A/N: woah, damn, it's been like super long since i've posted here.

anyway, post-bae ending trope, because i'm a sucker for cliches. it's all been done before, I know, but I hope I can add some originality. humor me. :')

also yes i'm super late to this ship, something else i'm a huge sucker for. is anyone still here?

Night had fallen. Or rather, it crept in, with stealth and discretion like a silent killer, so gradual that Chloe had hardly noticed that the only shadows cast around her were produced from the dancing fire, finding home in the lazy pile of sticks and twigs the pair had gathered from the forest.

Of course, Chloe hadn't really been paying much attention to her surroundings. Once the storm retired to a few warning rumbles of thunder and the occasional wisp of wind blowing in the trees, her focus shifted to the comfort of her best friend, offering consolation in any way possible she knew of—even if Chloe was never well versed in the art of affection. Fortunately for her, however, since the storm devastated Arcadia Bay hours ago, conversation between the two girls had managed to tactfully avoid even gracing the subject of the storm and the alleged death of several people. Max had made her choice, and that was it. Chloe was alive, and the texts blowing up their phones brought solace that at least a majority of their friends had survived the storm.

Getting into Chloe's car and driving towards the outskirts of town was the only decision the girls could make, pressured with a time crunch and overwhelming weight of responsibility sitting on their shoulders. Truth was, Chloe had no idea where she was driving. Max gave little direction and Chloe had hardly anyone to turn to outside of their hometown. Once the highway they roamed devolved into a maze of dirt roads, narrowly piercing through the wilderness in veins of desolate yonder, Chloe and Max had agreed to settle into a small clearing for the night. It wasn't a permanent solution to the storm of problems they were about to face, but Chloe had enough supplies in her truck to gift them a few days of camping out before deciding on a final destination.

Embers scattered towards the sky, dissipating as the fire below them cracked. The remnants of the distant storm wafted the smoke towards Chloe, who reacted by cursing and shifting herself closer towards Max.

"Jesus," she coughed, shooing the intruding smoke away. "Anywhere I sit, the fucking smoke finds me."

"Why does it even matter? You smoke," said Max, in a hint of a chuckle.

"That's—uh, that's different." Chloe hacked out the remaining smoke that assaulted her lungs.

"How is that different?"

"Because smoking is wonderful. And this is the asshole cousin of smoking that punches you in the gut and—"

"Smoking is also the asshole that kills people."

"But it feels so good," Chloe said in a sigh.

Max filled the pause that followed with a dejected breath. "I'm the asshole that kills people." She folded her knees up to her face.

"Well, Christ, Max, way to keep the spirits high." Chloe knew Max couldn't have possibly been emotionally unscathed by the storm, but a faint spark in her hoped they could at least avoid talking about it, merrily and obliviously living out their lives in pure denial of the events that recently unfolded in their small town. Still, Chloe was all Max had at this point, a sentiment solidified when they hopped in Chloe's truck and abandoned the town to seek out a life far away in a city where there faces would hide in obscurity. If Max wanted to find comfort, it'd have to be in Chloe.

But, again—Chloe was all Max had. And Chloe loved that girl to fucking pieces.

"I'm sorry, but—I mean, we can't just ignore this. Holy shit, people are probably dead."

"Yeah. And I'm alive." Chloe huffed. "Place was a shithole, anyway. Could use some renovation."

"I guess." Max grumbled and lay down on the mess of grass and leaves below her,

"Hey." Chloe paused. She wish could say it wasn't Max's fault, but any defense she had for that would be poorly constructed. Maybe it wasn't Max's fault, maybe Max was a victim of circumstance, of the psychological devastation of a burden no human should ever carry. But with the wound being so fresh, there was no way Max would push the blame on anyone but herself.

"Yeah?"

"You're doing fine, all right?"

Max shrugged. "I guess."

"I mean, shit, you're handling this a lot better than I would. Uh, I mean, you're a better person than I am. A stronger one."

"Yeah. I'm hungry."

"Oh." Chloe bit her words back, realizing Max had no interest in discussing it anymore. Being dismissed so easily hurt, but she couldn't imagine what barrage of emotions Max was experiencing. "There's shit in the truck. Grab me something too, all right?...Fuck, you know what, we're not going anywhere soon, grab me a beer."

When Max left, Chloe found her first moment of peace in hours. She focused on the breathing of the trees as the wind fluctuated through the area, wildlife shuffling around as their homes shifted in the breeze. The calm of the wilderness contrasted against the frantic nature of home life had never stood out to Chloe until this moment. Shit, she could get used to it, she concluded while trailing her fingers through a patch of grass beside her. Abandoning their plans on starting a new life in the city, settling into the woods instead—

"Catch!"

"What?" Chloe's serene reflection was oh-so rudely interrupted by Max standing in front of the truck, waving a beer bottle. "Holy sh—no, don't throw it!"

"Hey, hey, relax," Max said between laughs, "I wouldn't throw this."

"You better not." Chloe brushed some twigs and dirt off of her jacket. "I only have a few left. And I don't plan on sucking beer out of the ground like a fucking dog."

"Funny, I don't know a lot of dogs that drink beer."

"All right, smartass." Chloe gestured Max over to her with her hand, a hint of urgency in her command as the thought of beer awoken excitement with the anticipation of the refreshing, albeit slightly warm drink calming her anxieties. "Get the fuck over here."

Max sat next to Chloe, pulling a granola bar out of her jean pockets. "Want half?"

"Nah, I'm good." Chloe accepted the bottle of beer out of Max's hands, disappointed in the warmth, even if it were expected. Screw it, though, it wasn't the cold of the beverage she was anticipating. She twisted the cap off of the bottle and took her first sip, cleansing the aftertaste of smoke loitering in the back of her throat.

"Woah, how'd you do that with your hands? Doesn't that hurt?"

"...It's a twist top."

"Oh." Max's composure devolved into embarrassment, shoulders sloping up.

"Seriously?" Chloe laughed, wiping her mouth.

"Look, I don't really drink." Max took a bite of her granola bar. "Wow, this really sucks, by the way."

"Yeah, it's some shit David had in his garage. He eats this shit a lot. It tastes like garbage but if you wash it down with a few drinks it tastes a little less like sugar-dusted cardboard...garbage."

"'Sugar-Dusted Cardboard' is going to be our new band name."

"Cheers to that," Chloe said, holding her beer bottle up. Max responded by tapping her granola bar against the glass, bits of the bar crumbling down to the ground in a cascade of tasteless disappointment.

A few beats of placid silence nestled into the air and left the girls with twin smiles of satiation, Max apparently over the wavering moment of sadness and guilt that assaulted her earlier. For now, at least.

"You ever think about saying 'fuck it all' to everything and living in the woods?" Chloe asked, throwing stray twigs into the dying fire in futile efforts to stoke it.

"Not really," Max admitted, finishing her snack with reluctantly. "I'd miss the internet. And I don't want to get eaten by a bear."

"Yeah, me neither." Chloe dismissed all previous, albeit fleeting fantasies she had of retreating into the wilderness with Max and living their lives as fledgling hermits, living off the offerings of nature and nothing more. "Nature sucks. I don't wanna spend the rest of my life picking berries and praying they're not poisonous...switching shifts between bear watch...wiping with leaves."

"Oh, uh, yeah, ew? You're gross," Max threw the wrapper of her granola at Chloe.

Flinching, Chloe threw her hand up to her face, a few ounces of beer flying out of the bottle and splashing onto Max. "Fuck, Max. Look what you made me do."

Max tensed up once the beer made contact with her jeans. "My God, Chloe! It was a fucking granola bar wrapper!"

"You threw it at me! It was self defense. Don't victim-blame me, Max."

"Oh, you fuck," Max playfully chucked a twig at Chloe.

"Help, I'm being attacked!"

"No one can hear you out here!" Max boasted her best evil laugh imitation.

"You know, you should thank me. You smell like beer now. I don't think bears like beer. So, yeah, you're fucking welcome." Chloe finished off the rest of her drink.

"'Bears Like Beer.' That's going to b—"

"Not everything has to be a band name."

"All right, all right. Well, that's another reason I'd rather live in civilization. I need a fucking shower."

"I don't know, I think you smell pretty good."

Max shot a look of disgust. "You're fucking weird."

"But you love it."

"Unfortunately, yeah, I do." Max leaned her head on Chloe's shoulder, summoning weird feelings in Chloe teetering between undying affection towards her best friend and a confusing tangle of more-than-platonic urges and thoughts, the same conundrum surfacing towards the end of her friendship with Rachel. The same feelings that Chloe had been, up until now, successfully burying down, afraid of testing the fragility in their friendship by selfishly acting on them.

"I'm gonna go get more wood, the fire's dying," Chloe announced, withdrawing from Max and beginning to stand up.

"No, no, stay for a bit—please." Max grabbed Chloe's wrist and pulled her down, voice traced with a delicate desperation.

"Okay." Chloe's discomfort could never overtake her desire to be there for Max.

"I wanna watch it die."

Chloe laughed. "What's wrong with you?"

"We don't need a fire anymore. We'll sleep in your truck. Just...don't leave me alone."

"Okay."

A beat of silence. "I don't regret my decision."

"What?" Chloe pressed, knowing the answer.

"I'm glad I chose you. I don't want you to think that I wish I didn't."

"I know." Max's lingering grip on Chloe's wrist placated Chloe into a strange trance. "And I'm glad you did, even if that sounds selfish."

"Are you ever going to call back the people bugging you on your phone?"

"Eventually. I'm not ready to talk to anyone else right now," Chloe said. "What about you?"

"Same. I texted Warren and my parents. That's it."

A wolf howled in the distance—though how distant worried Chloe—startling both of the girls into a synchronized jump. "Fuck," Chloe breathed.

"Uh, can—can we go back into your truck?" Max asked, scrambling to a standing position.

"Hell yeah."

"So—honest question," Max started, helping Chloe up to her feet, "where are we going?"

"Honestly? I have no fucking clue."

Instead of being upset, as Chloe feared, Max reacted with an amused giggle. "That's why you need me. We're going to go live with Warren's family."

"I—wait, what? I mean, that's co—"

"I'm kidding. We're going to stay with my parents a bit and work it out from there. Seriously, you remember I have parents, right?"

"I don't know, you never really talk about them. I haven't seen them in years."

"It's going to be okay," Max said, as if sensing the anxiety in Chloe's voice. "They'll let you stay as long as you want."

"Okay."

"And we'll figure something out. A new school, I don't know."

"Right."

"You okay?"

"Yeah," Chloe said. "I don't know, the uncertainty of the future is..."

"Scary, I know. But we—"

"As long as you're in it, then I guess it's not so scary."

"Wow." Max stayed silent for a moment. "That's gay."

"You're gay."

"Let's just go to bed, all right? I'm tired and I don't want to get eaten wolves. And I don't want you to get eaten by bears, since you're not wearing your bear-repellent like I am."

Chloe smiled, the last few licks of fire illuminating Max's face, that freckled, damned irresistible face she grew to adore, superhuman in its ability to pacify Chloe in even the most trying times. "Anything for you."