#max is giving abondonded dog who is finally learning how to play vibes

[123pixieaod]

pilot!Max x backpacker!Daniel 👨‍✈️✈️💼

Part 4!

Part 3 here

Daniel isn't here.

Max stands by the small cafe doors, eyes tracking over the largely empty tables. A retired couple, a family with two small kids, a group of teenagers.

No lone Australian traveler.

He swallows his disappointment, telling himself he was stupid to think it would be any different. Daniel had texted sounds good :) to Max’s suggestion of this cafe in a quiet corner of the airport, but hadn't offered a time, and Max hadn't wanted to sound needy by texting him again.

He had probably long left the airport. He was probably already on his way to some backpacking hostel filled with fabulously exciting and eccentric people, the little figure of Max growing smaller and smaller in his mind, diminishing to nothing. Maybe he'd waited for a few minutes, but Max had had to stay on board until everyone had disembarked, had had to write up a flight report with Sebastian and then go over the details with the F1 Wings liaison officer. Time slipped by. Daniel was long gone.

Max turns his back to the cafe, staring ahead at the mixture of people in the airport corridor. Waiting and shopping and eating, filling up their time as the departure board updates.

As a child, he remembers how much he adored visits to the airport. The newness of everything, the heavy sensation of excitement which settled over everything like a blanket. People in thick winter jackets sat beside families in shorts and holiday shirts. Liminal space. A purgory between the banal and the exceptional, everyday life and holidays.

Then, all the shit happened and airports stopped being a place of wonder. They stopped being places at all the Max. Just concepts, vague ideas of uncertainty. He tried his hardest to stop thinking about them at all. It worked until he was confronted with the prospect of airports becoming his new workplace, the beginning and end to virtually each one of his days.

He begins to walk. He changed out of his uniform as soon as they landed, and he feels invisible, a nothingness shaped man. It's nice. It's good to be forgotten, to be a nobody.

"Max!"

A hand clamps on his shoulder and suddenly he's being pulled into a tight, one-armed hug.

"I'm sorry," Daniel begins, taking a step back, the hug over before it's barely begin. "I don't have any luggage to collect and figured you would so had a quick wander around duty free and - you were going to leave without me?" He gives Max a teasing smile. Max barely breathes, can barely comprehend Daniel is a living, breathing thing in front of him. Tanned and gorgeous and rugged and perfect, exactly how Max had recorded him in his memories.

"Hey," he manages to get out, and then laughs, bashful. "I thought you were the one who had left."

"Me?" Daniel says, accent wonderful and buoyant. "I would never! Come on," he grins, leading Max back towards the cafe. "I'm starving."

Max stares at him. Dark curls and sharp bone structure and deep-set eyes of burnt honey and a smile which lights up his entire expression.

He nods, smiling back. "Me too."

-

"I looked for you," Daniel says, stirring his chai latte. Max smiles, the action feeling a natural response to Daniel's presence.

"Oh?"

Daniel nods, tapping his spoon lightly against the glass before leaving it on the saucer. The rose inked into his skin ripples with the action, petals blowing in an invisible breeze. "On the plane. When I went to the bathroom, I took the long route up and down both aisles, looking for you. Didn't see you, though."

Max huffs in soft amusement. "No, you wouldn't have. I was at the front."

Daniel raises his eyebrows, teasing. "First class? Are you a secret billionaire, is that why you insisted on paying for lunch too? Flaunting your money?"

"I'm not flaunting anything," Max says with a grin. He feels lightheaded, giddy. "I wasn't sitting in first class, just near the front. And anyway, I told you. My company pays expenses while I'm traveling."

Technically not a lie. Max gets a food and drink airport allowance with F1 Wings. Paying for the chai late and a sandwhich of a bohemian Australian traveller probably isn't in the smallprint though.

"Well," Daniel says, eyes crinkled with gentle amusement. "Please thank your mystery company for my lunch. I like airplane meals as much as the next man, but it's not the sort of grub known for keeping soul and body together."

"And," Max turns his head, reading the label of the discarded box. "Vegan cheese with jalapeños is?"

"Hey, don't knock it till you try it, right?" Daniel says, and then as if to prove a point, takes a big bite of the anaemic looking sandwhich.

Max makes a face. "I didn't take you for a vegan."

"Why, is it a crime if I am one?" Daniel says after swallowing, his tone between a reprimand and a tease.

"No, of course not," Max says, opening up his own sealed chicken Caesar salad. "I'm just surprised, is all."

"Well, your surprise is for good reason," Daniel replies, once more back to blithe happiness. "Because I'm not one. Not really. I like the idea of it, you know, animal welfare and all that. But," he waves his tattooed hand. Max stares, catching sight of the delicate rose inked onto his thumb. "It's hard being one, you know? Especially when travelling. I figured I'd just take it how it goes, and when I can eat vegan, do it, but not go crazy over it, you know? I mean, it also helps I'm lactose intolerant, God pretty much preprogrammed me to be some level of vegan," he laughs. The sound is light and musical, and Max can picture the notes rising, his laughter slipping out through the gaps in the windows and joining the plans as they take off. He's talking the same as how he did on the bus, chattering with the assumption Max will listen, but pausing, allowing Max to take up space in the conversation too. It's like a dance, and somehow, they've both learned the steps to each other years ago.

"Speaking of your mysterious company which it keeping me fed and water, what is it again you do? Stocks, right?" He asks, taking another big bite of the sandwhich.

Max shakes his head. "I don't want to talk about work right now."

"Why?"

He fakes a laugh. "Does anyone like to talk about their work?"

Daniel shrugs, swallowing. "I do."

"Then do it."

Daniel huffs a laugh. Max is beginning to realise he laughs a lot. And not like how Max does it either, carefully thought through and more often than not forced. Daniel laughs as if it's the only possible option, as if it's a physical thing untamed in his chest that has to be released.

"Are you always this argumentative?" He says. Max’s eyebrows rise.

"Am I being argumentative?" He asks, genuinely surprised.

"No, maybe that's the wrong word," Daniel tilts his head as he considers. "Maybe forceful? But without the negative conictations. Like -"

"Blunt," Max finishes for him. "People tell me I'm too blunt."

"No, not blunt. Like..." Daniel taps a finger against the plastic tabletop. "Compelling? Or dynamic? Like talking with you is so easy."

Max laughs. He can't help it. He doesn't think anyone has ever described talking with him as being "easy".

"What?" Daniel looks at him with a puzzled smile, and Max just shakes his head.

"Nothing, nothing. Tell me about your job then, if you're clearly so eager to talk about it."

"I'm not eager, I'm just -"

"Wait," Max interrupts him. He feels confident, brimming with something he hasn't felt since he was a child. "Let me guess."

Daniel grins, and then sits back, gesturing to himself. "Work away. I don't think it's that difficult, but-"

"No clues," Max says, studying him with a small frown. Khaki shorts and a dark windbreaker under a plain white t-shirt. Naturally tanned but with a warm complexion, skin used to the outdoors and the sun. Lean and fit, but not muscle bound or anything. Normal. Wildly attractive, and with a smile to say he knows it too. And tattoos. A shit ton of tattoos.

Tattoos on his hands and tattoos on his arms and even tattoos on his legs, and Max briefly imagines how many others are inked onto his skin, hidden from sight.

"I thought maybe English teacher first," he says. "TEFL, you know, and that's why you get to travel everywhere. But I don't think so with those tattoos."

Daniel holds up three fingers, and then dramatically flicks one down. Two guesses left.

"A reporter?" Max takes a shot in the dark. Daniel grins, dropping a second finger.

"A..." he waves his hand aimlessly. "A wanted fugitive on the run from interpol?"

Daniel widens his eyes dramatically. "How could you tell?"

Max tried to shrug as modestly as he can. "Not sure. I've been told I just have a gift."

"A gift for sniffing out fugitives? Are you like one of those dogs who smell drugs in the airport, only instead of drugs its A grade criminals? And that's why you get free lunches, as a thanks for keeping our airports safe?"

"Exactly," Max grins. "Worthy payment, I think you'll find."

"Keeping our skies safe in exchange for vegan cheese and jalapeños sandwiches, right?" Daniel grins.

"Exactly. You a Grade A fugitive and me a top rate criminal finder. Look at us, knowing each others deepest darkest secrets already."

Daniel laughs. Max grins back. He's beginning to realise it feels so good to be the person who gets to make Daniel laugh.

Part 5!

#pilot au #it's back! #the irony is they're both keeping a Big Secret from each other #their coffee date ran away with me and i had to split it into two parts! #max is giving abondonded dog who is finally learning how to play vibes #daniel is giving golden retriever vibes who bounds about and wants to make friends #maxiel #my fic #:)))