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Explosive Decompression

altunderscore

1


If life were anything at all like a movie, there would have been rain at Chloe's funeral.

It had rained for Kate.

The rain had stopped for Kate.

She remembered how the rain had looked; clear suspended slivers streaked on air as though it were a misty windowpane. How Kate had looked, silhouetted on the rooftop against the thunderheads as Max had fought like running through tar for even one more inch closer to her before reality came slamming back and Kate fell-

But Kate hadn't fallen.

With blood pooling in the back of her throat and stars skittering across her vision Max had brought Kate down from the ledge and hugged her tight enough to bruise.

So what fucking grudge did the world bear against Chloe Price that it would hunt her, relentlessly, until she was dead and gone?

Max grit her teeth hard enough to drown out the droning of the preacher as the sun beat down on Chloe's casket like a victory drum.

Max felt like a failure for only a moment before she realized that she hadn't actually failed at all. This- Joyce breaking apart at the seams next to her, the sunny little funeral, a whole and undisturbed Blackwell, Chloe in that fucking box- was all really a success.

Max had chosen this.

The void in her chest where her heart should be was what winning felt like.

For just a second Max let herself imagine what it would be like if that hole inside her expanded just a little.

Just enough.

Only wide enough for her heart to have taken her body with it when it died on that bathroom floor.

Max felt something in her jaw shift.

That wasn't good.

Joyce took her eyes off of Chloe and looked at Max to her side with concern apparent even through all the heartbreak.

Joyce had heard that. That was even worse.

Max smiled at Joyce as best she could and took her hand in her own for long enough to squeeze reassuringly, which seemed to be enough for Joyce to again focus on the service.

This gave her the window she needed to slide the snapped third of one of her upper molars into the pocket of her cheek and swallow the teaspoon or so of blood welling up in her mouth before it stained her teeth.

She caught David (Mr. Madsen currently, as they had never directly spoken to each other in this timeline) focusing on her from under the brow of his tan military beret. Max felt his eyes search for something in her expression, and she knew the instant he found it.

His jaw set and his lips pulled flat, but all he did was solemnly nod in her direction before clasping Joyce's hand in his own and shifting his attention back to the words sliding out of the preacher's mouth.

Max wasn't an expert, but she knew enough superficially from movies her dad watched to know that colored berets meant something different in the army. Mr. Madsen had probably buried a few of his friends before, too. If anybody got to look at her like they understood, it'd probably be him.

Max blinked, and quietly let out the breath she had been holding. Her right hand slid into her small bag and found a handkerchief that she then brought up to her face to rub at her cheeks. As carefully as she could, she pushed the broken tooth into the damp silk cloth, disguising the movement as just wiping at her nose, and returned the handkerchief to her bag.

The preacher's words paused for a moment and a handful of birds chose that instant to fill the empty air with song.

It made Max sick.

Max's hands balled into fists as she forced herself to look away from the old man at the pulpit and the long box at his feet.

The crowd wasn't overly large.

Joyce and David stood between Chloe and Max, following along with the preacher as best they could. Kate stood a few feet away from Max; her head bowed and hands clasped together. Max could see her lips moving but couldn't hear what she was saying. She didn't need to to know that Kate was praying earnestly for everyone here.

A bit farther away was Warren, trying very hard to look anywhere but at her. His suit fit him well, actually. Max kept her eyes on him; he always looked away when she caught him looking at her, even if it was just a benign glance.

It wasn't usually a benign glance, but she could almost guarantee Warren wouldn't be looking at her with eyes like that at a funeral.

-There. He looked back and Max held his gaze. He looked uncertain for a moment, like his brain was telling him to do too many things at once, so she smiled at him as well as she could manage (which wasn't very well) and when he nodded back to her she brought herself back to the preacher's speech.

Max still couldn't understand what he was saying. He sounded like he was underwater. That was odd. Max didn't pay him very much attention.

On the far side of Chloe stood a few of the nicer girls from Max's dorm. She had exchanged a few words with them before the service started and had found out that a couple of the girls (but mostly Dana) had known Chloe through Rachel Amber and had been friends.

Max couldn't really think of anyone Dana Ward wasn't friends with, but that wasn't the point. Getting to hear that Rachel had come to Dana for ideas about dying her hair for Chloe's birthday last year had gotten a genuine smile out of Max, and she'd be taking each and every one of those she could get for the near future.

On the far side of them, looking uncomfortable and out-of-place, was Victoria.

She stood with one hand holding her other wrist tightly enough to flare the sleeve of her cardigan and had her head bowed, too. Her black dress was perfect, but it looked a size too big for her. Her eyes were closed like Kate's, but Victoria's lips weren't moving. Nothing was moving, from what Max could tell. She couldn't even see her breathe.

Still, she looked better than the last time Max had seen her. Or the time before that.

Victoria was alive. Chloe was in that box right in front of them, and Victoria was alive over there.

And Joyce was alive too.

And Warren and Dana, and Kate and everyone else in Arcadia Bay. Even Nathan was alive now, despite how conflicted that made her feel.

It only took all of Chloe and most of Max.

The preacher finally finished speaking and the short silence snapped Max's attention back to the pulpit. The clergyman gestured to Mr. Madsen and Joyce and the two of them stepped away from Max to approach him.

They exchanged a few quiet words, the preacher reached a comforting arm around Joyce's shoulders, and some men in uniforms stepped forward to bring Chloe to that hole in the ground and-

Max was in her room.

It was 2:00 AM, and Max was in her room. Sitting on her bed. Fully clothed.

Well, at some point she had apparently taken her shoes off, but she couldn't remember when.

Her eyes itched.

She tasted metal.

One of her molars was still broken.

Her light was on. That was odd.

She stood from her bed and paused a moment to flush the pins-and-needles from her legs before stepping to her lightswitch and stopping short.

Her camera was looking at her from its spot on her shelf. That wasn't good at all.

Turning from the lightswitch, Max instead walked to the other side of the room where her camera was staring down at her. She glanced around for something to cover it with.

Her hamper was empty, and she needed her blanket. The camera was a bit too tall to fit in either of her drawers (she had tried before) which is why it lived on her shelf.

'Maybe under the bed with the rest of the monsters?' Max idly considered, only half joking.

Instead, she reached behind her and found the zipper of her dress. It took some fidgeting and a bit of wiggling but eventually she got the zipper down and then her dress was a little black puddle at her feet-

like the rain on Tuesday

-and from there it went into her hands along with the camera. Max wound the black dress around the Polaroid, careful to point the lens away from herself at all times, and when it was covered all the way she walked to the far corner of her room and dropped it behind some boxes she kept her extra clothes in.

As soon as she slid the top box over the dress and its contents she felt a palpable sort of relief wash over her.

'There. Now I can turn the lights off.'

She smiled, enjoying how the plush carpet felt under her feet as she returned to the lightswitch and flicked it off triumphantly.

Again she reached behind herself, this time unhooking her bra, quickly pulling herself out of it and tossing the thing overhand into the empty hamper in the corner.

She pulled an oversized Joyce Manor tee shirt out of her top drawer and threw it on, then glanced tentatively towards her bed. She fidgeted, and instead stepped to the door.

'Soon, bed. Soon.' She thought.

She spared a moment to slide into her indoor shoes, an old pair of Chuck Taylor beaters-turned-slippers, and moved into the hallway.

No music from Victoria's room.

How considerate.

No light from under any of the doors, either. Perfect.

Max's canvas slippers tapped against her heels as she walked to the washroom.

The bathroom's motion-lights snapped on with a vague hum as the door swung inward and Max stepped onto the tile floor. She wasn't alone in the bathroom.

The door clicking shut snapped Victoria, barefoot and sans makeup, out of whatever fugue-state she was in and she jerked her head to look at Max.

Max could physically see the reflexive barb form on Victoria's half-pursed lips as her cheeks pulled up towards her eyes and her nose crinkled near her brow.

Victoria's first reaction was always to strike. Always.

Max had learned her way around Victoria, however. Mostly, at least. In conversations the blonde girl couldn't remember, mind, but she'd learned her way around her nonetheless.

"Hey." Max said. "Come here often?"

Victoria locked up immediately at Max's tone. Max heard the figurative gears grinding together inside Victoria's head as she smiled lightly at the blonde and turned on a sink.

After a couple of seconds that Max spent wetting her toothbrush, Victoria collected herself well enough to speak.

"What the fuck are you doing, Caulfield?" Victoria sneered.

Well, her tone sneered. Her expression said she was mostly confused.

Max glanced down at her toothpaste, back up to Victoria's face, and slowly put her toothbrush in her mouth.

Victoria scoffed to cover her flush.

"No shit, Lamefield. I meant your rinkydink outfit." Victoria said, like Max was particularly slow.

Max was mostly concentrating on brushing around her broken tooth, but spared the taller blonde most of a cocked eyebrow in response.

Victoria's mouth opened slightly and her brows knit together. She very visibly looked Max over from head to toe and back again before saying,

"You look like a fucking stereotype. Converse, pantyhose, and an oversized emo-kid tshirt at 2:30 in the morning? Really?"

Max wasn't wearing pantyhose-

She looked down.

A drop of toothpaste fell off her lip and onto the tile floor.

She was wearing pantyhose.

Max spit the toothpaste into the sink so she didn't have to look too hard at Victoria shaking her head and laughing silently to herself.

She didn't want to look at the dark red whorls in her toothpaste either though, so she split the difference and looked at Victoria's bare feet instead.

Why did Victoria's toenails look better than Max's fingernails? That didn't make any sense at all.

Why was Victoria barefoot in a mostly public bathroom for that matter?

Yeah. That one.

"You have more shoes than I have 'emo-kid' tees and you're barefoot in a public toilet, so I guess we're both making interesting choices right now." Max said, poking at her tooth with the tip of her tongue.

It wiggled.

She winced.

Victoria's lip morphed from a smirk to a full sneer over the course of Max's response before she froze and stepped forward firmly into Max's personal space, sparing a second as she did to glance into the basin of the sink.

She visibly recoiled.

"Do you have a fucking gum disease, hipster?" Victoria said, her voice half condescension and half.. concern?

Max would have backed up but her butt was already hitting the sink and her genetics didn't give her too much extra wiggle-room in that department.

'Thanks, mom.'

Max's hand moved up to cover her mouth reflexively as she stammered out a hurried no, but Victoria caught her hand before it got all the way there and suddenly there was another hand on her jaw.

'That's not how this was supposed to go at all-' Max thought, but then Victoria was speaking from very close to Max's face and suddenly Max wasn't the best at thinking anymore.

"I know you don't wear lipstick, so what the fuck is this?" Victoria said, only mostly snidely.

Max felt the pad of a thumb on her bottom lip and then a bit of pressure and warmth, but couldn't quite bring herself to push the taller girl away.

"Jesus Christ, Max, did somebody kick you in the face?"

Actual concern was something Max had only ever heard in Victoria's voice once; but that was in a timeline a bit different from this one.

Max tried to fidget away but Victoria only doubled-down, this time stepping farther forward and physically pinning the smaller girl to the sink with a leg and some leverage.

The blonde's hand left Max's wrist and went to the ridge of her jaw instead, holding Max still while Victoria's other hand curved under her chin and the thumb on her lip slipped in-

Max's toothbrush fell from her fingers and clattered to the floor.

'.. what the hell?' Max thought foggily, but all that actually came out of her mouth was a small, confused ".. ahh?"

Victoria suddenly stood stock still and her eyes snapped wide, but quickly regained her composure. Even after apparently realizing their current position, Victoria somehow still managed to come off haughty and self-assured.

"Don't get the wrong idea, Caulfield. My mom is an oral surgeon in Seattle and before I wanted to be a photographer, I wanted to be a dentist like her. That's all." Victoria said, confident enough for the both of them.

Victoria's grip then softened.

"Anyway, that tooth is cracked below the gumline and it's going to bleed every time you fuck with it until the gum heals over it or you get it pulled."

Victoria adjusted the hand that wasn't partially inside Max's mouth and continued.

"Even if it heals, it can still trap food or whatever else you shove in your little hipster mouth inside it and get infected, and then your face will fall off or something."

Max made a concerned noise in the back of her throat. She liked her face.

Only then did Victoria seem to become fully aware of where her thumb was, and especially of the slippery pinkish sheen that now covered the end of it.

"Fuck's sake, Maxine- If I get hepatitis or something from this I'm suing you." She snatched her hands away from Max and recoiled like she had touched a hot iron. The shiver that ran through her while she said it just made it worse.

Max was almost too offended about the hepatitis remark to take issue with Victoria's abuse of her first name, but a glance down at her now-soiled toothbrush -as petty as it was- gave her the push she needed to respond in kind.

"You just watched me brush my teeth, Vicky." Max sniped back, smiling internally when Victoria visibly cringed at the shortening of her name.

'Karma.' Max thought before continuing, her pulse quickening.

"And hepatitis? The hell? I'm a lot more concerned with where your hand's been, Chase. With my luck it's probably best buddies with that stick you have jammed up up your ass-"

Victoria's face flushed a deep red and she stepped towards Max again, opening her mouth to start on some verbal assault, but Max knew better.

Victoria Chase was a creature of momentum.

So she kept going.

"If anybody in this dorm has fucked around and caught something it's probably the girl that's spent the entire year climbing all the Vortex Club totem-poles she could get her hands on!" Max spat.

Victoria's retort died on her tongue as Max's words hit her. Victoria's teeth gnashed together and her lips pulled back in a literal snarl.

'That one's new..' Max thought. That had to mean she was doing something right, right?

She kept on, stepping towards Victoria so close their toes touched.

"The way Hayden tells it you're the highlight of the VIP room with enough vodka in you. Were him and the rest of the single guys on the football team not enough for you that you had to go after Zach, too?"

Max wasn't sure if she should know about that in this timeline, but judging by how Victoria had gone from embarrassed to actually shaking with fury in the last five or so seconds, Victoria was probably a bit too preoccupied to notice the slip.

She wasn't quite done yet, though.

"Is that it? Are football players your thing? And you call me a stereotype? You're what would happen if someone made a Molly Ringwald blowup doll! Is that why you hung off Nathan-"

Max knew that was a mistake the instant it left her mouth, but at this point she didn't care.

It hit her about the same time Victoria's manicured fist did, too.

Victoria's punch landed squarely between Max's nose and chin and the brunette rocked back towards the row of sinks, half from the force of the swing and half from raw surprise.

Max's eyes tracked back to Victoria as she regained her balance and only just managed to bring her left arm up to absorb most of the wild followup swing Victoria sent towards her face. A glance towards her eyes was all Max needed to confirm the taller blonde girl was beyond furious now.

Max hardly had time to think before Victoria surged forward, an arm outstretched to grab Max by the hair, but the shorter girl ducked under the swipe and threw herself into Victoria's middle, intent to bowl the blonde over.

Victoria tried to carry the weight backward to catch and stop the brown-haired girl, but her foot caught on something hard and rounded -the toothbrush- and in a moment she was on her ass, her back pushed against the divider of a shower stall and a bleeding brownish ball was in her lap with one hand around her neck and the other knotted in her short hair.

Max set her knees on either side of Victoria's hips and pressed the girl back and then twisted, disrupting her enough that she turned sideways, taking her back off the divider and allowing Max to drive in from her core, forcing Victoria's shoulders and, after a moment, her head to the bathroom floor.

Victoria's face reddened as her fingers scrabbled at the wrist of the hand around her neck. She felt Max slide gradually up her chest until her knees were almost under the pits of Victoria's arms.

Victoria tried to dig her heels in to push herself out from under the girl on top of her, but she couldn't find purchase on the smooth tile floor.

She could feel her pulse throbbing in her ears as the grip on her throat tightened.

Max's fringe had fallen over her eyes and in the dim flicker of the fluorescent lights above them all Victoria could see was the split pinkish smears of Max's lips pulling back over the glinting red-slicked white of her teeth.

Even over the sound of her heartbeat Victoria could hear Max's teeth grinding together-

-suddenly the force of Max's palms on her throat doubled-

-she couldn't breathe-

-Victoria's fingers clawed desperately at Max's face-

-her eyes-

-a desperate sob wrenched its way out of her chest and died in her collapsed throat-

The weight on her neck vanished immediately and Victoria's chest seized involuntarily as it forced air into her lungs with a ragged gasp.

The starbursts in her vision hadn't yet cleared, but she could still see how Max had thrown herself backwards off of her and practically spidercrawled into the darkest, farthest corner of the bathroom under the sinks.

Victoria tried to take in a breath to speak with but it caught strangely in her throat and she coughed, violently and forcefully enough to draw her doubled around her belly on the floor. Instead, she exhaled slowly through her teeth and rode out the tremors that wracked her body as she fought to steady her breathing.

She never took her eyes off Max in the corner, trying her best to bury her head in her knees and drive herself further into the shadow under the sinks at the same time. Her hands were whiteknuckled in her hair and she writhed every time Victoria's breath tangled audibly on its way out of her ragged throat.

With a heave and a hacking cough Victoria brought herself up onto her hands and knees and from there rocked back to sit on her ankles; one hand moving to rub at her bruising neck and the other to the floor at her knees to steady her.

Her hand went from massaging her throat upwards to try to clear the high-pitched noise in her ears but after a moment or two she realized it was coming from the corner Max was curled up in.

She was keening.

"Max.." she tried.

Not loud enough.

Her throat was too messed up.

She fell forwards onto her hands and knees and, against her better instincts, crawled towards the insensate girl in the corner under the sinks.

She got within a bit farther than arms reach and stopped before trying again, just in case.

"Max.." Victoria choked.

Max only withdrew further. Her shoulders shook.

Victoria swallowed the lump in her throat, and some of her fear with it.

"Caulfield, you rabid bitch-" she rasped. "-are you going to murder me if I touch you?"

The messy brown mop thrashed in response.

Victoria coughed to clear her throat, mentally steadied herself, and slid herself closer to the struggling brunette.

"Maxine.." she whispered, and did her best not to flinch when the girl tried to jerk away from the hand Victoria placed on her shoulder.

"Max.." Victoria whispered. "You're okay. I'm okay."

Max wasn't making any noises other than the frankly terrifying keen from the back of her throat and occasionally a gasp for air muffled behind her knees, but Victoria's hand hadn't seemed to make anything worse so..

She slid herself closer to the distraught girl so that their hips were touching in a way that they were both under the sink, but Max still had a path out if she freaked again.

Victoria kept whispering to Max under her breath out of equal parts propriety and bodily necessity for a few moments before steeling herself as another gut-deep sob wrenched through the brunette at her side.

Victoria said a short prayer to whoever was listening and shifted her hand from its spot on Max's near arm to across her narrow back and finally to rest on her opposite shoulder.

"Come here, Caulfield.." she whispered, and with an exhausted tug and a shift of weight she pulled the smaller girl into her lap.

Max didn't fight back.

Victoria adjusted herself so her back was pressed against the wall to support the extra weight on her hips and pulled her knees up to secure Max in place.

Her left hand moved from its spot on the point of Max's left shoulder for a moment and upwards into her hair, softly guiding the girl's head down and into the crook of Victoria's neck. From there Victoria spent a few seconds coaxing Max's bony knees out of her kidneys and carefully onto the shadowed tile on either side of Victoria's hips, and from there the brunette sagged -almost deflating- into Victoria's chest.

Her right hand found Max's closest wrist, fist still balled in her hair, and tugged her closer while her left hand around the girl's shoulders steadied her as she cried.

Victoria kept whispering softly into her mess of chestnut hair and gently rubbed slow circles across Max's clenched fists.

"Take your time, Max. I'm not going anywhere." Victoria said quietly. Max didn't give any indication of having heard her aside from a few shuddering and tearful hiccups, but after a minute or so more of steady coaxing Victoria finally felt Max's grip on her hair loosen underneath her own hold on Max's hands.

Slowly, carefully, Victoria guided Max's hands away from her scalp and somewhere behind her towards the small of her back, where they crisscrossed of their own accord underneath her own shoulders and found purchase in the dark silk of Victoria's nightgown.

Max began crying in earnest now, but the eerie, spine-freezing wail of a full breakdown was replaced gradually by the heavy and stuttering sobs of a more recognizably human ugly-cry.

Victoria readjusted her hold into something that felt a bit more natural. Her left hand came up to cradle the back of Max's head and softly massaged her sore scalp, combing through her tangled hair whenever she felt a knot. Her right hand slid down Max's back and then back up to rest on her side near her ribs, skin-to-skin.

In one sense it was worse, but in other ways better that Victoria was able to feel the smaller girl jerk and tense directly like this.

"Shhh.." she soothed. "You're having a panic attack, but the worst of it's over now. Can you hear me, Max?"

Victoria felt the girl nod into her collar and her own spirits lifted a bit. The lights shut off automatically, but that didn't matter right then.

"Just focus on my breathing. It's okay to keep crying for as long as you need to; just remember to keep breathing with me until you're finished, okay?" Victoria whispered into Max's hair.

A long, warm, shuddering exhale down the side of her neck was the only answer she received, but that was okay. Within a few moments Victoria could feel Max's ribs expand and contract in time with Victoria's own.

Victoria slowly brushed her hand up and down Max's side as the girl gradually pulled herself together.

"You're going to be okay." Victoria said, softly but firmly. "I'm not leaving you, Max."

For not the first time, Victoria thanked her lucky stars she had thought to get a book about how to help friends through trauma after Taylor told her about her mother's condition.

The next time Victoria exhaled a slow breath into Max's hair the smaller girl squeezed her and mumbled some things Victoria couldn't make out, but were definitely Max's first words in the last half hour or so.

"What was that, dork? You sound like you're speaking Mogwai down there." Victoria joked gently.

"-said'm'srry.." Max sniffed.

Oh Max was just a little murderous heartmelter now wasn't she?

"Don't sweat it too much," Victoria murmured back. "This has been a complete bitch of a week for both of us."

Max made a noise that was either a sad cough or a weak laugh.

'She doesn't know the half of it,' Max thought.

Victoria went back to untangling Max's knotted hair.

"That doesn't make what you did not problematic, but I do understand the place it came from, at least." Victoria said, watching Max's dark silhouette as her night-vision developed slowly in the darkness of the bathroom.

The girl in her lap seemed to shrink inward and Victoria changed her hold again, this time dropping her left hand from Max's hair down to rest on her lower back. She then drew her right hand upwards to cup Max's chin in her palm and swiped her thumb slowly and carefully across Max's lips and cheek, mindful of the splits and welts and spots of tacky metallic moisture she could feel dappling the freckled girl's skin.

"Victoria.." Max murmured into the dark, softly enough the blonde girl had to tell more by the movement of the brunettes lips under her fingertips than by the sounds that reached her ears.

"I know." Victoria said, feeling warmth come to Max's cheeks as her damp and bruised skin shifted with the uncertainty of her new expression.

"I'm sorry too."

Max mumbled something Victoria couldn't make out as she pulled the smaller girl in for another reassuring hug.

Whatever Max had been meaning to say, she had forgotten it by the time a few minutes later she pushed back from Victoria's chest and settled her weight more on her own knees and less on the taller girl's hips.

It was about that time she remembered why she had come to the bathroom in the first place.

Max giggled for what felt like the first time in a week.

Victoria didn't care Max couldn't possibly see how she cocked her eyebrow or rocked back onto her palms in disbelief. The hipster could definitely hear her trademark scoff, and that's what really mattered.

"Just what the fuck could you possibly be laughing about right now, dweeb?" Victoria jabbed with none of her usual venom.

Max giggled harder and then tensed, stopping short.

"I just remembered why I came here in the first place is all.."

She hadn't topped fidgeting.

Victoria caught on fast.

"Max, you've been digging your bony ass directly into my bladder for God knows how long at this point. If you pee on me now, I swear I will feed you to that little tree you have in your room and they will never find you." Victoria growled.

Max started like a spooked animal and made to stand up, but Victoria pulled her back down before she could go very far.

Victoria heard Max inhale slowly from just above her.

"Watch the sink, dork." Victoria whispered gently, almost nose-to-nose with the freckled brunette.

"O-oh.." Max mumbled, "Yeah. Thanks.." she said, sliding out from underneath the string of sinks before righting herself this time, careful not to bang her head against anything hard and sharp on the way up.

As soon as the sensors detected Max stretching out as she stood up they flicked on with a snap, bathing the girls' bathroom in their flickering fluorescent glow.

Max flinched momentarily, but collected herself, reaching down and offering Victoria her hand up.

"Just don't pull too hard, y'know." Max said. "I can't be blamed if anything goes horribly wrong if you're the one that messes up, right?" She asked.

Victoria demurely accepted the offered hand and simpered in a faux-posh tone, "Ms. Caulfield, I'm sure I'm more than capable of blaming you for whatever irrational thing I please."

Max's laugh was soft, but it faded quickly when she pulled Victoria into the light and saw the twisting, knotted purple bruisework encircling Victoria's throat and the red bloom of the burst vessel in her left eye.

Max's stomach fell through the floor and her head spun precariously, but Victoria still had a hold on her hand and wouldn't let her fall.

The blonde stepped forward to steady her, green eyes flicking across her face in alarm, scanning and assessing a dozen different things in Max's expression before turning them both towards the mirror when she realized it was just Max being Max.

"It looks like you've ruined me, Caulfield." Victoria said dryly, leaning over the sink to get a good look at her eye and throat.

Max ducked her head again and mumbled an apology, unable to even look in Victoria's direction anymore.

The sound of two quick barefoot steps on tile announced Victoria's presence in front of her and suddenly a single index finger was pressing into the underside of her chin, forcing her gaze up and into a pair of mostly-green eyes.

Mostly-green eyes over a ludicrously smug grin.

"You should see the other guy." She said, positively bleeding confidence as she tilted Max's face towards the bathroom mirror.

Next to Victoria's face in the mirror was the reflection of someone that looked a little like Max.

They had the same eye and hair-color, but this girl's lips were a ruin. Three scratches dug parallel grooves from her left brow all the way to her jaw almost, and her eyes were bloodshot and swollen from all the tears. Dried blood crusted her chin and filmed over her front teeth (which were all still there, thank god) and her skin alternated between milk-white and blotchy red all over her neck and face.

She felt Victoria step away from her side to move behind her back and heard her say to turn on the sink as a sharp tearing noise and a muffled grumbling began to emanate from somewhere in Max's blind spot.

Half a minute passed while Max adjusted the temperature of the water before she felt a presence behind her and a hand on her hip.

She turned and found Victoria standing there as expected, but with her knee-length silk nightgown shorter by several inches.

"Here," the blonde said, "You can use these."

In her hand were several long strips of dark cloth.

"Oh, it's not a big deal Victoria.. I can just use some toilet paper, or my shirt-" Max trailed off at the glint in Victoria's eyes.

"Oh no Max, I insist. Use these while I get you some real supplies from my room." Victoria said, her tone allowing no space for argument.

"But your nightgown-" Max started, but was cut off.

"There will be others, Caulfield." Victoria said airily. "What matters is that I get back here with some disinfectant, and then and we can make sure nobody's face falls off." Victoria finished, a little too upbeat for what she was saying.

The mewling noise in the back of Max's throat was back again as she once more contemplated a faceless life.

Victoria's smug grin somehow intensified as she inclined her head.

"You're going to make it, Maxine. Trust me." Victoria said.

Her confidence was contagious. Max believed her.

"I'll be back in a minute, dork. Try to clean yourself up?" The blonde said rhetorically as she turned for the door.

Max answered anyway.

"Wait."

Victoria stopped and pivoted on a dime, and suddenly her undivided attention was on Max.

It felt heavy.

"Yes, Caulfield?" She said, curiosity beating out the urgency of getting to her first aid kit.

"Ah.." Max stammered, knotting her hands in her hair behind her head as she blushed.

'God I am such a cliche..' She thought, embarrassed, but continued when Victoria cocked her head to the side inquisitively.

"You're ahh.. actually really good at this whole 'taking care of people thing, 'Tori.." Max trailed off, not able to keep looking at the tall blonde opposite her.

"Max.." she heard Victoria say, but Max kept speaking.

Confidence.

Momentum.

"I just really like this side of you is all."

There.

Max said it.

There was silence for a few moments and then Max heard bare feet on tile again.

She was still too embarrassed to look at the blonde directly, but she couldn't keep the small smile off her face as she stared at Victoria Chase's immaculate toenail polish.

Victoria's willowy arms encircling her for the hundredth time that night was was a very welcome feeling, and the heavy sigh down the side of Max's neck sent.. complicated tingles down through her core to the tips of her toes, but the weight in Victoria's words when she spoke brought Max up short.

"I'm.. not nearly as good at it as I could be, Maxine." Victoria swallowed a lump in her throat that Max could feel and the brunette's arms rose of their own accord to support the taller girl as she continued.

"I'm not even half as good at caring for other people as I should have been, Max.. There were more than enough signs, more than enough chances, but.." Victoria trailed off as her voice broke and failed her.

"Fuck, Max. I'm.. so sorry.. I-"

Victoria's fingers pressed into Max's back almost desperately and Max felt something raw escape the other girl as a hiss between clenched teeth, but Max never heard Victoria make so much as a sound of vulnerability of her own.

"I just.." Victoria collected herself, and pulled Max against her more evenly this time. When she spoke, her voice was unwavering.

"I owe it to a lot of people to be a better person than I was, Max." She leaned back, one arm dropping to Max's lower back in a way that felt positively electric to the brown-haired girl and the other moved around to her front, capturing her chin again.

Victoria guided Max's gaze up to meet hers with soft fingertips and a softer voice.

"Now Maxine.." Victoria began with the confident sort of smirk that Max thought suited her so much better than her old, mean ones.

-god when did her eyes get so green-

"If you don't.."

-Max stood on the tips of her toes-

"Stop distracting me.."

-alllmosstt-

There.

Max rested her forehead against Victoria's and fought very hard to keep the blush off her cheeks.

"Shhh.." Max soothed, holding on tightly to Victoria, half for balance and half to keep her from trying to run away again.

"I believe you, 'Tori. It's going to be okay."

Victoria's eyes widened.

Max kissed her.


A\N|

This started as something to do to give a little bit back to the Chasefield clan while we wait for updates from the actual good writers. You know who you are. Keep doing your thing.

Chapter One of Explosive Decompression functions as a quasi-oneshot because I'm not very consistent as a writer. I needed to come to a natural stopping point right-off out of courtesy, in case what comes after is never truly finished. Above, there are more than enough threads established to continue on into a fuller story, but at its core the thesis is all here. If this were a "true" oneshot, less pagetime would have been spent on side characters and more on fleshing out Victoria's half of the equation, such as what she was doing staring into a bathroom mirror for so long the motion-sensitive lights turned off around her at two in the morning, for example.

That's for the future though. Please leave a review, please keep updating your own fics, and I'll see you again in a bit.

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