Lifeline
By xannychan
Short A/N: I love Max, and I've decided that he needs infinitely more love.
Warning: character death.
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He smiles because he can.
It's not hiding any horrible secret or covering up a dark tragedy or anything. He just liked smiling because smiling meant he was happy—or trying to be, anyway, but isn't that what counted? It meant that at the very least he was trying to be what his friends could not always be, what he was meant to be.
This is why Draciel is his bitbeast. Perhaps he is not strong enough or broad enough or patient enough to be the great tortoise, but above all else, Max is a friend; he is a friend, strong and steady to watch you from behind. He might not always catch you, but when he couldn't he was just as ready to put you back together.
But it kills him when he can't catch you, you know. Max is afraid to fail you, to disappoint you, because he is your friend and he's worried more about you than he really ought. Sometimes you can tell—blue, blue eyes can be so sad, but he'll never admit that he's sick because of you because he's so afraid you'll think he's weak, that he let you down.
So maybe he smiles because sometimes, it's all he can do.
He'll smile for everything, anything, just please please please let it be enough for you to trust in him. He needs to be your support as much as you might need him to save you.
He's not always happy when he's smiling. But by then it will be because you're not smiling either, so he'll smile in your place because he wants to be there to help you.
Who doesn't want to be caught with a smile? You'll look gratefully at that smile and never know that he's worried sick about you.
And, for everyone's sake, he'll never tell you that smiling for you will be the end of him.
Someday, when you're at his funeral, you'll realize that his smile is so very cold, and you'll hate the person who forced him to smile that way in his death.
But then, Max wants to be the one who will smile for you until the very end.
You'll find that you could never smile quite the same again.