maximino arciniega. (he/him, trans man, gay.) also known as max. age ranges from early to late twenties to be written in [unless in aus]. fluent in spanish and, later on, english. born in santiago, chile, and in later days resides in mexico. written exclusively in pre-better call saul era and occasionally in max-lives scenarios.
overview: max is basically my oc. i've done a lot of work with him, and written him extensively (and mainly privately) for the last 3 or so years. i have a pretty concrete picture of him and gus' relationship in my mind, as well as a meta that i've written on him — which can be found here — and i generally jump at any opportunity to write him. with that said, there is no max without gus. his story arc and everywhere he ends up is dependent on them meeting, so any aus will be held with that in mind.
fast facts / brief timeline.
born in the slums of santiago and raised primarily by his older brother, matĂas, after his parents' death.
raised in an extremely poverty stricken environment, where his family was squatting on 'stolen' land due to the lack of funds and resources.
in his adolescence, max relies on pickpocketing and scams to get him by, as well as his brother's crime. he makeshifts hrt by the time he is fifteen.
max's brother dies in max's early adult years, after getting in too deep with local crime. he disappears, and whilst max tries to look for him, his body is never found.
max continues on his own after that, becoming more of a rabid-dog archetype in order to achieve his own survival.
max and gus meet, and gus offers to pay for his education. hesitant and paranoid that this comes at a cost, max and gus continuously have dinner and become closer and closer.
eventually, max accepts his offer, and gus and max get together around the same time. shortly thereafter, max gets top surgery (with gus' funds, of course).
max attends university, gets his degree, and lives happily for an extended amount of time. he's given everything he could ever want, and in return he cooks gus dinner, makes their house a home, and allows a place of safety for gus to be more human.
max's death occurs. horrifically, suddenly, and awfully. it is an injustice that will haunt the narrative for years.
authors note. i do write max-lives au's, but they're primarily set within a universe built between tal's portrayal of gustavo fring (whom is no longer active, r.i.p) and therefore built on an already developed canon.
your mama keeps telling you that you are becoming unmanageable.Â
she says it while tugging at a stray curl, shaking her head, and breathing a chuckle into the kiss she places on your forehead. the air around the two of you is sticky, and warm, smelling nearly a bit burnt, but you don’t mind. because you press your forehead into the crook of your mother’s elbow and all she smells like is home.Â
so, she says you are becoming unmanageable, and you know she is talking about your hair, or your grin, or maybe that sneaky little laugh you hide behind the palm of your hand, but you shake your head no anyway.Â
you tell her you are the most well behaved kid on the block.Â
you tell her there isn’t a thing in the world that could stop you but her.Â
you tell her that you’re growing up but not away, and soon, when you are bigger, and stronger, and can run your hand along the very edge of the sky with the tips of your fingers, you’ll always come back down to earth to talk to her. unmanageable is a word for children without mamas like mine, you say. she rolls her eyes, tugs at your stray curl again, and tells you she’ll remember that when you’re fifteen and feeling rebellious.
the day after, you take all your sneaky-laugh habits and that unmanageable grin, and try to find her some proof. you collect all the lemons on a neighbor’s tree, borrow too much sugar from someone down the block, and try to make something sweet from all that sour, to return all those years she’d done the same for you.
your hands are sticky, and warm, while you walk into your home to smell something more than just a little bit burnt. like smoke, rising from the mouths of men you have seen, but never see you, and maybe don’t even see you now.
you can barely run your hand along the edge of your papa’s forth button on his shirt, but you tug at it anyway, trying to hide him behind you. you open your mouth to say something brave, or stupid, or unmanageable, and your brother is shaking his head, but you say it anyway.
you plant your feet like a tree that just won’t move, and you defend your home in all those too-young too-brave kinds of ways that those too-big too-strong men laugh at. because you may not be fifteen and rebellious, but you are unmanageable just like your mama said, and you may tremble like a child but you speak like an adult.
you try, and you try, and you try, but it doesn’t matter.
because for every unmanageable tendency you have, are twice of those absent-mama-men you don’t know how to face, and soon, you are just the very same.
staring down at a spillage of sour-sweet-lemonade.
mingling with the sight of blood.Â
remembering how your mama said stop, and you stopped.
because nothing in the world could stop you, but her.
you are running like the pavement is on fire, and your brother is the smoke alarm that won’t stop chirping.
his feet fall behind yours in a pace that he taught you well in, with your grin becoming all mischief, and bad decisions — wrapped up in a victory that he taught you, just the very same. he says maximino, and you whip your head around your shoulder to flash all your pearly whites his way. you think you can see him shake his head: as if he’s tired, or disappointed, or maybe even annoyed. but you know better. you see the quirk of his lip, even as your vision shakes with every haphazard step you take.Â
you know he’s proud, even if he won’t say it.
he catches up to you when you’re halfway through counting stolen bills, a brand new watch wrapped around your palm, and he smacks you on the back of the head.
not hard, but enough to make you laugh.
he scolds you. tells you you’re getting cocky. that all that confidence doesn’t mean anything if you get caught while you do it. but you keep counting, and he keeps lecturing, and eventually, he sighs and mimics his action from earlier.Â
just a shake of his head, and a quirk of his lip. you laugh again.
this time, he laughs too.
your brother stops coming home, so you start calling it a house.
because there is no home without a family to live in it, and there’s no family left, so why would you pretend?
you search for him for a while, hunting through back streets and dark-damp alleys, but you find nothing. you become a scavenger for any trace of your brother, desperate to find a hiding spot, or a secret door that, perhaps, he’s escaped through:  desperate to believe in an ending, other than the one you know well.
but you’re not interested in pretending, and your desperation doesn’t change that.
so you stop looking, and faintly wonder if it’s because you know you won’t find anything, or because of the fear in what you’ll find if you do.
sometimes, you think it’s a little bit of both.
he asks you for directions, and you fight the urge to tell him you’re just as lost as he is.
because you know his kind of lost, isn’t your kind of lost, so instead, you point your finger in the right direction and walk in tandem beside him.
you play all that charm and charisma to whatever tune you feel like singing, but this time, it feels different.
because he smiles, and you don’t see all that empty-tourist, pitiful-politeness that makes you bitter.Â
he smiles, and you feel like the sun has turned up the goddamn heat, directing it right onto your cheeks: all pink, and flushed, and crawling up your neck in an effort to expose every bit of that warmth he spreads in your chest.
you don’t even know his name, but you don’t have to ask. he gives it to you: freely, willingly, and effortlessly.
like you should never have had to ask to begin with. like you’ll never have to ask for anything again.
(at the time, you didn’t know how true this would end up being.)
the name gustavo becomes a turning point. a cornerstone. a testament to an ending that you know you deserve.
he becomes every bright-eyed, sun-soaked fantasy you never knew you wanted, or would have the chance to get. he gives you everything, he asks for nothing, and you don’t know what you would do without him. but, it isn’t the offer of education, or the brutality-bitter-business, or even the perfectly-polite-practice he engages in that makes him special.Â
it’s the little things.
(his soft chuckle, as you press a kiss behind his ear and trail your lips downward. his clockwork timed compliments, all devout truth and not a hint of overt persuasion in sight. his hand, tracing along the outline of your hip bone, pressing into just the right spot that he’s learned in his dedication to memorizing your body. the brief shake of his head, and affection laced smile, dipping into that barely-drowsy state you know he’s fighting off, all to keep his eyes trained on you for one second longer. his ever-stable but always-surprising humor, tucking your laugh into the crook of his neck as if he’s the only safe place to store that kind of happiness.)
on a morning that’s too early and too bright, with his arm tugging your body against his, you look up at him.Â
your finger trails along his collarbone, dancing up towards his jawline, and swipes along his cheekbones. like you’re reading braille, and every nook and cranny of his features has become the only language of love that matters.
in these moments, you know the truth. just like he knows the truth. and how most people don’t know anything of it at all.
because you know, like he knows, that he could’ve given you nothing but his name, and you still would’ve ended up here.
soaking in that bright-eyed, sun-soaked fantasy. tracing your finger along his collarbone, and memorizing every minute of this moment you can.
just like you did yesterday. just like you’re doing today. just like you’ll do every day after.
finding that ending you know you deserve, in every last second.
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