i am the voice inside your head
and i control you
-mr. self destruct, nine inch nails
"So, has the ungrateful little blue-haired bitch said 'thank you' yet?"
The voice comes from the pitch darkness in front of her, and not recognizing where she is or what's currently going on, Max blinks a few times before replying, "Who?"
"Uh, Chloe? Duh. How many other blue-haired bitches do we know?"
"No. No, uh," Max rubs at her eyes, trying to make everything less dark. "Who are you?"
"Jesus fuck. Do we have to do this again?" The voice pauses, and an annoyed sigh fills the silence. "Wowser, you're so stupid sometimes." It's the usage of her own ridiculous vernacular that clues Max in, and the room suddenly becomes dimly illuminated. "A lot of the time, really. I'd say thank god I'm not you, but…"
"Shit," Max groans as the blurry figure sitting on the ground in front of her turns into a full HD version of AlterMax. "Why are you…"
"Oh, I'm sorry," AlterMax says with an insincere smile. "Did you actually think I was gonna leave? Nah," She leans forward, propping her chin in her hands. "It's alright here. Better than the reality you fucked over for me, at least. Thanks, by the way."
"I still haven't really figured- you're me. Like, me, me? Or… a different me? A different me, right? There's… more than one me. I think. Because in the diner. Y-you… was that you? Or are you another… how many? It's… I've always been the same me when I've time jumped, but afterwards…"
"Holy shit, do I need to spell it out for you? Fine." AlterMax snaps her fingers and suddenly there's a glow coming from above her. Max squints to focus on it. A bunch of words are lit up like a neon sign.
[you fucked up the lives of infinite Maxes]
AlterMax claps twice, in quick succession.
[…including your own, btw]
[dumbass.]
Realizing for the first time that she's been half laying down on the blankness this entire time, Max pushes herself up to sit on the blank floor. "That's, well… that's not really all that definitive." AlterMax rolls her eyes. "So… you- you are one of the… other me's?"
AlterMax flashes a smile again. "Wouldn't you just like to know."
"I- I'd… y-yeah, actually."
"Ugh. Rhetorical, dumbshit. Like I care what you want. Clap-off." AlterMax double claps again, and the glowing words vanish.
Max rubs at her eyes again. "Wait," she mumbles. "I haven't rewound since… have I? I haven't. How did I get- what even is here?"
AlterMax sighs in annoyance again, and shifts her weight to rest her chin in only one hand. "Sleepy-time, Max. Dreams. Have you heard of them?"
"I've heard of nightmares."
"Whatever. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to, to-may-to, to-mah-to, let's call the whole thing whatever the fuck you want. Anyway, how about I bring you up to speed so you can stop asking me stupid fucking questions?" AlterMax shoots at Max with a finger gun. "Because you obviously can't even remember deciding to sleep in Blue's truck. You're a cheapskate, y'know? You couldn't even fork out a few bucks to stay in a shitty motel?" She clicks her tongue disapprovingly. "That's just not the way to impress a girl, is it?"
"What? I'm not trying… I don't need to-"
"Ah," AlterMax cuts in. "Actually, you couldn't, could you? You sorta left all your stuff behind. In the rubble that you… caused… and then just… casually drove through." She lifts her head from her hand and dismissively shakes it. "Now that's just bad planning."
"Planning?" Max pushes up off the ground in one swift movement and stands, yelling down at AlterMax. "You think I planned any of this? Wanted this?"
Unfazed, AlterMax looks up. "Well… you didn't really hesitate much before tearing that picture and getting the hell out of dodge, did you?"
"B-but. That's not fair. I didn't know that was gonna… that's different. It's not-"
"Something that you want to be quizzed on? What," AlterMax asks as she stands up. "No Morality 101 with Maxine Caulfield?" She shoves her hands into her pockets and shrugs. "Though with you as the prof, it would probably be a shitty class, huh? First assignment: Successfully manipulate at least one 'friend' using no more than four sentences. Reduced marks for every rewind."
Max takes a deep breath, and her eyes narrow. "I didn't—wait. N-no, you don't get to… We. Us. You can't claim to be me and then call only me out on things."
"Oh, you simple creature. I never said that I haven't done or will do some of the things you've done. You," she points a finger at Max. "You actually did some of those things on my behalf." Max visibly tenses, and AlterMax holds her hands up as if surrendering. "Hey, no grudges though. It's, heh, it's all in the past, isn't it? But unlike you, I'm not in denial about how shitty we are. See? We."
"I'm not-"
"Oh, my bad. Sure, you're not a piece of shit. Of course you're not. You're a qualified everyday hero, right? Which actually brings me back to my question. Have you gotten a 'thank you' yet?"
"There's nothing to thank me for!" Max's voice starts to rise again. "I fucking destroyed Arcadia! Wh-what thanks," The loud outburst dies down as quickly as it grew, and Max starts tripping on her words again. "What thanks d-do I deserve? Who's gonna- who's gonna th-thank me for this?"
A scoff comes from AlterMax. "You know who would. Eh, should. Like, how about 'thanks for fucking with time and space to save my ungrateful ass, and my ungrateful ass alone'?" She stops and taps at her chin, like she's contemplating something. "Hm, I guess you could cross out the ungrateful bit if she ever does, y'know, say it."
Max forces out another heavy breath. "Why are you doing this? You just- you were just telling me what I've been doing. Don't you… you know already. You know, s-so why are you doing this?"
"God, this is just too good." AlterMax covers her mouth with a hand, smothering a giggle. "Look at you, all whimpering and uncomfortable and questioning yourself. That's why I'm doing this. To make you like this. Obviously.
"So then, how about we take a moment to appreciate it all? First off, you've decided to take my fucking word about this being a drea- sorry, nightmare. You're so fried you don't even question this kind of fucked up shit anymore. Then you try to convince me that you aren't a piece of shit by, what? Admitting that yeah, you did destroy an entire fucking town to save your precious little punk. Like, are you listening to yourself? That's a pretty shitty thing to do, don't you think? Even if you didn't plan to do it.
"Now here you are telling me what I should know, and I'm getting a feeling that what you're really just trying to do is avoid the question, Max. So. Has or has not the bitch said 'thank you'?"
Doing her best to take even breaths, Max closes her eyes.
"G-go," she shakily starts. "Go…" she tries again. Third time's the charm as she finally spits out, "Go to hell."
AlterMax cocks her head and smirks.
"Oh Maxine, I'm sure we will."
At that, Max goes completely silent. Completely still. A beat passes, and she's swinging a fist out.
But when the punch lands, she staggers back just as AlterMax does. Like a mirror image.
The only noticeable difference is the small trail of blood that's dribbling from their noses. Hers is dripping straight down her chin, while AlterMax's is taking a detour over a vicious grin.
"Hah. Hah." AlterMax starts laughing a little too hard as she rubs at the edge of her nostril. When her laughing slows down, she's still wearing a bloodied grin as she chuckles, "Stop hitting yourself, dumbass."
Max is about to ignore the childish advice when all of a sudden she finds herself back in Chloe's truck, coughing out a bit of accumulated blood from a real life nosebleed. She wipes at it as quickly as she can, hoping she can clear it up before Chloe wakes.
It's not really an urgent situation she finds, because Chloe is still softly snoring. Not wanting to go back to sleep, lest she be… attacked by AlterMax again, Max quietly climbs out of the truck to sit on the hood. As she leans back against the windshield to stare up at the sky, she realizes that she feels just as tired as she did before she fell asleep.
And she'd swear she heard her own voice sing-song out "see you tomorrow" while she was busy sputtering blood.
i am denial, guilt, and fear
and i control you
new fandom, new people i have to tell that i have a weird music obsession and it ain't a globherman fic if it don't got music attached to it. however, mr. self destruct is going to be the song, as it encompasses the overall theme. so no 8tracks playlist will come of this.
Max's little conversation with herself in her whatever-that-was in ep 5 hit me where it hurt, because I used to do just that. I have pages of conversations with myself that I wrote down using different colours, different fonts. I went back and browsed afterwards, and some of it was pretty fucked up. A little scary, even.
And from that, grew this. (there even are/will be a few lines that were, er, past me talking to past me.) Because I get it, and because I don't think that convo would be a one and done after everything that Max has been through.
Um, so Pricefield at heart, but Chloe isn't really going to have much of a speaking part, just a heads up on that.
If you want more rambling author notes, go to AO3. I hate how it messes with the word count on here, but I have a little more to ramble about.