Max reaches under the couch and grabs his phone, before dialing the number he's had memorized since the third grade.

"Marco's, how may I help you?"

Oh shit

He did not think this through.

Max, of course, didn't realize that Barnes works at the pizza place and can also, in fact, answer the phone.

Fuck.

"Ah... uh... um..." wow Max, you seem educated.

He hears a sigh from the other end. "Tucker, what do you want?"

Max coughs a few times, before clearing his throat. "Wha- a pizza. The fuck you think I want?"

"Okay, well what do you want on your pizza?"

"Uh, pepperoni. And maybe some ham. Do you guys do ham?" Max leans back in the couch, making himself comfortable.

He decides that he's gonna have fun with this.

"Yes, we do ham."

"Good, good." Max nods to himself. "What about pineapple? And mushrooms?"

"We do that too."

"Alright, alright." Damn, this pizza sounds disgusting. "And olives?"

"Yup."

"Okay, that's nice. Cool. What about sour cream? And maybe caramel? Some soy sauce?"

"There's a limit of six toppings."

"Hm."

"You're getting a medium pepperoni pizza."

Wha- he remembers Max's last order? Heh. Creeper.

"Yeah whatever. That'll do." Max sighs, before smiling to himself.

"Do you count as a topping? Like can I get pepperoni and maybe a Barnes along with it?" He asks, biting his nails.

"Tucker."

"Homework is hard."

"Tucker."

"Yeah. Okay. Noted. Barnes is not a topping."

Max gives him the address - not that he needs it - and they hang up and Max is left on the couch, staring at the wall with his phone still clutched in his hand.

He decides to be even more productive by saying 'fuck math' and taking out his art homework. They have to color a picture of a dragon. A very complicated picture of a dragon.

Oh well, there's no color code to dragons. He's got this.

He takes out his mass of crayons and sets them on the table. Beautiful. They look gorgeous. He takes out a crayon and sees the label.

Timberwolf.

Well okay, that'll do. He has no fucking clue what a Timberwolf is but hey, it sounds cool, and you learn something new every day. Max decides that the majority of the dragon should be this beautiful color, and begins to color in every section precisely. It must take him a while, because before he knows it, there's a knock on the door.

Max decides that he doesn't really want to answer it, because he's pretty sure that the person he wants to be there is not, in fact, there and he doesn't feel like looking into why exactly he wants Barnes to be delivering the pizza so bad, besides homework.

There's another knock at the door and Max realizes that he should probably answer it.

"Yeah, whatever, coming!" He calls and picks up his crutches, hobbling his way to the door.

He opens it and is pleasantly surprised when he realizes that you can order Barnes with your pizza.

"Oh wow." He nods to himself. "And you said pepperoni and Barnes isn't a thing."

Barnes rolls his eyes, before telling Max to move so that he can take the pizza in. Max complies, and before he knows it Barnes is walking into their greeting room and setting the pizza where it was last time, on the coffee table.

"You need to pay for it." Barnes turns around and crosses his arms, raising his eyebrows at Max.

Oh yeah, Max forgot again.

Max's face lights up in realization, and he makes his way back into the kitchen. He finds his wallet on the counter, and takes out a bunch of dollar bills. Seven dollars. He barely has enough.

Max goes back into the greeting room and finds Barnes exactly where he left him, but this time he's laughing.

"What's so funny?" Max asks, making his way up to Barnes and standing beside him. He follows Barnes' gaze to his homework.

"You-" Barnes laughs for a few more moments, before sobering up. "You do realize that you basically colored your dragon white?"

Max frowns, "No. I colored him Timberwolf." He looks at his paper and realizes that it is pretty much the same color. How had he not noticed before?

Well, this is embarrassing.

Barnes is looking at him like he's stupid.

"Wha- fuck off, Barnes! It's beautiful."

Barnes raises a brow, "It isn't even technically colored in."

Max falls onto the couch, closing his eyes, and throwing his crutches aside. "I give up."

Barnes sits on the arm rest. "You know, I figured you ordered me with your pizza for a reason."

Max opens one eye to look at Barnes. "Yeah. I guess I did."

Max straightens himself up to make room for Barnes, and this time he doesn't just stand around awkwardly. Max doesn't have to invite him, because Barnes flops down on the couch beside him.

"So, I got too distracted to do my math homework" because of you, Barnes. "And apparently Timberwolf isn't an acceptable color."  He glares at Barnes, who shrugs.

"Well, I think that that dragon would look good with..." Barnes begins going through Max's bag of crayons. "Screamin' Green." Barnes pulls a color out of the bag, Max decides that it looks pretty cool.

"Heh. Screamin' green." Max mumbles, a thought appearing in his head.

Wonder if Barnes is a scr...

Probably not.

OKAY, ignoring that.

Barnes hands him the crayon, and mutters, "green is Lauren's favorite color."

Max groans, leaning back into the couch. He decides that he doesn't like green. "Well Lauren obviously has bad taste." He motions to Barnes.

Oh yeah. He went there.

He looks up to Barnes and sees that he has an amused smile on his face. "Really? You think that I'm bad taste?"

Max laughs, crossing his legs and turning to Barnes, who has his back against the arm of the couch. "Yeah. You're gross." Max nods, as if it is a well known fact.

To his shock, Barnes scoots himself closer, and leans over as he puts his arms on his thighs so that the tip of his nose and his knees are touching Max's.

Max can't believe it. He and Barnes are this close voluntarily and they aren't fighting. "you really think that?"

Max gulps. "Y-yeah."

Max's heart is beating out of his chest and he can't breathe. He hates it, but for some reason Barnes always has this effect on him. It pisses him off. He gets even more pissed when he notices that every time they get close like this, Max ends up staring at a part of Barnes' face.

This time, like last time, it's his lips. He really does have nice lips. Even though Max was completely delisional when he last stared at them, he really can't deny how full... and soft... and just overall nice they look.

He involuntarily licks his lips, and his eyes go dazed and his mind goes funny and he can't think straight. Barnes' lips really are pretty... sexy.

"Uh..." Max is entranced.

It's then that Max sees that they are touching foreheads too, and Max gets scared shitless when he realizes that he seriously wishes that they were touching a whole lot more than just foreheads sand noses and knees.

Oh shit, that's not good.

He figures out that he needs to get the fuck away from Barnes before he does something seriously stupid.

Max is seriously not gay, promise.

He falls back into the armrest on his side, and scoots as far away from Barnes as possible.

"I think we should uh... we should get on with the homework..."

Barnes nods, giving him knowing smile. "Probably."

And they do. They finish the homework and Max is very conflicted and Barnes acts like he knows exactly what's going on. Max kind of wishes that Barnes would tell him, but is mostly glad that he doesn't.

But they finish and Barnes leaves and Max decides that he's had enough weird feelings for one day and he's gonna get wasted.

So he does.