they say it's your birthday; well, happy birthday to you

[floozyfacade]

To be honest, I'm not even sure what the big deal is about turning eighteen. What's so different about that one-eight that makes people think you're officially qualified to be an adult, more so than you were yesterday? I've got two more years left of being a teenager, so it's not that. I mean, it just seems like a completely arbitrary number

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[well_yeah_but]

Olive is a nice enough girl, even by Tony's exacting standards, but he isn't here for her. He isn't really here for the party, either, although it's a comfort to know that he can count on the island residents being even more reliable in their love of celebration than the people back home.

No, he's here for opportunities like the one that presents itself when Maxxie wanders away from the bonfire and down to the water's edge. Tony follows as naturally as if he'd been invited to.

Several feet away he stops, hands in his pockets as he watches Maxxie watching the sky.

[dancin_maxxie]

It takes a while for Maxxie to notice anyone's there at all. Between the gentle crash of the waves and the hiss of their retreat, the music and conversations bubbling behind him, the sound of footsteps on sand is easily lost. But he's developed that sixth sense, some notion of when people are watching him. It takes a while, but he feels it eventually.

He looks over his shoulder, expecting Olive or something coming to drag him back to the party. He has a smile ready even, but it freezes when he sees that it's Tony.

His gaze wanders back to the party, trying to pick out Billy in the steadily fading sunlight and glow of campfire, but he can't. That's not why he looks back to Tony and nods his head, asking (or allowing) him to come closer, but it doesn't hurt.

[well_yeah_but]

Billy's up there in the party somewhere, probably as oblivious as always, but Tony does him the favor of bothering to cast a lingering look back up the dunes to the gathered crowd. When he looks back to Maxxie, his eyes are bright and belie his cool exterior as he pulls his hands from his pockets and strides forward.

When he reaches Maxxie, though, Tony slows but doesn't stop, fingers sliding across the small of Maxxie's back as he passes silently by. His index finger catches on Maxxie's pinky and gives it a slight tug before slipping free so that he can continue to walk down the shore and into the growing darkness.

[dancin_maxxie]

Maxxie bites back a sigh, teeth digging into his lower lip, but he doesn't hesitate in following Tony for more than a second. He knows it's a bad idea. He knows nothing good ever comes from leaving a party with Tony. But Maxxie cares too much to let him wander away, a slight chance of knowing what's going on in Tony's head flitting out of his grasp.

He half-jogs two steps before he's caught up with Tony. He doesn't try talking yet, just follows alongside, not against the idea of a short walk and stupidly wary of ruining things with a question like he did last time.

Not that there are things to ruin or that he was even at fault last time. A part of his brain knows this, but it's not the part in the most control when Tony's around.

[well_yeah_but]

Despite knowing that Maxxie will most likely always follow, giving him the choice is important. There can be no denying it: As the two wander further from the noise and light of the party, Maxxie is there because he wants to be, and that makes all the difference in the world.

They walk for quite some time before Tony breaks the silence.

"I'm guessing you're not too cross with me, then," he says, hands back in his pockets as he peers out over the swiftly descending sun.

[dancin_maxxie]

He does sigh then, the sound coming out in the shape of his name. "Tony, I'm not going to be cross at you for that."

There's no doubt in Maxxie's mind that he means the I love you. God knows, he could have done something in the interim, between Casino Night and this night, to annoy him and Maxxie just doesn't know about it. With Tony, it feels sometimes as though there's never a shortage of things to be cross at. But Maxxie is not going to put down what he reads as genuine affection like that.

[well_yeah_but]

"You ought to be," Tony calmly counters, finally shifting his gaze over to the other boy. "If nothing else, it's bloody inconvenient, or maybe that's just from my end." Looking away again, he tucks his chin in a bit and watches the rhythmic movement of their feet in the thin light.

"What I need you to tell me, right now, is if it even fucking matters to you at all."

[dancin_maxxie]

"Inconvenient is a good word for it," Maxxie mutters, but still, that's not something to upset him. He's already said he doesn't want to get into a relationship with Tony. A little time to process the words has let him realize they're not so bad. They don't hurt now; it's later he's worried about. There's no yearning for more in him so much as a want to know what is. Calling it love helps a little.

"And of course it matters," he says, trying for strong and sure, but his voice softens at the end. Maxxie looks up at Tony walking beside him and grabs at his elbow, asking him to stop. "It means a whole fucking lot to me, Tone."

[well_yeah_but]

They're far enough away now that there's little chance of anything they do being discernible from the party, but Tony reaches for Maxxie's wrist anyway and pulls him over into the deeper darkness beneath a nearby palm tree. He came out here with a purpose, and it wasn't to completely fuck up what he's got happening with Billy.

"How much?" he asks, placing himself squarely in Maxxie's personal space. "Don't fucking patronise me, Max. Don't tell me you love me so much and then qualify it by saying you mean it only as friends, or that you're too scared of me for it to matter."

[dancin_maxxie]

There's a lot to that that Maxxie doesn't know how to answer, so he chooses the parts he feels he knows first. "I'm not scared of you and I never said it didn't matter," he says firmly, head tilted almost defiantly up at the taller boy.

"Christ, Tony, what do you want?" he demands. "Do you want me to say I love you and I want you to break up with Billy? How much? It's not like there's some scale I can point to. More than Chris, more than Cassie? Is that it? You want to know where you rank?"

[well_yeah_but]

"Fuck," Tony breathes, slanting his gaze away with a slight wince. "I know you probably think it rolls right off me when you tell me you can't be strong enough to want me back, Maxxie, but it doesn't. It actually does hurt. I just…" he begins, but his voice catches and he pulls in a deep breath that he lets go in a tremulous sigh. "I just want you to want me back. That's all. Because I can't look at you or be around you and not want you, but apparently that makes me a fucking asshole."

[dancin_maxxie]

"Fuck, Tony," he says, the words coming out in a shaky, not-quite laugh. Of all the things Tony could want to hear, Maxxie hadn't thought it would be the most obvious.

Maxxie ducks his head, rubs the back of his neck with his hand and admits, "I'd kiss you right now if I didn't think it would fuck things up between you and Billy."

[well_yeah_but]

The obvious answer to that is that Billy doesn't have to know, would probably not even notice unless it was right under his nose, but Tony doesn't say as much-It would waste time, would devolve into a pointless argument about ethics that Maxxie doesn't actually adhere to.

Instead, Tony turns a heavy glance on the other boy and slides a hand around to the back of his neck as he leans in to whisper hot against his ear.

"I remember how you taste," he breathes, and leans back just enough that, if Maxxie tilts forward even a little, they'll be kissing.

[dancin_maxxie]

The words, his voice really, send a shudder straight down Maxxie's spine and to his dick. He's not the most difficult guy to turn on. Shit, he's a guy after all. But the warmth of Tony's body so close, the tickle of his breath on his skin, the memory of what they've done and, mostly, the knowledge of what they can't do makes his heart beat a little faster.

He doesn't tilt forward, though it's a close thing, but presses both hands to Tony's chest as though to keep him away. Maxxie doesn't push, just holds them steady there. "Tony, don't," he says quietly, weakly.

[well_yeah_but]

As protests go, it's completely ineffective, as much an invitation as an objection, and Tony knows that tipping this into his favor is as easily done as simply initiating the kiss himself. If Maxxie didn't want it to happen, if he was genuinely that concerned about Billy, he'd have walked away by now.

"Just want me back," he murmurs, bedroom eyes focused on Maxxie's mouth as he lets out a quivering little sigh. "Just love me back."

[dancin_maxxie]

"I do," Maxxie replies, his voice quiet and small. His eyes close, unable to look at Tony anymore, and yet at the same time his fingers curl, grabbing hold of Tony's shirt.

His reasons for not wanting to be with Tony, for not even kissing Tony right now, seem a long, far way off. What would be the harm? And there's the harm in not giving in. He can feel it in his chest, the desire like a physical ache.

Maxxie opens his eyes again, opens his mouth as though to speak again, but the second he catches Tony's gaze. "Fuck," he mutters, the word muffled and lost as he surges forward to press a hard kiss to Tony's mouth.