Never Surrender

Max drove home through the snow with Kennedy in the seat next to him. Neither of them spoke, each too confused and too nervous about what words were going to spill from their mouths in the comfort of Kennedy's childhood home.

Max moved the car down the long gravel drive and parked just feet from the house, trying to save them both from the winter chill. They got out simultaneously and Kennedy followed Max through the unlocked front door.

"Living room or..?" Max trailed off, turning lightly to the left to head to the living room when Kennedy headed the opposite direction up the stairs, "Bedroom," Max stated, following her up. They were silent as the stared screeched in protest under their weight.

Kennedy went into her large bedroom and stepped out of her shoes, not turning around to look at the man behind her. Max closed the door, despite being the only ones in the house, and grabbed his jacket as she handed it back to him, only to drop it on top of his shoes.

"I'm going to change," Kennedy said, sounding more guarded than ever before, "then we can talk." She walked over the closet, not one built into the wall, but one which would've been considered more of a wardrobe, and pulled open the hinged doors.

From hangers, she grabbed the biggest t'shirt and a pair of shorts that were folded in her suitcase, which sat at the bottom of the closet. Normally, when getting ready for bed, Kennedy didn't think twice about what she was wearing, settling for only a shirt of his was common, but with new knowledge in her head, she couldn't see herself being so nonchalant again and she felt a twinge of nostalgia.

She changed in the bathroom slowly, swapping the dress for an old shirt and a pair of shorts that reached mid-thigh. When she walked back into the bedroom, Max had changed too, donning a pair of basketball shorts and a pull-over hoodie.

The air around them was awkward as he sat on the bed, his legs crossed and his hands in his lap. Kennedy crossed the room and sat next to him, her feet brushing against the floor as her legs dangled.

"I don't want it to be like this," Max said finally, turning his body to face the woman next to him.

"I can't help it, Max," she said softly, not meeting his eyes, "How am I supposed to feel about all of this?"

Max was quiet for a moment. "I don't know," he murmured, dropping his gaze to the floor, her bare feet cutting into his line of vision as they swung back and forth.

"I don't know if I'm in love with you, Max," she said, speaking honestly and pausing often to assess her own emotions, "but I love you so much and I trust you with all my secrets and my most precious experiences."

Max frowned at her words, confused as to what she was talking about. "Kennedy, what?" he asked, trying to meet her dark eyes with his own, "I've always been there for you, nothing is going to change that."

"You care about me," she said, believing that she was actually explaining, "and I trust you so much more than anyone else on Earth."

Max glanced to their hands as she took his fingers in her own. For a moment, Max's heartbeat thudded at twice the speed. "You've always known that I care about you," Max rebutted, grabbing her hand tightly, "Just because it's in a slightly different way doesn't mean anything."

Kennedy shook her head. "It does to me," she said, "It changes everything."

"It shouldn't," Max replied, "I'm the same person, Kennedy. Just because I don't think of you like a sibling doesn't mean that you have to be different around me," he explained, hoping his words would make it true.

Kennedy frowned and pulled her fingers from Max's. In the past, she had thought about him as a brother figure, one that stepped in when Konnor was forced out, but there had been other moments where Max felt nothing like a brother.

Kennedy thought back to the mornings when she would wake with his arms wrapped around her and his breath on her neck. Those were the moments that Max felt nothing like Konnor. Also, when his arms wrapped around her waist and he pulled her to him, pressing their hips together, her cheek against his chest, just the feel of him next to her. In those moments Max had a second role.

"I don't know if I love you like that, Max," Kennedy repeated, unsure of her own feelings, "but I do trust you and sometimes, you give me goosebumps just by the way you walk and the sound of your voice in the morning. You're more than a sibling, but love is something else completely."

They were both quiet as neither one knew what to say. It seemed that Max wanted something Kennedy couldn't give and she wanted something she wouldn't dare ask for. The younger girl turned her body to face the lanky bassist and their knees touched. She looked at his seafoam eyes and chills flared.

"Max, I," she silenced herself, unsure of how to voice what it was she wanted. Slowly she reached across the gap between their bodies and touched his jaw, her thumb brushing his cheek, her nerves burning.

She put her hand on his knee and leaned over their legs, her hand holding her up as she placed her lips in the place opposite of her hand, her mouth against his cheek. Max's breathing shuttered and then stopped. He blinked and then his eyes closed. Kennedy's breath hit his cheek and then the corner of his mouth. Then it was gone and her lips were barely on his. Only the wisp of a sensation.

Max changed that instantly. He pressed his mouth against hers harder, but not enough to hurt. Kennedy didn't back away, she moved closer, her hand leaving his knee to wrap around his neck like the other.

She stood on her knees, leaning into him. He still sat cross legged so she leaned down onto him, their chests together as he held them both from falling back onto the bed.

Her fingers slipped under his hood along the back of his neck, and gently pressed into the skin there. Max's hands moved to her hips like he was holding her up and moving her shirt simultaneously. His fingers touched her skin and she melted to him. She took her mouth from his and sat back on her feet.

"No, Max, I can't," she said, opening her eyes to meet his wide ones, "I can't use you like this." She wanted to brush away a strand of his hair, but decided not to touch him. She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth instead and waited for his reply.

"You're not using me." He shook his head, dislodging a few more strands of hair. "You don't know how you feel, I get that. You're just trying to figure it out." He was surprised when she shook her head, no.

"But that's not it, Max," she rebutted, meeting his eyes as nerves swept over her, "I trust you, unlike I've ever trusted anyone before. Unlike I trusted Oliver or anyone before him."

Max pushed away the realization in his head, half of him hoping he was right and the other half hoping that Kennedy was saying something else. "Do you mean..?" he trailed off, his emotions giving away exactly what he thought of the idea roaming around in his head.

Kennedy, who was never any good with words, simply kissed the side of his mouth, hoping he would understand.

Max shook his head and scooted away from her on the bed. "No, Kennedy, that's not fair, you can't do that to yourself and I sure as fuck won't do it to you."

Kennedy took it as an insult. "Why not?" she questioned, suddenly feeling self-conscious, "I know I'm not the kind of girl you usually go for, but you would be able to get," she faltered as they hit foreign conversational topics, "you know, right?"

"Fuck," Max cursed under his breath, wondering who'd hurt her so bad that she would truly believe she wasn't beautiful enough to get a man excited about her. "That's not it at all, Kennedy," he denied, shock still on his face, "That would be the easy part. It's just that your first should be with someone you love. It should be special."

Max hated himself for turning her away. There had been times when he forced his attention off of the feel of her body as she slept against him and the look of her legs as she prowled his house in her underwear and now the opportunity came for him to have her, to be the first and the only, and he was saying no.

"You love me," Kennedy argued in typical fashion, "and I trust you and I love you, no matter what kind of love it is. It's love, Max. I won't resent you or feel used. I'll know that you're doing it for me, because I want you to." She put her hand back on his knee and he struggled to argue with her.

"Kenny, I will be using you," he tried to rationalize, "It's not fair."

Kennedy moved her hand from his leg. "No," she realized, "I would be using you. That's not fair. I'm sorry."

Max stared at the girl as she looked down at her lap. She was perfect to him and he could name one thousand reasons why. Right now, her need to protect him and keep his emotions safe was at the top of his list. He'd never met a girl who wouldn't sleep with him just for sex. Sure, there were plenty that did it in hopes of a later relationship, but they never thought of him and the toll that mindless sex would have on him.

Now he had Kennedy, sitting mere inches from him, claiming that she didn't want to use him for his body even though he was the one worried about her and he'd given his body to people who cared far less about him.

"Fuck, Ken," Max muttered, realizing that he cared for the girl too much not to give her what she felt she wanted or needed, "If you're comfortable with it, then okay."

Kennedy looked up to him with a frown. "I can't use you, Max," she said, shaking her head, "You care about me differently and I can't use that to make you take my virginity. And plus," she added, grimacing, "You probably wouldn't enjoy it."

Max stared at the girl, stunned. After a quiet moment, he said, "I don't even know what to say to that, Kennedy Santos."

Kennedy frowned.

Max asked, "Do you think you're ready for sex?"

"With you?" she replied rhetorically, then she nodded.

"Ken, you have to say it," he rebutted, knowing she wasn't ready if she couldn't even speak the words out loud. He wouldn't dare do something she wasn't ready for, even if parts of him begged to forget his morals.

Kennedy frowned at the carpet and then looked back up to Max with a steady smile. She reached out and tucked his dark hair behind his ear. "I want you," she said softly, her hand on his cheek, "I want you to be my first, Max."

Max nodded and decided that they were going to do this right, like every girl should their first time. Max stood up, surprising Kennedy, and motioned towards the attached bathroom. "Go take a bath," he suggested, watching her expression.

"Do I smell?" she asked as she got off of her huge bed, "I showered before we left."

Max chuckled and shook his head. "You need to be relaxed," he said, "and you're not. So go relax in the bath for awhile. I'll be right here when you're done."

Kennedy grabbed Max's hand. "Thanks, Maxie," she murmured, pulling him to her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him to her with her head on his shoulder. "You're amazing," she whispered.

Max disconnected himself and gently pushed her in the direction of the tub. "Shut the door, read something, just relax."

Kennedy grabbed the radio off of her mirror table and disappeared into the bathroom, the door closed behind her. Max hesitated for just a second, before he was off towards the stairs. He searched the entire house for the items he'd need to make Kennedy's first time something more than most people's.

After a half an hour of gathering things and setting them up, Max realized with a start that they didn't have a condom. He wasn't the kind of guy to keep any in his bags or pockets on trips with Kennedy, so with a grimace he opened the door to Sam's room and headed towards the side table. When it was empty, like Max expected, the bassist veered towards the connected bathroom and began rifling through the cupboards and drawers, careful not to make it obvious that someone was in there.

Finally, Max found a couple in the back of the bottom drawer and grabbed one, thankful that Sam seemed to keep everything in those drawers. The lanky boy shoved it into the pocket of his shorts and hurried back into Kennedy's room before she could get out of the bath.

Max hadn't felt nervous about sex since he was a teenager, but while he walked over to Kennedy's bathroom door, he could feel his heart trying to eject itself out of his body. He knocked on the door with a couple of fingers and slowly cracked it open so Kennedy could hear him.

"I'm ready whenever you're done," he said, not looking inside the bathroom as he spoke into the crack made by the open door and the frame, "Come out whenever."

"Give me a couple of minutes," Kennedy replied, sounding subdued and nervous at the same time, "I'll be out."

"No rush," Max answered before closing the door. He was grateful that Sam wasn't coming home at all tonight. Kennedy had mentioned he was staying at a friends when she reappeared in the car after their first kiss. Max glanced at Kennedy's bedroom and felt it was perfect.

When the bathroom light shut off and Kennedy stepped out with nothing more than a nice white towel wrapped around her body, Max could see that the room was perfect to her at least. He'd nabbed candles from around the house and lit six or seven of them around her room. From the canopy of her bed, he hung blue icicle Christmas lights and shiny silver bulbs that reflected the color back at them.

One of Kennedy's hands covered her mouth and the other held onto her towel. "Max," she murmured, her eyes taking in the lights, "this is beautiful. I can't believe you did this for me."

Max shrugged from his spot next to the poster of the bed. "You're special," he said, "your first time should be, too."

Kennedy asked herself how Max had ever been broken up with. He was cocky, that was true, but Kennedy was beginning to realize that he was just as sweet and thoughtful.

"Are you ready?" Max asked, "Really ready? Because you can still change your mind. Even if we start, you can change your mind, just tell me. I'll stop, I promise."

Kennedy smiled at Max's concern. "I'm ready," she said. Max's thoughtfulness had only backed her decision. She couldn't imagine anyone else rushing around like he did to make her feel as special as she did in that moment.

Max nodded and held his hand out for her. "Then come here."

Kennedy stepped towards him, nervous, but ready, to give Max everything she'd been too afraid to share with anyone else.