"So, were you having a Twilight marathon, or..." Barnes asks as Max starts clearing out an area for Barnes to sit. He moves the pizzas onto the coffee table, beside his art mess, and clears off the couch so that he and Barnes can sit.

Max looks up at the TV and sees that Barnes is right, Twilight is playing.

"Wha-No! The... other movie ended and so this came on I guess." Max mutters the second part, because what he was watching before really is not much better.

"And what were you watching before?"

Oh. Well shit.

"Uh..." Max had to think for a moment, what's a manly movie?

"I was watching a... boxing movie... like Rocky," Max trails off. Wow. Good job, Max. Nice save.

Barnes nods, "Yeah, okay."

Max can tell Barnes doesn't believe him.

"So what if I was watching The Little Mermaid?!" Max shouts, throwing his arms up in exasperation, and almost falling. He had to quickly grab his crutches again to keep from face planting on the couch.

Max can hear Barnes snickering, so he flips him off.

Max flops onto the couch, and sets his crutches against the side of the arm rest. He grabs a piece of pizza and notices Barnes is still standing, looking at him.

So Max pats the spot beside him, like Barnes is a dog.

Barnes rolls his eyes, but sits down beside Max, and Max notices that Barnes looks kind of uncomfortable, as he has his hands folded on his lap and is sitting straight up.

So Max does the only thing he can think of. He body slams him.

Barnes falls back, leaning on the other arm rest and giving Max a look like he has lost his mind.

Max shrugs, "you looked uncomfortable, loosen up dude." Max leans back, putting his hands behind his head.

Barnes rolls his eyes, straightening himself up again and leaning over to look at what all Max has done. "So, you put too many lines in the circle." Barnes raises an eyebrow at Max, who leans forward to also look at what all he has done.

"I think it looks fine." Max huffs, crossing his arms over his chest.

"It's wrong."

"You're wrong."

Barnes rolls his eyes, before grabbing the pencil Max has been using and erasing a few of the lines.

"Alright," Barnes nods, "so we have the circle, now..." he seems to think long and hard, before picking up the water color palette and opening it, then holding it out to Max.

He points to the first one, "What color is this?" Max knows it right off the bat, "Black."

Barnes nods, "good. Okay, now what's this one?" Barnes points to the one beside it. Max looks at it for a few seconds, before it clicks. "Red."

"Alright. Good job," then he points to the next one and Max realizes that he's going to make him name the whole thing.

Shit, does he think Max is some sort of magician?

"This one?"

Fuck. Max doesn't know this one.

"Uh..." Max clears his throat. "...purple?" He winces. There's no way that is right.

Barnes sighs, "alright. We'll note that one." He writes, Orange, on the side of the piece of paper.

Barnes keeps going like that, and in the end he has all of the colors except black, red, purple, and brown.

Shit. They've got work to do.

After they finish, Barnes sighs, and sets the colors on the table. "Okay, now what is your condition called?" He asks.

Max has to think for a few moments. "Trita-something. I don't know." Barnes nods, before pulling out his phone and typing something on it. Eventually he pulls up a picture with two colorful line-things on it. He moves his phone so that Max can look at it better.

"Why are you showing me this?" Max asks. He doesn't see the point in looking at two identical lines. Why aren't they doing the color wheel?

"What does this look like?" Barnes asks.

Max rolls his eyes. "Two lines."

Barnes sighs, "What colors are the lines?"

Max is getting angry. "I don't know! They look the fucking same, what the hell?"

Barnes nods. "Okay, that's all I needed to know."

Max rolls his eyes again, "Whatever. Fucking freak, why aren't we working anymore?" He leans over Barnes and open the pizza box, picking up a slice and ignoring how close they are as he grabs the garlic butter. He leans back into his seat, and sets the garlic butter on top of the paper. He opens it and dips his pizza into it, before leaning back and giving Barnes an expecting look.

Barnes is just simply staring at him.

"What?" Max asks, with a mouthful of pizza.

Barnes isn't answering.

"You can have some pizza, if you want?" Max tries, raising an eyebrow.

Nope. Still no movement from Barnes.

What the fuck?

Max slowly reaches over, and pokes Barnes on the cheek. "You in there?"

Barnes snaps out of whatever trance he was in and Max decides that Barnes zones out a lot.

He voices this and Barnes rolls his eyes, mumbling something along the lines of "let's just get back to work."

"This is a comparison between what people with normal vision see and what people with Tritanopia see."

"Aha!" Max's face lights up, "That's what it's called." He nods to himself.

"Alright, well because I have an idea of how you see colors, I can help you more efficiently."

"Okay."

And that's what he does, he explains colors to Max and for once in his life, Max feels like he may actually be learning something. He's never met somebody who actually tried so hard to understand how his color blindness works, let alone do something to help him with it. Not even the Special Ed. teachers and volunteers, they mostly just act like he's a lost cause already.

However, not even a minute later, his wonderful Saturday night school time is abruptly interrupted when he hears the front door open.

Shit. Who is that?

"Max! Zeke! I'm home!" He hears Gina's voice from the foyer. It scares Max enough to almost fuck up their color wheel. They only had four more spaces, that would have been pretty bad.

"In here!" Max calls from the couch.

He sees Gina appear a few moments later, still dressed in her work attire. "Oh my!" She covers her mouth in surprise, before slowly making her way into the greeting room.

"Max, who's this?" She asks.

Barnes looks to Max with raised eyebrows.

Max sighs. He really doesn't feel like doing introductions. "Gina, this is Bar-Lewis." Max winces.

Gina gives Max a weird look. "Bar-Lewis?"

Max shakes his head while he can hear Barnes covering his mouth and trying to be polite and not laugh.

"I mean Lewis! His name is Lewis. Gina, this is Lewis."

Gina nods slowly, "Uh... okay. Nice to meet you, Lewis. I'm Gina." She leans forward to shake Barnes' hand.

Ew.

"Did you order pizza?" After shaking Barnes' hand, she walks around the couch to the matching chair on one of the other sides of the coffee table.

"Yeah, I got hungry." She nods, but then her eyes widen. "Are you... doing homework?"

Ugh. Not this again.

Max frowns, "Yes."

"You're coloring in a color wheel...?" She looks even more confused, but then her eyes widen in realization. "Oh!" She looks at Barnes, "So, are you like... his tutor?"

Max sighs, "No, I can do homework on my own. I'm responsible." He crosses his arms across his chest.

If he knew what she was going to say next, though, he would have stuck with the tutor thing.

"Oh my Mary!" Her eyes light up. "Max, have you made a new friend? I've been waiting for this day!" She smiles at Barnes, "He's been friends with the same kids since elementary school, oh and you look so nice, too!" Barnes looks amused beyond belief as he gives Max a smug smile.

Max wants to crawl under the couch and never come out again.

"Not like his usual friends, with all their tattoos and shenanigans!" She is literally gushing over Barnes and he is obviously enjoying every minute.

"Thank you, Gina." Barnes smiles a very fucking nice smile and Max wants to punch it off.

"Oh, and manners too! Max, you could learn from him." She frowns at Max.

Max sighs, leaning back in the chair and covering his face with his hands. "Okay, Gina. We need to finish our color wheel."

Max peaks through one of his fingers and sees realization dawn on Gina's face. "Oh, of course!" Gina stands up and rushes off to fuck knows where, leaving Max embarrassed as ever and Barnes with a - he is guessing, his hands are still over his face - very smug look on his face.

"Fuck off, Barnes!" Max drops his hands and glares at him, though it definitely does not look intimidating considering the fact that his face is flushed.

As expected, Barnes is smirking with that stupid smug look on his face and Max would probably have destroyed his face with his fist if he didn't have a broken ankle.

"I didn't say anything."

"You were thinking something!"

"What was I thinking?"

"I- uh..." Max becomes frustrated.

"Exactly."

And apparently that is the last straw.

Max fucking leaps at Barnes and Barnes had to have expected it because he immediately backs up into the arm rest.

Max ends up laying in between his legs (and pretty much in top of Barnes), and clutching the collar of his shirt in his fist. He presses his forehead against Barnes'.

"I'm gonna kick your ass, pretty boy."

Barnes smiles, "You'd try."

However, before Max can kick his ass (or attempt to) he hears a gasp from the doorway.

Max and Barnes each look in the direction that the sound came from, where Gina is standing with a bowl of sliced pineapples.

And her eyes are wide, and her mouth is slightly ajar.

So, to say it simply, she looks shocked.

Then, for the millionth time that night, a realization seems to dawn on her.

Now, one thing that needs to be remembered, is the fact that the majority of the people Max is friends with believe that he is gay.

Which means that Gina thinks he's gay, after multiple jokes regarding his sexuality and Amelia flat out telling her. As usual, he was either way too drunk or way too high to object.

So again, Gina thinks that he is gay.

Now, with Max practically sitting on Barnes' lap, and Max holding his collar so that they are inches apart...

Yeah, this looks pretty bad.

He can only imagine what's going through her mind.

"I-I didn't realize... Max!" She gasps again, and he can see the gears turning in her head.

Max leaps off of Barnes faster than he's probably ever moved in his life, though his cast was in his way he was able to meander around it.

"Nononono, NO. Gina, it's not... we aren't..." Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

She's gonna say something. Max knows she's going to say something. There's no way that he'll get out of this unscathed.

"Max, it's true! I thought Amelia was joking, but..." she seemed to still be processing everything.

"No! Amelia was joking! I'm not gay!" Oh man is this embarrassing.

"God. Fucking. Dammit. Why does this happen to me?" Max sighs, pulling his legs to his chest and ducking his head down, before closing his eyes, trying to make the world go away.

Barnes clears his throat, "Gina, I have a girlfriend..."

Max hears an "oh, thank goodness. I was not prepared." And a bowl being set on the coffee table, before he listened to footsteps walking out of the room.

For the third time that night, Max can't meet Barnes' eyes, so he keeps his head down.

He feels a nudge in his leg, and he looks up to see Barnes raising an eyebrow at him. "So, does everyone know you're gay, and I was just out of the loop, or..." He trails off, with a goofy grin on his face.

Then, Max feels a weird urge to seriously make sure that Barnes does not think he's gay.

"Everyone thinks I'm gay, but I'm not!" Max let's go of his legs and they fall so that they are in a criss-cross position. "One time, when I was drunk, someone asked my sexual orientation and I told them that I liked dicks..." Barnes all of a sudden crosses his arms and leans back on the couch in amusement.

"Of course I meant chicks! I was drunk..." Max glares at the floor.

"You know, they say drunk words are sober thoughts."

Max snaps his head back up to look at Barnes straight on, this time in anger.

He tries to think about what he should say to that, but leave it to Barnes to make him so incapable of a rational response. He's not gay, he's never dated a guy and he doesn't plan on it. His drunk self probably just mixed up the letters or syllables or something. Either way, it's not of Barnes' business.

Max turns to the wheel, suddenly feeling a little deflated. He's not gay. Everyone thinks he is, but he's not.

Right?

"I think we should finish the color wheel," Max states.

Max sees Barnes shift so he's facing the wheel too, "Sounds like a plan."

Both are silent after that. They finish the wheel without problem and eventually Barnes and Max decide he can leave. Waving a quick goodbye to Gina, Barnes walks out the door. Max ends up falling asleep on the couch, with the paint brush still in his hand.