Just,,, a fic about chloe singing,,, no plot,,, just chloe singing

As soon as Chloe sees it in the shop window, she knows Max has to have it. She needs something to do with her hands besides claw at her own skin and bite her fingernails.

It's a guitar with a body made of pale wood and metal strings. It's perfect, and she has the money, so it's a done deal. It rides home in the passenger seat of her truck.

It's raining hard by the time she pulls up in the parking lot of their apartment building. She's 45 minutes later than when she told Max she'd be home by, but at least she has a good excuse this time.

Max is asleep when she enters their bedroom, sprawled out on their bed, fully dressed in her everyday clothes down to the scuffed up sneakers that she's been putting off replacing. She gets attached to things, like photographs and old sweaters with holes in the sleeves and coffee mugs and girls who don't deserve to have their lives placed above the wellbeing of entire towns.

(Chloe shakes the thought off. She's here. It doesn't matter what she deserved; this is what she got. She's here.)

Chloe nudges Max's shoulder gently, sitting on the bed beside her.

Her face is buried in the pillow, arms flung over her head.

"Max." Chloe nudges her again. No luck. Max sleeps like a rock when she's really tired, which is most of the time.

There are papers and photos scattered across the bed, and Chloe leafs through them. Most of the papers are boring. She's studying for her GED. It's the photos Chloe likes to look at.

"Chloe?" The bed moves underneath her, shifting with Max's weight as she rolls onto her back. She smiles sleepily up at her, eyes crinkling up around the corners. Her hair falls into her face, and she lets out a huff of breath, sending her bangs fluttering up out of her eyes.

Chloe reaches out to brush the hair out of her face, leaning forward.

Max rises up to meet her, pressing her lips to Chloe's in one swift movement. She leans back against the pillow, and Chloe hovers over her, studying her face. There's a lingering redness around her eyes. She's been crying. Again.

(Yesterday afternoon, last night, the early hours of the morning. When are the thoughts tormenting her going to give her a fucking break?)

Chloe bites her lip, letting the photo in her hand flutter back onto the bed.

Max catches the movement, eyes darting to the right. "Don't look at those. I can't get anything right today."

"Yeah, right." Chloe leans forward again. Their noses brush. She stares at Max's eyes, at the red around the corners. "What's bothering you?"

"Nothing." Her eyes dart to the corner of the room. "Just… one of those days, you know?"

She knows. It's just that every day is one of those days lately. Evidently, the universe has a thing for tormenting them.

Chloe sighs and puts the unfairness of it all out of her mind. Maybe she can balance it out for a bit, for the night. "I have a surprise for you," she whispers. She can barely contain the excitement in her voice. She kisses Max again, on her cheeks, her forehead, the tip of her nose. She feels her shaking beneath her as she giggles.

"Chloe…" Another bout of laughter.

God, she has the best laugh.

"Chloe, I'm never going to get to this surprise if you don't let me up."

Chloe snorts. "You don't look like you'll be getting up any time soon, with or without me here," she teases, lips brushing Max's skin. She collapses onto the bed, still halfway on top of her girlfriend. The bed creaks loudly beneath them. It's been making panic-inducing noises every time one of them moves for the past week.

"Oh, god," Max says breathily, with more humor than alarm. Her voice is light with laughter.

Chloe nuzzles her face into her neck. She can feel the soft hum of her voice.

"This bed is going to fall apart right beneath us."

"Nah. With our luck, it'll wait until we're actually asleep."

"'With our luck?' Okay, Chloe, if you're referencing the 'bad luck' that's caused almost every plate in our kitchen cabinet to break, that's just called 'Max being clumsy.'" She laughs again.

Chloe likes this, when laughter spills easily from her lips, when she smiles without that faraway look in her eyes. "Who needs plates?"

"How is it that you just got home and I already feel a hundred times better than I did five minutes ago? I love you."

Chloe feels her face heat up slightly. She stills gets butterflies when Max says things like

that. It's silly and slightly embarrassing, the feeling that she gets when she says she loves her, this lovesick, giddy rush that makes her dizzy and lightheaded. "I love you, too. And I can make your day even better if we can manage to get up."

"Okay, okay, I'm curious now. Get off." Max shoves her lightly.

"I don't know. Maybe I should make you wait."

Max gives her another gentle push before trying to wriggle her way out from under her.

"Okay, I'm going, I'm going." Chloe slides off the bed, standing up and tugging at her crumpled shirt.

Max gets up slowly, stretching her arms above her head as she scoots to the end of the bed. Her bracelets slide down her arm, the sleeve of her jacket rolling up to reveal fair skin. She bends over to untie her shoelaces, and Chloe crouches down to help her.

"You're so impatient," Max says, a laugh floating at the end of her sentence.

"I'm being helpful." She tugs Max's right shoe off and stumbles backward, earning

another small laugh from the other girl. "Ready?"

Max pulls her socks off. "Ready." She plants both bare feet on the floor and stands up, crossing the room. Her steps are careful, like she's perpetually walking on broken glass, avoiding creaky floorboards.

Chloe studies her from the bed.

It's one of the many slightly off things she's done since… everything. She gets up to make sure that the door is locked in the middle of the night. Won't let anyone take her picture. Checks the weather obsessively.

Chloe hates it, seeing her so… scared. Here. Here, in this place that's supposed to feel safe. Nowhere feels safe. They're both going to be stuck looking over their shoulders forever, always smelling the hint of a storm on the wind, resisting the urge to pack their things every time it rains. (Thunderstorms give Max nightmares).

Max opens the blinds before they leave the room. Moonlight spills across her ruffled hair.

Chloe's staring. Max gives her a look.

"What are you thinking about?"

Chloe shakes her head. She kisses her cheek gently and brings herself back to the present. Excitement is flowing through her like electricity. "I'm thinking that there's a surprise waiting for you in the kitchen, so hurry up." She catches Max's wrist, dragging her toward the other room.

Max has this adorable little smile on her face, lips pressed together and quirked up at one corner. Anticipation dances behind the thin veil of sleep in her eyes. She stumbles along behind Chloe, laughing at each tug on her wrist.

Chloe stops in the doorway, positioning Max in front of her and covering her eyes with both hands. "No peeking."

"Man, this is serious business." Her nose twitches against the edge of Chloe's finger.

"Ok. Open." She feels Max's eyelashes flutter against her palms before she moves her hands away.

Max's lips part in a silent gasp. "Oh my gosh… Wowsers, Chloe, this is amazing." She practically skips over to where the guitar is propped up against the kitchen counter, footsteps heavy on the wooden floorboards. She runs her hands over the strings.

"I can't believe you still say that word. Dork." She walks up behind Max, brushing one hand across her shoulder. "So, do you… do you like it?"

Max whirls around, flinging her arms around Chloe's neck. "I love it." She plants a messy kiss on the corner of Chloe's mouth.

"Good."

"You're amazing."

"I know."

"And humble."

"I have dinner, too."

"Just when I thought you couldn't get any better," Max teases, wrapping her arms around Chloe's waist and pulling her into a hug.

They both scarf down their food standing at the kitchen counter before changing into pajamas and crawling into bed. Chloe doesn't realize how tired she is until she's buried under the blankets, head resting on Max's side. They're lying perpendicular to each other, Max with the guitar resting above her right knee. Her fingers hover over the strings, shaking just slightly. Her hands are always shaking.

The first note she plays is horribly out of tune, and Chloe groans.

Max wrinkles up her nose and laughs. Her fingers twist around the pegs at the end of the guitar's neck, fiddling with them and playing each string repeatedly. Eventually she lets out a little satisfied sigh, and then she's playing again, really playing this time, melodies swirling around the room.

Chloe closes her eyes.

An hour passes like this, although she might have dozed off for a bit somewhere between songs five and eight. Max has her hand on the nape of her neck now, playing with her hair, unraveling. "Are you sleeping?" she asks with the gentle, lilting voice she always reserves for that particular question.

"Not yet."

"It's late. We both have work tomorrow."

"One more song."

It's when Chloe starts humming while doing dishes that she knows she's screwed.

Max is watching her from the counter, swinging her legs back and forth like a little kid, waiting for Chloe to hand her another plate to dry.

It's been a good day. One of those rare times where they've both made it through the day without falling apart and have enough energy to do the dishes. Usually the dishes sit in the sink for days, when they bother to use them instead of eating out of to-go boxes, until one of them gets up in the middle of the night with the sudden urge to do something other than lie in the dark.

Max smiles softly at her, catching her gaze, and Chloe looks down at the soapy mess in front of her, an embarrassed laugh bubbling up in her throat. She passes Max a wet plate without looking up.

"Sing something," Max says eagerly, biting her lip. She leans forward, the plate in her hands wobbling dangerously. It's her new favorite request.

Chloe opens her mouth, and Max cuts in.

"Making up words to go along with the X-Files theme song doesn't count."

Chloe flicks soapy water at her, laughing at the way she scrunches up her nose when it splashes on her skin.

"You used to sing all the time when we were kids," Max says matter-of-factly, pouting slightly, like five years haven't slipped past since then, like Joyce still drives them around and Chloe still sings along to the radio.

"That's because kids don't know when they're bad at shit. Or they do, and they just do it anyways." She hands Max the last fork, rinsing her hands under the hot water. Her skin flushes pink.

Max slides off the counter and opens the drawer to the left of the sink, dropping utensils in their places. She turns around, resting both hands on Chloe's shoulders. "Come on, one song."

Chloe rolls her eyes. "Fine."

Max's face lights up, and Chloe decides whatever she has to suffer through now is ultimately worth it. "Yeah? Okay. Awesome."

It takes Max about half a second to get her guitar, and then they're sitting on the end of their bed, shoulders pressed together. Max tilts her head back, stares up at the ceiling, deep in thought.

Chloe waits. She rests her chin on Max's shoulder.

Max's head snaps up, and she starts playing suddenly, without warning, the smile on her face making it clear that she expects Chloe to know the song.

She does. The name and the artist are fuzzy blurs on the car radio display, but she remembers the words. Correction: she remembers most of the words, and the ones she doesn't are muffled hums.

She can't believe she's actually doing this. Maybe she can. Maybe it's the fact that they haven't done this in years that's unbelievable. It sort of feels like yesterday that they sat on the floor of Chloe's bedroom, singing songs they didn't know the words to while Max strummed clumsy chords on a guitar too big for her tiny hands.

Now it's just her singing, and her voice is scratchy, and she's yawning between all of the verses, but her only audience is Max, so it's fine. It's fine.

She lets out a shaky little breath at the end of the song, and Max tilts her head to the side, smiling, eyes soft. "I can't believe you actually remember that song."

Chloe laughs. "Like, half of it."

"Most of it." Max reaches over and takes Chloe's hand, playing with her fingers. "Do you

remember when we used to do that all the time?"

"Yeah. God. We were… awful."

"I don't know how your mom could stand us."

"She always said she liked it."

"I'm surprised she didn't soundproof your room."

They're both laughing now, in the shaky sort of way that you do when you're trying not to cry, but laughing nonetheless, and for this moment, it's like only the two of them exist, just Max and just Chloe, just two girls up too late on a Wednesday night, with no splotches on their records for things like messing with destiny, no blood on their hands.

Max plays something else. Chloe sings the chorus and hums the verses.

It's pouring outside. For once, Max can't hear the thunder.

"Chloe?"

"Yeah? Are you okay?"

"I can't sleep."

"Neither can I. Come here."

"Will you sing something for me?"

Chloe's just starting to shake her head when Max says please in that soft voice that she saves for the latest nights, the most important questions. "Is it really going to help you sleep?"

"Probably."

She has something in her head, something her mother used to sing, and the words fall off her tongue so easily. It's such a bad idea, and her voice is breaking on all the high notes, but Max still says, "I love when you sing," between the verses, so she might as well just finish the whole goddamn song.

"I recognize that. Your mom used to sing it all the time. When she was making breakfast, driving us around… always."

"Yeah. When I was really little, she used to… she used to sing me to sleep with that song."