even marry her in the first place - it might have prevented them both from going to Azkaban, but it opened up a whole other can of worms that was just as frightening and just as uncomfortable. But he had agreed, because it was the decent thing to do.

Liking her was not the decent thing to do. It was the stupidest thing to do. And yet he was claiming to do it anyway.

So she must have heard incorrectly. Must have misunderstood, misinterpreted. She looked at him with raised eyebrows, drawn lips, confusion ruffling her brow. "What?"

Panic.

Complete panic. Overwhelming waves of panic. Max's heart was suddenly bouncing uncontrollably in his chest as he realized that he had just made a terrible, fatal mistake.

Abort! Abort! Abort!

But Max could not abort when he had been reduced to a statue, his throat becoming dry and tongue paralyzed in his mouth. He could only sit and reluctantly meet Jack's confused gaze that confirmed just how stupid he had been. Just how badly he must have misinterpreted her last words.

Every muscle in Max's body was telling him to run. He was already at the end of the bed - the door was barely ten feet away and bolting like a maniac now was preferable to whatever was coming by staying here. But in this moment he couldn't have moved out of his seat if his life depended on it. And because he couldn't move there really wasn't any choice but to try and formulate some response to the impossible question.

He hadn't meant to say that. In fact, until the words were already out of his mouth he hadn't known they were true. Max Morrison liked Jack Dyllan. Maybe even loved her. How incredibly cliché was that? To like your roommate.. It was so obvious, so stupid, so careless. Max certainly felt foolish. Though all of their late night talks when an accidental brush of her hand made his heart jump, the little post-it notes he had taken to leaving in her office when she was having a bad day, the Christmas presents that he spent embarrassing amounts of time thinking of.. He had been blind to himself.

And now he wanted to disappear. To fall through the floor or float into the air as a ghost because then he wouldn't have to be sitting here, staring at Jack, trying to speak with a tongue of lead.

"I - I'm sorry" His silence could have been eons or milliseconds long but now that it was broken his words came out quickly and choppily, no degree of eloquence preserved. "I do, mean - um, God I'm sorry" His hands had unclasped and one now nervously ran through his sloppy curls. This was a mess. There was no way around it. He had taken something that was already broken and smashed it with a hammer in an attempt to fix things. "I-I- just - I didn't mean that. I don't know what -. I'm sorry, I like you. Jack -"

He knew he needed to stop apologizing but it kept slipping out. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. For putting this on you when you don't want to hear it. For making an impossible situation even harder. For putting the final nail in the coffin of our family. "I'm sorry."

He definitely loved her.

Jack was staring hard at Max, and things were… oh gosh. They were beginning to make sense. And though the element of confusion was leaving, it was being replaced with a very heavy pounding in her chest and head. She felt like a molten hot liquid was filling up her ribcage, filling the gaps, enveloping her lungs and heart, and giving them all a very comforting, if slightly restricting, squeeze. Because she was starting to understand. She was starting to get it. She was starting to remember who she was, and who this was.

This wasn’t her husband. This wasn’t her roommate. This was her friend, Max Morrison, the man who she had let see her in pajamas, in an apron, in rubber gloves, in tears, in hysterics over horrible movies. The man she had stopped putting up a front for after he ripped her mask off at Eis. The first person to make he feel comfortable and safe and wanted since Nemo.

Nemo would always be her first love. There was no reneging on that, no invalidating that he was the one who taught her how to feel. But now she was learning that it was not just feeling. It was allowing herself to feel those feelings, and feel unashamed. It was about time that she could say how much someone meant to her and be brave enough to hold the sentiment up. No punch on the arm, no quick run upstairs to go and find an excuse to not look into the face she cared most about.

It had taken her twenty one years, but she finally understood what bravery was.

So she summoned all of it and reached out, grabbing Max’s hand before it could run through his hair again – it was a nervous habit of his. “It’s okay,” she assured him, lowering his hand.

Her eyes had that Jack tint in them. That bit of fire that was working hard to incinerate all of her fear and sadness, that made her look ready to laugh or burn down the city. She stared long and hard at Max, refusing to let herself chicken out this time. Because if anyone was silly enough to think Jack Dyllan was as brave enough as she claimed, it was the man before him. It was time she proved her mettle. And she leaned forward, placing her other hand on his cheek, and felt like her heart was about to leap out of her throat as she said, “I’m worse. I mean, I love you… So.”

She never did get a chance to kiss Nemo. She wasn’t going to risk that again. So, flustered and afraid that if she didn’t do it now it would not happen, she pressed her lips against the lips of Max Morrison.

She wasn't yelling. She hadn't stormed out. All she was doing was.. staring at him. He reached up to run his hand through his hair again but it was caught by Jack and lowered back to his lap all while she still stared at him. Why wasn't she yelling? He felt like an idiot and she was only making it worse with her silence. She needed to say something - at worst flatly telling him how stupid he was, at best making a joke and brushing it off to be ignored. But there she was, silent, holding his hand and making him want to vanish.

"It's okay." What? No, it wasn't okay. There was no way any of this could be okay. Max broke their eye contact, glancing down to where her hand still rested on top of his. When he looked back up there was something noticeably different about Jack's expression. It wasn't in her lips of eyebrows but rather her eyes, a look not dissimilar from what she had worn when heading off to protest the Ministry or about to scale a building. What-?

“I’m worse. I mean, I love you… So.” Her words hit him about the same time as her lips did.

If he had been paralyzed out of fear before it was out of shock now. Out of all of the reactions he had prepared for this one hadn't made the list. Max made no moves to hold her or kiss back, simply staring, eyes wide open, as his brain worked to process what was happening. After a few short moments the kiss broke apart leaving Max to stare down at Jack, their faces still dangerously close.

"Oh." He pulled away ever so slightly, the inch or two of air space giving him much needed room for his thoughts.

Jack Dyllan had just kissed him. Afraid of what might come out of his mouth if he tried to speak, Max simply twisted his hand around under hers to slide their fingers so they interlocked together.

He swallowed and mumbled "Okay." with only the slightest tremor in his tone and a delicate blush beginning to appear on his cheeks.

So...

Here she was.

Kissing her roommate.

Kissing Maximus Morrison.

There wasn't a clause for this in their roommate agreement. Well, to be honest, their roommate agreement was pretty much a joke anyway. Besides the division of the fees and rent, the document basically said Max had to deal with all of her crazy whims like adopting children and inviting in werewolves, and that Jack was willing to pay for any damages that these 'whims' might have caused.

Even so, there should have been something within that agreement that covered a situation in which they were forced into a legal marriage, got divorced, one admitted their love for the other, and then they ended up kissing. This was basic roommate 101 problems.

Really, though, it was just her kissing him. He wasn't pulling away, truthfully, but he was not responding either. It was short, it was sweet, but it was not very long. She pulled her head away and stared up at Max, and found that his eyes met her. The air between them wavered, pounded, bounced off of each like waves being tugged one way and then the other. She wet her lips, blinked, and pulled her head back farther.

And just when she thought that he was going to let her run off, she felt the hand that still held hers tighten, lock her fingers into place.

"Oh... Okay."

And that was that.

"Right," she said. She released him and stood, the back of her neck burning red, as she scooped up her pen and file, which had fallen to the floor. She walked around the bed and slipped into her side, tugging the covers over her legs as she dropped the file onto her lap, looking down at it, squeezing the pen tightly in her hand. She blinked, staring at the words in the file which were looking more and more like elvish.

What. Happened. Next.

Jack stood, gathered her papers, and slid into bed as if nothing had happened and this was any other night. Max was left alone at the end of the bed for only a couple seconds before he stood himself and, not knowing what else to do, followed suit to walk around the bed and slide back under the covers. He glanced over to find Jack was looking down at her file, a slight that had become extremely familiar over the last year. Max pulled his book back to his lap and slipped it open at his place marker. From this position it almost felt like nothing had changed - here they were, where they had always been.

But something had changed. Something Max couldn't have ignored even if he wanted to. He stared down at the chapter heading, thoughts wandering while his eyes remained stationary.

She hadn't just kissed him.. she had told him she loved him. The only women to ever tell Max they loved him had been his mother, grandmother, and sisters. And none of them had ever kissed him. Max wasn't sure what the appropriate response to a situation like this was. What did people do? Max had seen and heard more than he ever needed to see or hear about 'adult relationships' from years of being friends with Gabby but he didn't think that was what he wanted with Jack. Yes, she was beautiful but she was so much more than that to him. She was his roommate, his friend, the co-parent to their kids, and his wife.

Max supposed that he wanted her to be his wife. Truthfully, he wanted things to be exactly as they had been yesterday. But maybe with goodnight kisses too. Because that would be okay.

They needed to talk. Max knew it and he was sure Jack knew it too. He couldn't deny that it was relaxing to sit here in silence - no hostility, just a hint of awkwardness - and he was reluctant to give these precious moments up. Say something nice. Something clever. Max said nothing and fiddled with the corner of his page. This was hard. Was he supposed to be serious and talk about his feelings? Ease the mood with a joke? Just kiss her? The monumentality of what had just happened had not escaped the Morrison and now the fear that was beginning to creep was that in the light of a miracle he was going to mess this up.

But no, Jack had kissed him. The least he could manage was to say something.

"Hey, Jack?"

Shit. That was as far as he had planned. Max turned from his book to try and meet Jack's eyes.

"Did you already send those papers?"

Jack sat still, her pen moving across the page, but coming out even more of a scribble than anything else – even more scribble-y than her usual chicken scratch. She was pretty sure she was scratching the word ‘house’ all over her file on James Blood’s latest victim, a Welsh man by the name of Gwyn, and that later she would take a look at the file and be one hundred percent confused. But scribbling nonsense was being causal, and that’s all she wanted to be right now.

Max moved and took his place at the bed. Jack absently reached over to the bedside table and picked up her wand, flicked her wand, and turned off the lamps that weren’t directly next to the bed, set up as perpetual reading lights. She set the wand back down, blinking hard as she turned the page and continued to pretend like she was able to pay attention to anything mundane after the milestone she had just blown up.

She had just told her friend that she loved him, had kissed him, and then nothing had happened. At least Nemo had said he loved her back, had responded in some way, even if he had not led to anything afterwards. Directly after, when she felt most vulnerable and uncertain and embarrassed, she had been reassured. Max was typically very good at this – except for when he was terrified. And who wasn’t terrified of Jack Dyllan?

She had finally calmed herself down enough to stop scribbling on her files and begin reading when he spoke. She turned, finally looking at him for the first time since she had moved from their perch on the bed. He looked so usual, so at home, but so different as well. This was a man who knew he was loved by her, and she knew he knew. He was not a casual figure anymore.

He asked if she had sent in the papers? Her eyebrows gently touched as she shook her head.

She shook her head and Max shuffled where he sat, pushing himself slightly off of his pillows and turning slightly to face Jack.

“Because, um, I was thinking that, if it was okay with you, maybe it didn’t have to be Divorce Day.”
 
Somehow suggesting that he and Jack simply put off a divorce was infinitely more terrifying than his ‘proposal’ had been last year. In some senses they were surprisingly similar – both a plea for their life at Layabout Lane to stay the same. But the proposal had been an offered out of friendship, something to keep everyone together, as much as for the kids as it had been for them. While putting off the divorce was keeping things the same in title, it was also suggesting at a change.

Life could go on now. Since the marriage law had been repealed there was nothing that was forcing them to change anything about how their lives were set up. They could get divorced and go back to being roommates like before without any repercussions. But Max was starting to realize that while he didn’t want things to change change, he wanted them to change. And in this case staying married was more of a step than making a change.

Max couldn't pretend that he knew exactly what step he wanted to take. Did he want to be her boyfriend? The word sounded incredibly wrong, even in his head. In Max's mind the concept was synonymous with picking a girl up, going out to eat or to the movies, dropping her off at the end of the night. He had Jack would certainly never have the jitters of a first date or experience the gradual process of learning about another person but that was only because they were already past that. If they were already family, what came next?

Of course he was going to ask about the papers. Make sure that it was certainly all set in stone. Because love was a much deeper step than like, and that was a little too complicated. It was much easier to pursue a normal relationship with someone who wasn't married, especially when you were married to them. That made things all sort of wonky.

But that wasn't why he was asking. He wasn't asking because he needed an out. He really meant it when he said he liked her, really meant it when he said he wanted things to stay the same. It wasn't normal. It wasn't usual. But it was what Maximus Morrison, king of mundane tasks and mild manners, wanted.

She felt a familiar feeling. She had been in the lift of the Ministry the last time she felt like this, had been convinced that she had somehow infected Max with some sort of idiocy that made him think it was a good idea to get married to her. And now she had somehow infected him to believe that they should stay that way - commit him to her crazy ways and her unconventional affection. Affection that manifested itself in blustered irritation, in pleased scowls, in badly made meals, in over-competitiveness in board games, in small kicking matches before bed.

"And then what?"

She had to know. She had to know what he wanted.

It was only natural that Jack would choose to ask about the one thing that Max had no idea how to respond to. And then what? He would like to know the answer more than she did. The question made Max wonder what Jack wanted him to say. What she wanted him to do. He had been taken off guard by how forward she had been only moments before and it would be perfectly within reason to assume that a woman who proclaimed her love was looking for, well, a boyfriend.

Max didn't think that was what she wanted. It certainly wasn't what he wanted. Well, maybe. It all depended what was really meant by boyfriend.

The last time Max had been someone's boyfriend he had been sixteen, and even then barely so. And teenage romances were.. teenage romances. Holding hands at movies and talking endlessly about the school Quidditch league wasn't exactly real life. And that was when Max realized what he wanted to come next.

Max shifted even more in the bed, turning more directly towards Jack and shuffling even farther out away from the headboard, a mark of his attention. His roommate was looking quieter again - closer to how she had appeared when she first arrived than to her outburst and kiss afterwards. Despite the worry that this triggered in the back of Max's mind he was, amazingly, starting to feel more confident the longer they sat there.

"Then? Well, then we would go to sleep, wake up, carpool to work, maybe meet up for lunch if you aren't too busy." His head unconsciously nodding along as he spoke and the softest of smiles appeared as he looked over at his companion. "I'd pick up Sunny and Goose then we would all head to Falmouth to see your game. After I'd make you drinks either to comfort or celebrate, we'd watch that movie you've been begging me to see, and.. life would go on."

Max closed his book again and set it on his bedside table along with his glasses.

"I'm happy, Jack. Living here.. our life.. I don't want anything else. Does there have to be something big that comes next?"