Melted: A MaxTul AU story

Seven: Sobering News

Max sat at his desk scrolling through some documents that the publicity office had sent him about events the company had held over the last five years, but he really had no interest in them. He kept thinking about what had happened that night when his uncle had taken ill at work.

He looked at his uncle now. The man was smiling with benign amusement at something that Wanna was doing, and Max might not have noticed the tinge of sadness in a different context. How long had that look been there? How long had his uncle been living the way he had been living?

Because although Max had initially been worried about his uncle when he heard the man had passed out in the office; he had still believed throughout the entire time he and Sukrit had helped him to the elevator to the time when they had gotten through the lobby to Tul's waiting car even up until the very moment that they had pulled up to his uncle's place that this illness was something sudden that a good rest and decent food would cure.

It wasn't until he heard Tul say, "Are you sure this is the place?" that Max started wondering. It wasn't so much the words but the tone of Tul's voice. He looked outside and realized why there was that tone because where they were not in the neighborhood that Max remembered but in front of a rundown building in a neighborhood that had seen much better days.

Max glanced outside the windows from the back seat where he sat close to his uncle. He glanced back at the man who had refused to go to the hospital and who had just wanted to go home. "Uncle," he said softly. "Is this your new place?" He didn't mean to sound as sad as he did, but he couldn't help it. He didn't see how Tul was looking at him through the rear view mirror.

His uncle had just nodded, so he slid to get out and to help him out. He and Tul got out of the car and looked around before he bent to help his Uncle out. The neighborhood looked poor, but not dangerous. Still, they both were concerned about the attention that such a nice car would get in such a place. Max spoke first.

"You can stay here. I can bring him up by myself."

"No. I'll come up with you just in case." At Max's hesitation, Tul hurriedly said, "I'll come right back down as soon as we get him inside."

Max had nodded. He didn't want to spend much more time outside. He wanted to get his uncle bathed and in bed. So they had both went up into a building which though tidy looked like it would fall apart in the next rainy season. His uncle had given them a number, and Max had felt more and more dismayed as they got closer to it because the doors were so close together that there could be no way the spaces behind the doors were of any substantial size.

Thus, he wasn't surprised then when they got to his uncle's place and opened the door to find a space that was barely large enough to hold a bed, desk, small closet, and a microwave. There was no bathroom even. What was happening? Why was his uncle living here?

Pongpat even through his illness sensed Max's consternation. "Don't worry. The landlady is nice, and as you can see the commute is easy. I'm just trying to save all my extra money. We only have one more year before Ohm goes to university. Why does a middle-aged man need space?" He smiled weakly at Max, trying to get him to stop frowning.

Tul felt uncomfortable. Not because he hadn't seen places like this. In his wilder days, he had kept a place just like this to crash when he was too drunk to be seen at home. But he felt that this conversation between Max and his uncle wasn't something Max wanted him to overhear. He could tell that Max was upset by the way the other man looked at Pongpat and at the space. He saw how Max had gently helped his uncle sit on the bed, staring at pictures of a happy family, some which Tul was sure included a younger Max, as if he wanted to tell those people he was sorry. Max didn't just look sad; he looked guilty.