❛ don't make me do this. it scares me. ❜ / gabe and max pls
There hadn't been much in regard to expectations for something between them, a gamble for the one who always claimed to understand the odds. For the most part, he did. Maximilien was certainly part of the reason omnics were forbidden from taking part in the casino scene; anyone with even a inkling of his past knew very well that he had made much of his fortune by playing the system, walking in with pennies and leaving a millionaire by nightfall. He couldn't really blame them for making such a decision, any omnic that really wanted to put in the work could have done the same, he just had been the first to try.
But this? This semblance of something that he might dare call a working relationship? Max was at a substantial loss over how to parse it. They weren't really friends, and they certainly were still at odds. Affixing a timepiece around his right wrist his mind is in a silent frenzy working over the man laying in a bed just out of his sight, the dues he had to pay for his benefactors, and which suit he was going to don for the day.
Had he the lungs he might have sighed out of the dry sense of irritation beginning to form beneath the blanket of considerations. If ever was there a chance for him to remove the thorn that Overwatch and Blackwatch alike had become for Talon, it would be now. He knows the others on the council would riot to hear that he had the Gabriel Reyes unarmed and unarmored, and instead of doing something about it, he was busy dressing himself and thinking over the day ahead. He could certainly try; there's a firearm in a drawer in the nightstand, it would either work, or he would be dead. Another gamble, hah.
Hearing Gabriel move from beneath the blanket and sheets disperses the idea quick enough, he was out of time for that, to little too late he thinks.
"Ah, he lives again. I was beginning to wonder if you were planning to sleep the entire day away. How long would it have taken one of your overt rejects to come snooping?"
Max speaks without turning around to address Gabe, instead shifting his stance just enough that he can watch him through the reflection of the mirror.
"I would be suspect number one, certainly, with how often you drag me down into an interrogation room."
There's a degree of mirth within Max's tone, an amusement for how true his statement was. It would be ruinous for the both of them for this little affair to be found out. Talon would quite literally have his head on a platter if he couldn't manage to make up some bullshit excuse for his actions or lack thereof. Would it really be such a stretch to say he was applying unique techniques for dredging up information?
Being met with silence it earns a degree of further attention from Max, who finally turns around entirely to gaze upon Gabriel.
"You are being entirely too quiet, Commander-"
The title had become something of a pet name he used to irk the man, but instead of being met with some manner of agitation, Gabe finally speaks. The words that come out of him leave room for Max to fill the silence with his own lack of words. Doing nothing more than staring at him, Maximilien finds himself at an impasse. Apparently they'd been on the same train of thought; what was this?
What were they?
"Very well," the toyful tone he'd been using, dropped entirely.
"You will not need to worry about anyone here mentioning your stay, you are free to leave.. whenever," he states with a small wave of his hand before turning to the mirror once again. So the man is a bit touchy, he does make note of such, but he cannot say that the idea for himself is any less terrifying. Max never had much reason to get close to anyone, his empire and affiliates were far too consuming for something- someone else in his life.
He will remind himself of that, next time, if it ever happens again.
1 note
·
View note