Who: Keegan MacAlister and Maxwell Landon What: Keegan comes clean. Where: The Underground When: Sunday, July 16, 2017; evening Warnings: Language, mentions of infidelity, mentions of domestic abuse, anything else TBD
Keegan had been carrying around a weight in his chest for a full third of a year. That was a sixth of the time that he and Max had been left with after they'd fallen and stood up gods. Maybe Keegan had never been all that good at maths but he knew it was a bigger slice of time than it sounded like, saying it was a sixth. That was four months of telling Max lies about where he'd been. Who he'd been with when he'd been saying that he was only with friends. It hadn't seemed so bad at first when Leander had propositioned him. Hadn't seemed bad the time after that either. Wasn't going to hurt Max if he didn't know about it after all and Keegan couldn't let someone who was just a vampire win in their game of who was the biggest gothic rebel. The lies had started to feel bigger though. Keegan had always been good at that. At telling lies. He ought to have done just fine telling Max whatever would leave him free and clear to have his fun doing whatever the hell he wanted to.
Max knew him though. Max knew him better than anyone that Keegan had ever told his lies to before. Max knew the darkest ugliest parts of what Keegan could be and that ought to have been the biggest problem.
It wasn't the biggest fucking problem at all. The biggest problem was that whenever another of those lies passed Keegan's lips when he was talking to Max he felt like shite about it. Even when he wasn't telling Max a lie right at the moment they weighed on him. Knowing that he'd lied, that there were things that he'd done that would bother Max he if knew that Keegan had done them, that was right there. Every time he talked to Max. Every time they kissed. Every time they fucked Keegan was remembering that he's been to bed with another man and that Max didn't know. It wasn't like they'd said that they were exclusive. They'd never come out and talked about it. That was what Keegan had told himself at first when he was going down to his knees to suck another man's dick. It hadn't helped all that much even then. Didn't matter that they hadn't said it. Keegan had still known that was what it was. It had never been anything else between Morrigan and Baphomet. There'd never been room for anyone else between Keegan and Max when they'd been having their little spats.
Every time he lied it got heavier. Every time he lied by being there with Max and not telling him the truth it got heavier. Keegan would give almost anything to not care about it; if he could not give a fuck about whether Max would be hurt by it then he'd be bloody fine with it all. Wasn't like that with them though, was it? Wasn't like that with Max. Never had been even when they'd just been rivals. Max had always been the one that blew through the rules that Keegan thought they were playing by and made it a whole new fucking game and there he was doing it again.
Keegan didn't have a choice, did he?
"Max." He'd practiced it a million times, what he'd say to him. How he'd start the conversation. Then he'd gone back and told himself that he wasn't going to fucking do it. He was just not going to fuck Leander again. That was all. That was the way he would fix it. So long as he didn't fuck him again what good would it do to tell Max? Just make him feel bad. And as good as Keegan was at lying to himself that one was starting to become much less convincing.
Keegan didn't look much like a rockstar right then. Oh, he was dressed the part. He hardly dressed any other way these days unless he wasn't dressed at all. Leather pants. White t-shirt. He'd left off the leather jacket but the necklace he'd gotten with Baphomet's symbol on it bounced against his chest. Mostly though... mostly it was his face that destroyed the image. Keegan looked uncertain, standing there in the kingdom he'd shared with Max since they'd discovered each other that day at his show. His hair was just as ratty as it ever had been, but instead of the image of devil-may-care grunge he wore it more like a child who'd forgotten his comb. The fang implants he'd had done to fake his resemblance bit into his lower lip as he stood with bare feet and clutched at a door frame while he watched Max. "Something I want to talk to you about."