I am soooooo sorry this took so long. :\ I've been having a rough time at home and haven't had much time/space to write. To make it up to you guys, I wrote some angry sex like you wanted? :D
Caroline holds her breath outside Max's door. She has absolutely no clue where to even possibly begin this talk. She knows Max isn't going to want to have it at all, but it's going to actually drive her insane if she doesn't get some sort of resolution. Caroline is the type of person who likes to have things decided. Max has always been the go-with-the-flow girl out of the two of them.
Max hasn't spoken to her in three days, since their fight outside the bar. Work at the diner has been beyond awkward, and school… not much better. The self-respecting part of herself told her that she should keep dating Nicholas even if Max wants to pitch a fit about it because it's unhealthy to let anyone else control her. The part of herself that loves Max, though, ultimately did keep her from seeing him again outside of school. Something just kept holding her back every time she went to text him, and it turned out to be a good hunch—the jerk is married, though that would be beside the point anyway now.
Should she apologize? Should she tell Max about Nicholas and say "You were right," and hope it buys her some points? Should she stick to her guns and demand answers? They all seem like the right course of action one moment, and then she fidgets and walks a circle or two and suddenly her previous idea is terrible and nothing she comes up with is reasonable. Truth be told, she's been terrified of Max since the night they slept together—terrified of seeing the emotional repercussions play out, of getting too close and ruining their entire friendship, and of potentially wanting to do it again. It'd be easier to just pretend it never happened, but she can't.
"It's just Max," she tells herself under her breath. "Okay, so she's mad at you. Big deal. You've had plenty of fights with girlfriends before. We're best friends. Best friends fight sometimes. It's going to be okay. Just… go."
Before she can talk herself out of it, she raps on Max's door. The knocking is louder than she meant it to be and she cringes at the noise. What if Max is asleep? It would be even worse to wake her up and piss her off. She paces in another circle waiting.
But no answer comes. She hesitates—should she knock again?—turns to leave, then loops back around to the door, wondering if Max is okay or if she's even home. Best to check. Ever so gently, she twists the doorknob and pushes the door open. There's a lamp on, she notices that much immediately. Caroline sticks her head in and peers around Max's dresser. She is here. She's sitting up in bed reading a book.
"Max?"
Max doesn't look up.
"Can I talk to you?" Caroline's heart hammers in her chest. Waiting for a response is killing her. She would rather have anything than this angry, heavy silence. She's never seen Max hold a grudge like this, ever. She slips into the room and closes the door, edges closer to the bed. Max still isn't answering or even bothering to glance her way. "I didn't know you read," she says jokingly, then has a small, internal panic attack at having said it. What if Max takes it the wrong way? Did it come across like she was implying Max is stupid? Damn her (lack of) filter!
"Yeah," Max says without looking up, and turns a page. "Sometimes I like to read sad animal books." Caroline cringes. She can only imagine the depressive state Max is in if she is voluntarily reading or watching sad animal anything.
"Oh," Caroline says, nervous. "Which one is that?"
Max shrugs. "The one where both the dogs die." She flips the book around and looks at the title: Where the Red Fern Grows. Caroline knows it well: a classic. A tragic, heartbreaking classic. "Or something," Max finishes, righting the book and continuing with her reading. She isn't far in yet. Caroline suspects she knows the book better than she's letting on. Charlotte's Web, Black Beauty and The Fox and the Hound sit in a stack on her nightstand. Oh, God, it must be really bad if those are her selections; Caroline hopes those are the books she plans on reading and not the ones she's finished.
"That one is really sad," Caroline says. "I've read it. I definitely cried."
Max grunts her acknowledgement. This might be even harder than Caroline originally thought.
"Max, I really want to talk to you. Can you please put the book down for just one minute?"
A dark eyebrow arches over the top edge of the pages. Max stares incredulously at her roommate for a moment, then wordlessly resumes reading. Fabulous. Caroline groans on the inside but does her best to keep her outward composure.
"Please, Max?"
"Ugh, fine," Max finally says, "if it'll shut you up." She shoves a bookmark into the novel and slams it down on her nightstand. "What?" Her eyes are hard and impatient, both focused sharply on Caroline. It makes Caroline feel like she's being stalked by a predator. She squirms.
"I did stop seeing Nicholas after the other day."
"Yeah, because Bebe told you he's married. Deke heard. He told me because that's what friends do."
Caroline sucks in a long, deep breath. Max is trying her patience and playing with her feelings already, but she has to stay strong. "No, I stopped seeing him before I found out because it clearly bothered you."
"Clearly." Max's sardonic laugh. Caroline could go a while without hearing it and be just peachy. Today she obviously doesn't get that privilege.
"Look, I'm trying to work with you here. I hate fighting with you. I just want to clear some things up, okay? So, I stopped seeing Nicholas. You didn't like me dating him. I can respect that. I just really never expected it to bother you like that."
"Well, me either! But then I kept seeing you two together and it was just ew." Max's face twists up in utter disgust. "I've never cared who you date, just… not him."
"Okay," Caroline says slowly, "so I could find a different guy, one who's not your teacher, and start dating him tomorrow, and you'd be okay with it?"
"Totally," Max says, but in a halting, unsure way. "As long as I don't have to look at it. If I want to watch two idiots going at it I'll turn on some Skinemax." This is what confuses Caroline. Max is right—she never has cared, until now. Suddenly she doesn't want to see any evidence of Caroline actually dating, ever? Suspicious. Very suspicious.
"But why? It didn't used to bother you."
"Well it does now. Hey, how about I ask you some questions now?" Max's tone is hard, accusatory. Caroline winces and shrinks back. "How come we have one drunken fling thing and you completely stop talking to me afterwards, huh? How come you avoided me the whole week and then turned around and immediately pounced on Nicholas?"
These are questions Caroline has asked herself many times. She thinks them over again, goes over the pre-formulated list of possible answers she's logged in her mind. "I really was trying to figure out what it meant to me. Seeing you just… complicated things too much while I decided. I'm sorry I didn't explain it to you beforehand, but I was freaking out. And Nicholas, I mean, I always thought I was attracted to guys. I guess I just wanted to verify that I'm still attracted to guys. And I am."
"Well that's just great for you, then, isn't it?"
"You didn't let me finish. What we did… I liked it more than I thought I would. It just confused me a lot. It confused me even more that it was with someone I really care about." Max makes a face and stares away as if she is unable to stomach the idea of Caroline caring about her. She doesn't answer, so Caroline continues, "I know you said you were drunk and it was just sex to you, but I'm just not wired that way."
"Congratulations."
"And frankly," Caroline says, moving to sit on the edge of the bed next to Max's legs as she fidgets irritably with the edge of her comforter, "I'm not ready to accept that's all it was to you either, drunk or not. You never answered my question—why does it suddenly bother you to see me dating?"
"I don't know. Jesus." Max glances at the door. Caroline can tell she's getting frustrated with the conversation, feels backed into a corner. Typical. Max is always running away from absolutely anything that might involve feelings.
"Please don't take this the wrong way," Caroline says, smoothing the blankets over Max's nearest leg in a nervous, repetitive motion, "but I think it's because you're jealous."
Max barks out a laugh. "Me? Jealous? Please!"
"I figured that's what you'd say, but I think you just don't want to face the fact that you don't want me dating at all. You want me here with you. True?"
"No," Max scoffs. "That's crazy. You're crazy."
Caroline sighs. She knew that getting Max to admit to anything would be like pulling teeth. She'll definitely need some time to come around, if she ever does, but this has to be the answer. There is no other logical explanation. Caroline may be many things, but stupid is not one of them, and neither is unobservant. Max has been acting like a brooding, jealous boyfriend and it probably wouldn't matter if it were Nicholas or Mike or Andy or Brad Pitt at this point. That's Caroline's guess, anyway.
"Fine," she says. "Suit yourself." She gets up to leave.
Max grabs her wrist. "Wait," she says emphatically, an annoyed edge still in her voice. She pulls Caroline back down to the bed, frowning.
"Yes?" Caroline searches those wide blue eyes for any concession, any kind of softness, but Max just scowls, dashing her hopes for a peaceful resolution.
"I swear, sometimes I really freaking hate you," Max says—and kisses her, hard. She grabs Caroline's face, digs her nails into her scalp and bites her lip before diving in even deeper. Max's tongue pushes against Caroline's and glides over it. Caroline, in a state of near-shock, opens her mouth wider to accommodate, returning the kiss as best she can. She's never seen Max this aggressive. She can't think of the last time she was with a guy this aggressive.
Max's hand drops to grab and squeeze at her breasts, hard, and she stiffens from the surprise as well as some degree of pain. Within what feels like seconds, Max charges even farther ahead, pulling on Caroline's skirt and swearing at the buttons—the ones on this skirt are pretty tight and unusually annoying, but Max is taking her frustration to a whole new level.
"Why do you have to wear so many fucking clothes?" she says between her teeth as she shoves Caroline down onto her back on her pile of book-reading pillows. Caroline doesn't think Max really wants an answer; she immediately sets about jerking the skirt up, folding it back on itself to reveal Caroline's uncomfortably bare thighs. She shivers, though not entirely at the sensation of the cooler air against her exposed skin. Max skims a hand along her thigh and shoves it between her legs. Caroline swallows hard. Should she really let herself get caught up in this again? Is this going to be damaging to their relationship?
She doesn't have time to think about her options. Max's fingers are tugging her panties down from between her legs. She feels a new surge of wetness at the brief brushes of Max's fingers against her labia. It's not long before Max is feeling it too—as soon as she finishes displacing Caroline's underwear, she shoves her hand back under her skirt. Caroline can't suppress a gasp at the feeling of Max's fingers rubbing between folds, slick, frantic. Her body twitches and jerks involuntarily beneath Max's exploring touches.
"Max," she chokes out, hunched over her roommate's hand like a puppet.
"Lay down," Max says, pushing her back down into the pillows.
It's when she shoves two fingers in that it all becomes very stark and real to Caroline. She's entirely too sober for this. She can't control her breaths at all. They are ragged and irregular, ignoring her lungs' demands to bend to Max's fingers' whims. It hurts and then it doesn't. Max thrusts in and out, progressively faster and harder, until Caroline wonders how she still has the muscle to continue. Each thrust shakes her body; some even leave her knocking into the headboard.
She whimpers, squeaks, claws at Max's back and grips her shirt, white-knuckles it, holds on for dear life, hyperventilates between thrusts. Max largely ignores her except to occasionally lean down and forcefully kiss her. She never slows down. When Caroline starts to adjust, she adds a third finger and starts the whimpering and clawing all over again.
Caroline feels like she's going to explode; Max's fingers twist and slip in and out of her, then ram against her, hard, then go back to twisting around. It's painful and amazing and the best thing she's ever felt and she doesn't know how much more she can take. For the second time in the past week and a half, she looks up at Max's face, rigid in concentration, and is flooded with emotions: confusion, disbelief, pure adoration.
"Max," she whispers, her voice breaking. Max shoves inside of her and lets out a heavy, shaky breath as Caroline rushes to grab her hand and hold it in place. She acquiesces and doesn't pull out again; instead, she repeatedly curls and wriggles her fingers, prompting Caroline to reach up and pull her mouth down and kiss her again and again. "Max," Caroline says again between kisses, "I love—"
"No," Max hisses, clamping her free hand over Caroline's mouth. "Jesus, not now." Caroline flinches at her tone: don't ruin this. Don't ruin it with your 'feelings,' Caroline, she seems to mean.
After that, it's over quickly. Caroline just lies there, absorbing it, trying to process it—catalogue it along with the last time in her mind—while Max goes to clean herself up, wash her hands. How…anticlimactic and unromantic, Caroline can't help but think.
But Max does come back, flops down on the bed and sidles up close to her. Caroline smiles at the feeling of Max's fingers running through her hair and over her cheekbones. Max kisses her and she leans in to snuggle into the crook of her neck and play with the ends of her hair, too.
Neither one says anything. Caroline is a little afraid to. She can't think of anything to say that might not ruin the moment, and Max probably doesn't want to talk. If she's having a hard time making sense of her own feelings, she supposes, Max's predicament must be a thousand times worse. She doesn't have the highest emotional IQ in the world.
Still, for now, it feels like enough—to lie here in Max's arms, to kiss her without fear of repercussions or rejection, to fall asleep listening to only the sounds of her breathing and a lone owl lost in the city rooftops. She only hopes Max will still be here in the morning.
