Chloe remembers the first time she saw Max die. It was an exact mirror, a role reversal, as she watched Nathan pull a gun on her childhood best friend, and put a bullet in her stomach. Watched her fall. Chloe remembers how much paralyzing fear and pain and anguish she experienced when Max's skull cracked against the tiled floor of the dirty bathroom – that shouldn't be her final resting place, it just shouldn't be, she should be with me – her lips parting in a silent, final gasp.
She remembers being unable to look at her body. That was the worst part. Max's eyes staring sightlessly in the exact spot where Chloe had been frozen in shock. She had probably seen Chloe in her last moments too. That thought had sent Chloe crashing towards a stall, her emotional turmoil roiling the acid in her gut until it forced itself up her throat and out past her teeth.
The second time Chloe remembers Max dying was much of the same. Nathan shooting her, in the chest this time, before rounding on Chloe as she screamed, and pulling the trigger on her as well. She remembers landing inches in front of Max's face, her features immobile and quickly paling.
Chloe remembers waking up screaming to feel Max's hands on her shoulders, shaking her.
"It's a dream Chloe!" Max had screamed at her, "It's a dream, just wake up okay?!"
"Chill Maxaroni," Chloe had said, her voice strangly calm, despite the tremors she could feel shaking her body to pieces, "I'm good. Still here."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
Yes, Chloe had wanted to say, Please take these nightmares away from me. Kiss me to keep me sane. Please. "Nah, it's all good," she said in reply, brushing off Max's concerned hands, vaguely realizing that her hands were cold and clammy as she made contact with Max's.
"Are you sure?"
No, she definitely wasn't sure. But Max was with Warren now. It wasn't her place to ask her to soothe her nightmares. "Just.. it's good, alright? Go back to sleep, or, go home. Or something. I don't need you babysitting me anymore. The storm's over, danger's passed, right? All good." But the storm still hadn't passed in Chloe.
That was two and a half weeks ago. Two and a half weeks post-storm, after everything got so fucked up and out of control and White Knight Warren had managed to whisk Max away. It made her sick, to the point where she physically felt like she was going to pass out every single time she saw them making googly-eyes and mushy-lips at each other.
But then Chloe had started to notice that she wasn't the only one who was shooting looks with murderous intent their way. And that other person was none other than Victoria Chase.
Which is how Chloe finds herself in Victoria's room once more, after a night of drinking too much and caring too little. It's how Chloe always finds herself stumbling into Victoria's room, always under some kind of influence as she knocks too loud at the door, or makes some crass, lewd comment while leaning against the door for support.
It's different this time though. Normally, Chloe goes in, brushing past Victoria who's bitching at her – but she needs this as much as Chloe does, Chloe knows this, can tell by the way Victoria wastes no time in ripping her clothes off her body – and doesn't say a word as she presses her lips against Victoria's, seeking to bruise.
This time, her nightmares have made her a fucking mess. She pushes into Victoria's room, completely sober and tries to summon anything but tears when she pulls Victoria into her arms.
"Stop," Victoria commands, and it's the first time that words have ever been exchanged in these encounters. Words that aren't aroused from fingers thrusting or teeth biting.
"No," Chloe resists, and tears at Victoria's surely expensive silk pajama top. The fabric rips and Chloe grunts in satisfaction; maybe it will enrage Victoria enough to put a stop to what seems to be a moment of empathetic weakness. She has those, Chloe knows, but they are few and far between. And because of Chloe's abrasive personality that creates so much ire and friction between them, these moments have never shown up in their little give and take ritual.
Until now.
"I mean it, butch. Stop," Victoria snarls, and her tone is one of someone who is never disobeyed.
Like Chloe's been good at listening to the rules, to authority. But stop she does. Not because Victoria's all high and mighty, but because Chloe's learned a few things over these past encounters that have been growing in frequency and, yeah, in intimacy. And something that Chloe's learned is that Victoria's got a certain tension to her words when she's trying to hide emotions, particularly fear. But when she's sprawled in front of Chloe, legs hanging open and head thrown back, there isn't much that she can hide behind.
"Call me butch again, I fucking dare you," she challenges, but her anger is too transparent to someone who's been seeing her naked for hours on end.
"Sit."
For once, Chloe's glad someone's taking charge. She's tired, so fucking tired, of trying to lead herself around, pulling herself forward by tired smiles and faking the word "good" whenever Max asks her – sincerely, unfortunately, if she would just not be so sincere and perfect and cute it would be so much easier to hate her – how she's doing.
"It's Max, isn't it?" Like she can read the name in Chloe's eyes, like it's carved into her forehead.
"When is it not?" Chloe laughs bitterly, kicking off her boots and shimmying out of her jeans before dropping onto Victoria's bed. The act is so intimate and casual and easy that, two and a half weeks ago, it would have sent Victoria raging about how Chloe's just an outlet, that there's absolutely nothing between them.
Now, however, it's hardly registered. It's copied, even, as Victoria shrugs out of her ruined top and doesn't even bother to get a replacement. She slips under the covers beside Chloe and only hesitates minutely before patting the pillow beside her and lifting the sheets once Chloe had shifted towards her.
"Now. Talk," Victoria's words are clipped, short, but there's this softness and vulnerability there that Chloe has never encountered before. It makes her wonder if maybe they'll be able to get over Max. Together.
"Well, I dunno," Chloe starts vaguely, pausing slightly as she tucks her head underneath Victoria's chin, half expecting Victoria to reprimand her for being so inarticulate. But it doesn't come. So she continues, "I was thinking about my nightmares again. How Max had comforted me afterwards. She.. she loves me, but she.. isn't with me and I just... feel worthless."
"You?" Victoria snorts, "Worthless? The girl who threatens to burn the world because something doesn't go her way and tells the haters to fuck themselves?"
"It's a coping mechanism," Chloe replies with a roll of her eyes that she knows Victoria can't see, but can still hear in her tone. "You of all people should know about that. I seem to recall you telling Max to 'go fuck her selfie'?"
Chloe feels the heat radiate off of Victoria's face as she blushes. "That was repressed attraction, okay? And I can admit that now, before you go off and taunt me about it."
"So, the Ice Queen has love somewhere in her body after all," Chloe murmurs, rocking her hips ever so slightly against Victoria's thigh.
"Stop it," Victoria whines, but there's less conviction than the first time. She's starting to lose composure as her desires catch up with her in one throbbing rush. "We need to talk," she grunts, pushing at Chloe's hips.
"Mm," Chloe hums, her lips and teeth finding the pulse point at Victoria's neck, "Can always talk later."
"You always leave!" Victoria exclaims suddenly, and her out-of-nowhere desperation is what causes Chloe to jerk back. "In the morning, right after... you never stay. And I don't know how to tell you that I want you to."
This admission stops Chloe completely. She's staring at Victoria with new eyes, studying the way her face is lit up from the moonlight that streams through the window and tries to figure out if she's actually seen anything more beautiful. Which is complete bullshit, she tells herself, Remember Max? The whole reason you started this sexscapade with Queen Vortex Bitch? But still, the proof is staring her right in the face, and it's not backing down, even though the vulnerability of the statement is having Victoria worry at her bottom lip as the silence grows longer.
"You... you want.. me to stay?" Chloe asks, feeling a little overwhelmed. "No one's ever.. I mean... everyone else leaves me, I don't get a choice-"
"Yes, I-" Victoria starts, smacking a palm onto her forehead suddenly, tilting her head back as she grits her teeth for a moment. "God, if someone told me a month ago that I would fall for a waif hipster bullshitsand their mutt lackey-"
"You can forget me staying then," Chloe grumbles, but she doesn't really mean it. She knows she doesn't. No one has ever explicity asked her to stay before. It makes her feel important. It makes her feel wanted.
"You don't mean that," Victoria snaps back a challenge, but there's an undercurrent beneath her words that is weak and scared and uncertain. She doesn't really know Chloe that well at all and, given her constant unexpected surprising in bed, she just can't predict Chloe's actions at all. She can't read Chloe the way Chloe's been able to read her.
"No, I don't," she responds softly, settling an arm against the small of Victoria's back. "You asked me to stay. No one's ever.. I've never been asked that before."
"Not even Max?"
"Let's not talk about her, alright?" Chloe grumbles, settling her forehead back against Victoria's collarbone, kissing the soft skin at the dip of her breasts.
"We'll have to at some point," Victoria points out, her breath hitching slightly at the touch of Chloe's lips. "We can't lose her."
"We wont. Max promised me that she'd never leave me ever again," Chloe whispers, remembering how she had let Max held her hand in the aftermath of those first few days, how Max had whispered meaningless nothings and empty promises into her ear while they waited for the shaking to stop. Except one of them wasn't meaningless. And Chloe had clung to it, and the hope it promised her.
"That's you," Victoria scoffs, and Chloe squeezes her side as Chloe hears the walls slam up around her. At her touch, Victoria softens, just slightly, as she asks with slightly less venom than her usual Ice Bitch status, "What about me?"
Chloe shrugs, tracing patterns around Victoria's spine with the pads of her fingertips, "You're with me now," she explains lightly, as if it's no big deal. As if claiming the Queen Bee as her own was just a normal occurance in the life of Chloe Price. "If she wants me to stick around, she's gonna have to put up with you too."