:
Explosive Decompression
altunderscore
4
Flashes.
Something like heat-haze over asphalt in the way that shimmering warmth flickered across her body; a way that was so much more than skin-deep.
She was kindling.
Fingers, tongues of flame lapped and branched and kissed tender flesh and she was burning-
And she was awake.
Gasping.
Her trembling fingers' tips found damp cloth clinging to damper skin and she hissed as she stroked a sweat-slicked stretch of herself, still half-trapped and clouded by sleep's heady haze.
Sinking.
Fingers under cotton-
Searching.
-biting into her, slipping like soft lips over teeth or a slow tongue across citrus, their strike setting sparks and cinders alight-
Ceaseless
-to send her shivering-
Shaking
-sundered and spitted and soundlessly shouting on the span and plunge of searing-
Starving
-Fingers-
Max came fully awake slowly, groaning and shifting herself out of the steady sunlight for as long as she could until finally she had come to press against the merciless surface of her wall and was forced to face facts.
Facts, and her much too bright room.
For a moment she considered simply stuffing a pillow over her face and waiting out the sunshine, but the sudden jolt of pain from her cheek as she rubbed sleep from her eyes made her think twice.
She surrendered.
Her toes dug reluctantly into plush carpet and she made to stand but was stopped short as the press of her thighs together brought a flood of memories to her mind and a wash of color to her cheeks.
She needed to text Victoria.
... She needed to change panties, too.
God, what was wrong with her?
Her tongue probed carefully at her cracked-but-whole lips as she found her phone on her nightstand and unlocked it.
Blue eyes skimmed over several unread messages from Warren without really registering them before coming to rest on a single text from Kate, and a pair of messages from Victoria.
Or -'Tori-, as it were.
The flush on Max's cheeks was suddenly heavy enough to sink into the freckled skin of her chest.
And that picture..
A hand worked its way under the waistband of her panties (for the second time that morning, she remembered) on her way across the room to her dresser and with a bit of effort and a well-practiced wiggle, the still-damp cotton was wound loosely around her ankles and flung blindly by a foot towards the hamper in the corner.
Towards, but not into.
She had missed.
Damn.
Her search through the dresser was quickly abandoned in favor of snatching a wrinkled-but-clean pair of flannel pajama bottoms off the top of her laundry basket along with an oversized band tee that conveniently doubled as one of her more-standard animal affairs.
Thanks, Toe.
The little goat on the cover of that album had always struck her as the weird sort of cute, but that was the story for goats everywhere really.
She shook her head and put the shirt on. She had things to do.
Her mouth was dry and she had morning business to attend to, but even from her dresser she could hear the warbling tones of Top 40 Pop from what was undoubtedly the stereo in Dana's room.
Didn't she know it was-
(Max checked her phone)
-.. 11:45 on a Saturday morning..
'You win this round, Dana.' Max grumbled internally as she grabbed her phone again. She spared a moment to check her reflection in the black mirror of her phone's screen and confirmed that yes, it really was that bad before conceding defeat and pulling up the newest contact on her list.
Max: what's a girl gotta do to get some water around here.
Victoria's reply came quickly enough that Max hadn't even had time to pop the latches on her guitar case.
-'Tori-: That depends entirely on how thirsty you are, Maxine
Victoria please.
Max pointedly did -not- glance back at the puddled cloth next to her hamper and decided the unnecessarily difficult blonde really didn't need to know the full answer to that question.
A quick google image search later and Max had the visual-aid she needed to describe her situation. A pic of a particularly dried-up and terrifying Spongebob staring at a vase of water.
Perfect.
Max had learned her lesson and didn't bother picking up her guitar just yet.
Sure enough-
-'Tori'-: Jfc that episode was traumatic
Max snorted.
-'Tori'-: Anyway, I'm with Courtney and Hayden at Fugly Bob's but we're about to leave. I'll bring you back a burger and stuff? It'll be like 20
Oh my Dog Victoria was an angel
Max: that would be purrfect:))
Max: I'm gonna see if I can sneak past dana long enough to shower xoxo
Wait shit was xoxo too needy no no nononono-
Max flung her phone towards her bed and hurriedly set her guitar to the side so she could stand and busy herself gathering her shower supplies.
Anything to keep her hands too busy to climb into her hair-
It took her a few minutes to pull everything she needed together, but there was no telltale ding from her phone to confirm or deny the source of her new anxiety.
Oh, god.
Dana's music pounded through the hall, but that only made the silence in Max's room more stark by contrast.
She had to get out of here.
Don't be rash, Max..
Victoria was out at lunch. Kate was volunteering at the senior center. Dana was in all likelihood dancing in her room with Juliet getting things ready for the next Vortex party. Courtney was with Victoria.
Brooke was either outside with a drone or in her room studying.
Stella and Alyssa were wildcards and could be anywhere.
Getting to the showers without being seen was doable.
Max peeked her head outside into the hall -'Clear, thank god'- and made her way to the bathroom as quickly and carefully as she could.
A small sigh of relief escaped her when she found she was alone in the bathroom as well. She took a moment to drop her shower-bag outside her usual stall and to let the water warm up while she dealt with the pressure in her bladder.
That particular matter having been handled, she could finally step under the warm shower's spray and think through everything that had happened the last few days like a rational adult.
'Yeah, right..'
Her tone managed to be self-deprecating even in her own head.
'No, Max, none of that.' She thought as she gingerly rubbed in her usual shampoo. Her scalp had apparently bruised from the night before.
Ugh.
'Alright, just think this through and stop agonizing over the details. You kissed Victoria, but she kissed you too, and -she- was the one that was worried you'd want to take it all back in the morning.'
Was Victoria right?
Did Max regret kissing her?
It only took a moment of introspection to find her answer.
Hell no.
That much was certain.
I don't regret kissing her for a second, but I -am- scared.
She paused and considered for a moment, but her thoughts felt right. Scared was a good word for how she felt about her new.. arrangement -for lack of a better word- with Victoria Chase.
She liked Victoria.
She liked the caring, compassionate side of her that not everyone got to see. She liked the crazy confidence the other girl exuded in waves as she moved through her daily routine.
Max liked the little vulnerabilities that Victoria would let show when she thought no one was looking.
She even liked the bitchy Victoria that always crumbled after even one unexpected kind word.
Max smiled.
Liking Victoria wasn't the problem, even though it kind-of was.
The problem was that she might like Victoria too much.
She grumbled as she dipped her head back under the spray long enough to rinse the shampoo out.
The last thing she wanted to do was come on too strong or be too clingy and wind up pushing the blonde girl away-
-a smoke filled bedroom, a dare, a kiss, a push-
Max's hands stalled halfway to her hair as her chest locked up and she froze.
The bathroom door opened and shut.
Her eyes came unfocused.
Conditioner slipped between her loose fingers and ran down her wrist drip-drip-drip-splat
Her right hand itched-
An instant of pressure and release somewhere behind her eyes and something thick and warm and metallic was trickling from her nose dripdripdripsplat-
-Knock knock knock-
Max was halfway standing before she realized she was back in her room.
She brought her fingers to her lips-
No blood
-and up to her hair-
Still wet
The knocking stopped.
Her phone buzzed.
Her hand reached towards her nightstand on reflex and opened her phone.
-'Tori'-: Answer the door nerd my hands are full I'm literally texting with my nose right now
Oh.
Max absently threw the towel off her shoulders and pulled her tee shirt on all the way before walking to the door and unlocking it.
Victoria stood there in all her frustrated glory holding two bags that smelled delicious enough to slap Max out of her stupor and coaxed an embarrassing grumble from her stomach.
Perfectly timed.
Victoria smirked and shook her head.
"The top bag in my right hand is yours and so is this-" she said as she shifted her things around, holding a large bottle of water out for Max to take.
Victoria sighed as her load became significantly more bearable.
"Okay, this other bag goes to Taylor because she's cramping and would knifefight someone for a bacon cheeseburger and she'll probably steal me for a while to chill, but we should really talk sometime soon." She said in a way that was halfway a question.
Max nodded decisively, meeting Victoria in the middle.
"Definitely." She said, but smiled nervously. "Kate-"
-Victoria shifted-
"-asked if we could hang out when she got back from the senior center and I haven't replied yet because I wanted to talk to you about it because of this," Max said, gesturing to the still-red scratches on her cheek, "since she'll definitely ask and it concerns you and I thought that-"
Victoria grabbed her wrist as she idly waved it around to punctuate her anxious rambling.
"Caulfield. Chill." Victoria said sharply as she gently but evenly pressed Max back into her room and followed her inside.
Max blinked.
"We'll talk this all the way through later and figure everything out, but for right now, so nobody-" Victoria's green eyes fell pointedly on Max, "- has to worry themselves into a wreck, I feel comfortable making this much clear."
Victoria reached her free hand up and caught Max's chin long enough to lean down and press their lips together.
The blonde girl tasted a little bit like salt.
"I'm not ashamed of you, or afraid to be 'out'. You're fucking perfect, as infuriating as it is-"
This time Victoria's kiss was just a little more frustrated, but it brought heat to Max's cheeks anyway.
The blonde quickly continued speaking from very close to Max's face.
"-And me putting my name on you might even be the hint your stalker needs that he's been barking up the wrong tree."
Warren wasn't a stalker..
.. probably.
"Anyway," she said as she shifted the remaining bag of food she held, "What I'm trying to say is that the only reason I'm not making us blatantly public right now is because I don't want everyone's first impression of us to happen when we look like literal posterchildren for dysfunctional relationships." Victoria tugged the material of her cream cashmere turtleneck down far enough to flash the thick bruise around her throat.
It had darkened to a deep blue overnight, and only even began to fade to lighter tones on the far ends of Victoria's throat tapering off towards the nape of her neck.
Max immediately felt sick to her stomach.
Victoria saw her blanch and smirked.
"Own it, Caulfield." Victoria demanded. "Besides, I'm not the one that looks like an 80's action hero."
At that, Victoria's hand snuck upwards she brushed the back of her knuckles against the grooves she had made in Max's face. Something flickered across her expression faster than Max could make sense of and the blonde leaned down again.
"Really, don't worry about it.." she whispered as Max instinctively came onto her tiptoes to help close the distance between them.
Victoria still made Max close the last few inches herself, despite the firm hand she had in the smaller brunette's hair.
By the time they had finished, Victoria's usual smirk had bloomed into a full Cheshire grin. She ran her free hand across her neck over the collar of her sweater and her sharp green eyes locked with the freckled girl across from her.
".. because I think I like the way you look on me, Maxine."
How Victoria could look like the cat that ate the canary while blushing from cheek to chin was beyond Max's understanding, but she wasn't really in the condition to ask too many questions at the moment.
She realized something as the door closed behind Victoria though.
-red, streaked from lip to throat-
She liked the way she looked on Victoria, too.
Taylor opened the door on the first knock and the look in her eyes made Victoria take a step back. Victoria's delicious burden was snatched from her as soon as the shorter blonde laid eyes on it with a fervor Victoria didn't see very often. In an eyeblink, Taylor had collapsed back on her bed with a flop Victoria could feel and was fiddling with her laptop.
In a moment, some cheesy Netflix teen drama was again playing on the widescreen TV on the wall and Taylor was patting the top of the bed next to her, burger somehow already in her mouth.
Victoria sighed.
There was a reason she loved this girl, but some days it was harder than it needed to be.
Victoria walked towards the bed, setting the bottle of cherry Dr. Pepper she knew Taylor had Big Plans for on the floor next to the foot of it before kicking her shoes off and settling in next to the other blonde.
She couldn't hear it from across the room, but up close Taylor was making outright lewd noises around the burger in her mouth.
Yep. This was going to be one of the hard days.
"Taylor, you're a fucking degenerate."
Taylor moaned louder.
Jesus.
Taylor swallowed and then looked at her out of the corner of her eye like she was the one being a weirdo.
"This burger is the most action I've had in weeks, Victoria. I don't wanna hear it."
She took another bite.
"And that's my problem why again?" Victoria shot back while stealing a french fry.
Taylor did her best impression of a standard Chase Scoff and narrowed her eyes. "I'm sorry, who was it that clam-jammed me with Ashton at the last party we had? Tall, blonde, bitchy? Ring a bell?"
Victoria huffed and would have looked at the TV in protest if what was on it was any less unwatchable.
"Exactly. Let me enjoy this." Taylor said, on an entirely new level of smug.
She didn't win these back-and-forths often. Victoria'd let her have this one.
She got about four seconds into a genuine attempt to follow.. whatever it was.. happening on the screen before physically cringing and rolling onto her back just for the change of pace.
"How do you watch this shit, Sweet T?" Victoria asked, absolutely dumbfounded. "That dude hasn't been in high school in like, ten years minimum."
Taylor 'hmm'd thoughtfully and shrugged.
"He's still cute though."
Again, Jesus.
Victoria couldn't stop her nose from crinkling in mild disgust.
Taylor pressed her lips together and cocked an eyebrow.
"You don't get to judge, V. We both know your type." She said with entirely too much surety for Victoria's comfort. This didn't bode well.
Still, the best way out was often through.
"Oh do we now? Care to enlighten me? It'd be terrible if I was the last person to know what my 'type' was, wouldn't it?" Victoria said with more confidence than she really felt.
Taylor just laughed.
"You sure you wanna go that far, V? I'm more than willing to let you keep your pride on this one." Taylor conceded, before taking another bite of her burger.
Perfect. She was trying to back out already.
.. Still, something didn't sit right with Victoria about that smirk..
"You're awful at bluffing, T." Victoria said haughtily. "But please, share with the class if you think you know something I don't."
Taylor's eyes glinted as she half pounce/half flopped onto Victoria.
"I think you've got a thing for freckled little brunettes-" she managed to get out before Victoria slammed a hand over her mouth in raw panic. Taylor immediately began wriggling to escape Victoria's hold on her but the taller blonde had apparently been blessed with fear-induced unearthly strength, so Taylor had to swallow her pride and settle for alternative methods.
Victoria felt the wet heat of a tongue rake against her palm and her body seized up of its own volition. Taylor saw her chance and took it, pushing one arm against the joint of Victoria's elbow and breaking the short-haired girl's hold over her mouth.
"I knew it!" She shouted triumphantly as she took one of Victoria's wrists in her hand and pinned it to the bed next to her ear, then reached underneath Victoria's thrashing head with her opposite arm to further secure the hand she had pinned.
"Talk, slut!" Taylor commanded from her position above Victoria.
To Victoria's credit, she kept a straight face for about three seconds before the laughter became too hard to fight down and the absurdity of the situation overwhelmed her embarrassment.
Taylor might have taken a few jujitsu classes, but the poor girl just wasn't what anyone would consider a Top.
Taylor's eyes visibly swept over Victoria and after a few moments that knowing glint was back in her eyes and a small smile swept across her face.
"Does she know?" Taylor asked, Victoria's wrist still pinned next to her head.
There would be no escape.
"You'll never get me to talk, you fucking amateur!" Victoria gasped defiantly, managing to somehow pull off 'snide confidence' despite her current position.
Her expression faltered somewhat as Taylor shook her head in mock-sadness and sighed audibly.
"It appears you don't understand how dire your situation really is.." Taylor said in her best generic villain voice. "We'll have to rectify that immediately."
Victoria's attempts to escape became a bit more urgent as she saw Taylor begin to wiggle her fingers ominously in front of her face. That plus the evil glint in Taylor's eyes meant only one thing.
"God you're such a fucking stereotype!" Victoria spat as Taylor's fingers crept ominously towards the pit of her arm.
"You're lucky you're still wearing this giant sweater or it'd be even worse! Now talk!"
"Not a chance in hell!"
Victoria twisted and felt something catch behind her head near Taylor's wrist as she tried to get enough leverage to slide out from under the other blonde, but a wordless gasp of what sounded like triumph from the shorter girl unsettled her.
"What's that on your neck, V? I knew you were being weird-" Taylor said as she jerked her free hand towards the collar of Victoria's cashmere pullover. Victoria's eyes widened and she sucked a breath in through her teeth.
Suddenly her struggles became very, very real.
Her free right arm shot up and behind Taylor's head and pulled her into her chest as closely as she could manage while at the same time she planted her feet into the surface of the bed, bucked her hips, and tipped the pair of them forcefully sideways with Victoria gaining a dominant position straddling the other girl.
How much had she seen?
Victoria loosened her hold on Taylor's head so she could lean back and gauge her reaction better.
"Hiding a few love-bites, V?" Taylor said from below her like she had caught Victoria red-handed committing some sort of crime.
".. V?" Taylor asked when she noticed Victoria's sudden stillness and the overall change in mood.
Victoria paused and honestly evaluated her options.
Taylor was her best friend.
Taylor was entirely too perceptive.
Taylor would probably find out anyway.
Victoria met Taylor's eyes and swallowed her nerves as best she could.
"T, don't freak out." She said, as the hand she didn't have pinning Taylor's arms above her head went to her collar.
"What are you.." she trailed off, going silent as Victoria worked the neck of her sweater down low enough to show the handprints-
"Victoria what the fuck!" she shouted, jerking up as far as she could manage before the blonde on top of her put a hand over her mouth and pushed her back onto the bed with a flat expression on her face.
"I said don't freak out." Victoria said. "Let me explain this to you before you jump to crazy conclusions and try to murder someone, okay?"
She took her hand off Taylor's mouth.
"Bullshit! Somebody tried to fucking kill you, Victoria!"
Victoria watched as something clicked in Taylor's head.
"Your eye, too.. " Taylor swallowed. "Someone choked you hard enough a blood vessel burst in your eye and you're asking me not to gut them?"
Victoria's voice was level despite the nerves she felt as she spoke.
"I am."
Taylor recoiled like she'd been slapped.
"Fucking why-"
"It was Max, T."
Taylor closed her mouth quickly enough that her teeth clicked together.
"I'm only telling you this because you're my best friend and you'd come to your own conclusions anyway and the last thing anybody needs is you flying off the handle and doing something rash." Victoria said as she slid sideways off Taylor's hips to sit more reasonably with her back leaning against the wall.
She saw Taylor begin to open her mouth as an indignant look crossed her face but Victoria held up a hand and the other girl stilled.
"It was after the funeral and Max wasn't in a good state of mind. Neither was I, for that matter, and we both said some things. I punched her-"
-Taylor's eyes widened-
"-and she hit me back. Something happened and she had a really bad reaction, T.. "
Victoria slumped against the wall and huffed tiredly, and that by itself was enough of a sign to Taylor that something major was going on. She pushed herself upright and slid over next to Victoria while keeping an eye on the taller blonde's expression just in case.
Victoria always spoke mostly with her eyes, anyway.
After a moment, Victoria continued.
"T, I haven't seen anybody break down like that. Not you when you found out about your mom, or Nate having an episode when his meds switched. It was like she wasn't there anymore."
Victoria swallowed.
"So I talked to her until she settled down.."
Something about the way she said that raised a flag in Taylor's mind.
"That's all you did? Just talked to her?"
Victoria was way too physical when she was emotional to have watched a nervous wreck from arm's reach, especially when it was someone she had 'strong feelings' for, positive or negative.
Judging by Victoria's flinch, she was right.
".. I may have hugged her, too.."
-Bingo-
"But she looked like she needed it, okay? Fuck.. " Victoria looked up at the ceiling and ran a frustrated hand down her face.
Taylor mulled over what her friend was telling her in silence, only moving to take Victoria's hand in her own when it didn't seem like the other girl would be talking in the immediate future.
After a short but tense silence, Victoria spoke up again.
"Look, Sweet T.. I know how bad this-" A hand came up to idly rub at her throat "-looks, but you didn't see her. She went from having her hands around my neck to curled up in a corner wailing like a ghost in a horror movie as soon as she realized what she was doing.. "
Taylor made to speak up, but Victoria squeezed her hand and she quietened.
"She only even began to calm down when I told her that I was okay. The girl had a fucking meltdown because she thought she'd hurt me, so I pulled her into my lap and talked to her until she got her feet back under her."
Taylor's lips pressed together as she thought.
".. And then what happened?" She asked, having a suspicion.
Victoria was very conspicuously silent.
"Victoria.. "
Victoria huffed and looked Taylor in the from over the tops of her knees.
"Would you believe we laughed it off and went back to our rooms?"
Taylor fucking snorted.
"When my mom had her first relapse I remember you didn't stop quietly losing your mind until you saw that I had eaten real food and was in bed asleep." Taylor said.
Victoria scoffed and looked away, focusing on something in the corner on the far side of the room.
"I literally fell asleep with you petting me, Victoria."
A grumble this time. Victoria buried her head in her knees but Taylor could still see the embarrassed flush across the tips of her ears.
"So no, I don't believe for a second that you let 'Max Fucking Caulfield' just toddle off back to her room to mope until morning. You would have paced a hole in your floor and been up my ass at the crack of dawn because you were anxious and needed someone to vent to because you hadn't made sure she was okay."
Victoria raised her head up enough to peek at her from over her knees.
Her look was venomous in the same way baby snakes were venomous.
Taylor just put her hand on Victoria's head and buried her fingers into blonde hair.
"Wanna know what I think happened?" Taylor asked with way too much misguided confidence in her tone to mean anything like good, in Victoria's opinion.
Victoria grumbled something that sounded vaguely like 'Do tell' into her knees as she embraced the inevitable.
"I think you kissed her." Taylor said goadingly, but Victoria's small laugh wasn't the response she had expected.
Victoria propped her chin on her knees and something on the mischievous end of smug glimmered somewhere in her expression.
"Not quite."
The gears turning in Taylor's head must have been misaligned because what they were telling her just didn't..
".. No fucking way." She said, like if she was skeptical enough then reality would just fix itself and things would suddenly make sense again.
Victoria's smirk slowly spread into something more and she looked very intently at the tops of her knees.
Oh god..
Victoria Chase was blushing like a schoolgirl.
Max Caulfield kissed Victoria Chase, who was now on her bed blushing like a fucking schoolgirl.
This was a crisis.
Why did everything with this girl have to turn into a crisis?
Taylor bit the proverbial bullet.
"What's the damage?"she asked.
Victoria just arched a delicate eyebrow and pretended not to understand.
"What do you mean?" she replied evasively.
"I mean how salvageable is this whole situation? Was it just a one time thing, did you slap her and make her apologize, is there a marriage contract-"
Taylor heard Victoria make a little distressed moan into the tops of her knees and let herself trail off as the blonde girl reached into her purse at the side of the bed.
What was she.. ?
Victoria tossed her phone at Taylor like the thing had bitten her and did her best to disappear into her corner.
Taylor caught it (like she'd let her best friend's brand new Samsung hit the ground no matter how difficult she was being at the time), casually flipped it right-side-up, and turned the screen on.
Oh
She looked up at Victoria, curled up into a nervous ball and backed into a corner on her bed, then back down at the phone she held.
She looked at the pair of wide green eyes staring at her, and back down at the pair of hands on the screen.
Oh.
A small hand with a constellation of little brown freckles dusted across the back, held -fingers interlocked- within a larger, paler, manicured one, both of which were pulled into what she knew to be Victoria's lap and held closely -protectively- against her belly.
"Oh, Victoria.."
Taylor crawled on her knees towards her friend in the corner and pulled her down all the way onto the surface of the bed.
She felt Victoria's body jerk slightly next to her with what was either a laugh or a sob so she hedged her bets by finding a hand to squeeze.
"Victoria you're so gay for this girl."
Another jerk.
Definitely a laugh that time.
".. shut the fuck up, T.."
"When are we going to get the U-Haul?"
"That's offensive, T."
"And that wasn't a definite no, Victoria."
Victoria huffed and rolled over so her back was facing Taylor's chest.
They laid there like that in silence for a while. After a bit, Taylor cleared her throat and spoke up.
"V, I'm going to be honest with you here." she began, and saw Victoria tilt her head to look at her out of the corner of her eye.
"I'm happy for you and I think you two are absolutely adorable, but if I find out she's hurting you and you're making excuses for her, there will be blood. Do you understand me?"
Taylor let that statement hang in the air between them.
Victoria visibly mulled Taylor's words over before nodding.
".. That makes sense, T." she said softly. "I don't think it'll come down to that, but it makes sense." Victoria squeezed Taylor's hand and the shorter blonde sat up and stretched, her tank top riding up a bit in the front.
"I'm gonna go take a shower, and when I get back I can pick on you about your new girlfriend some more while you pretend to hate Netflix dramas. Sound good?" Taylor asked as she stood up and brought her now-hot Dr. Pepper to the minifridge.
"That works for me." Victoria replied, standing up as well. "I'm probably going to text Courtney and tell her to come here when she gets out of her movie with Hayden so we can get this costume party finalized."
Taylor's eyes immediately lit up at the prospect of a girl's night.
Victoria groaned.
"It goes without saying that Courtney can't know about all of this yet, right? Telling her is the same as telling the entire school, and I want to do this the right way, you know?" Victoria said, trying very hard to convey her seriousness despite her embarrassment.
Taylor just mock-saluted as she stepped to the door.
"You're the boss, boss." she said.
The door closed behind her, and Victoria dropped backwards onto the bed.
Unfortunately, doing so jostled the laptop just enough that whatever godawful mistake Netflix thought needed to be the next big teen drama resumed its assault on Victoria's fragile mental state.
The five seconds of bad acting she had to endure as she crawled to the laptop to pause the video were enough to make her seriously consider hurling the entire setup out the window for Samuel to deal with.
It took every spare ounce of restraint she had available, but Victoria managed to reign herself in long enough to do what had to be done.
Taylor's laptop would survive another day.
"I, however, might not.. " she mumbled to herself as she worked on composing her text to Courtney.
She whispered a quick prayer for good luck to whoever was listening before she hit Send.
Victoria figured she'd need all the help she could get on this one.
Max's phone buzzed in her lap. An idle tap revealed it was Kate telling her she was out of the shower and was ready for their mostly-weekly tea date.
Perfect timing, actually.
Max stepped to her windowsill and after a quick check for any strange boys peeking around corners at her from outside the dorms -thankfully clear- she tipped some water into Lisa's pot from the large bottle she kept nearby.
She'd need to change her pot soon, actually. Lisa was getting big.
She smiled softly to herself as she turned and picked up her guitar, making sure the fresh square of gauze she had put over the marks on her cheek was applied correctly as she did so. Seeing everything was in order, she exhaled a calming breath and stepped out of her door and into the hallway.
Farther down the hallway closer to the stairs she saw Taylor Christensen step out of her own room and notice her. Max froze momentarily and then waved shyly before things had a chance to get awkward somehow.
Taylor stuttered to a stop as well and seemed almost to be evaluating her, though it was hard to be sure from as far away as they were. Even so, after a moment or two Taylor waved back mostly energetically as she walked towards the showers and Max turned to knock evenly on Kate's door, guitar in hand.
Max heard shuffling from the far side of the room and the roll of a latch unlocking as the door was pulled open.
Kate's room smelled like apple shampoo and chamomile tea.
Perfect.
Kate's smile reached all the way up to her eyes as she tugged Max wordlessly into her room by the sleeve of her shirt and pushed the door shut with her foot.
Max saw the other girl's eyes linger questioningly on the bandage on Max's cheek as they crossed the short distance to the table in the center of Kate's room.
"It's just a scratch, Kate. Don't worry." Max laughed as she brushed her fingertips across the material of the bandage.
She heard Kate click her tongue against the roof of her mouth as she leaned down to unlatch Alice's cage.
"You just can't catch a break, Max.. " Kate sad softly as she plopped her rabbit in Max's lap and sat down next to the brunette on the floor.
Max's hands immediately found their way into Alice's fur and she smiled to herself, leaning a little against Kate for support.
"It's not as bad as you'd think, really." She said quietly as Kate reached forward to pull the kettle off the electric burner.
Kate's gentle 'hmm' was all the response she needed to continue.
"We've all had a really bad week, Kate.." She said.
-a tear stained note that shouldn't exist-
Max's arm wound across Kate's shoulder and pulled them closer together.
Kate relaxed as much as she could while pouring hot tea into two delicate cups, but the moment she set the kettle back on the holder and had a free hand she returned Max's hug.
Max's eyes closed and all she could smell was Kate's apple shampoo.
"Don't scare me like that again, okay?" Max whispered as her other arm came around to better hold the other girl against her.
Max felt Kate's breath hitch against her chest and the small muscles across her shoulders tense as she burrowed into Max's neck, but no tears fell. Max just leaned both of them against the foot of Kate's couch and rubbed soft circles into the other girl's back as she decompressed.
After a minute or so of slow, steady breathing, Max squeezed Kate one more time and reached forward and grabbed her teacup off the table.
"Have you heard the good news, sister?" Max joked lightly over the steam wafting from her cup of tea.
Kate exhaled through her nose and softly shook her head.
"I'm not a Jehova's Witness, Max."
Max smiled, inwardly glad that Kate got her dumb joke, but mostly out of genuine happiness.
"I've heard from a reliable source that everything's going to be alright."
Max carefully sipped at her tea.
Kate arched an eyebrow, reserved but intrigued.
"And you believed them?" She asked archly as she reached for own cup, sparing a moment to rub Alice between her ears on her way over.
Max blushed uncharacteristically, but she nodded nonetheless.
"I do." Max said, with all the conviction she could muster as she returned her cup to the table.
Max's confidence was contagious and after a moment a matching smile bloomed like wildflowers across Kate's own face.
"Now let me show you what I've been practicing from that band you showed me!" Max said eagerly as she reached behind her for her guitar.
Kate's eyes widened and she leaned forward, excited.
"Oh, what song did you pick?" Kate asked as she pulled Alice into her lap with one hand and picked up a strawberry from the bowl on the table with the other.
"'Shepherd's Clock', now hush before you make me nervous! This one's hard.. " Max grumbled around the guitar pick she held in her mouth as her fingers alternated between strumming the strings of her guitar and twisting the tuning keys until she was satisfied.
She spat the pick into her waiting hand with a self-assuredness that Kate thought quite contrasted the doubt she had in herself just moments before, but when Max finally brought the little plastic triangle across the strings of her guitar and Kate's room was once again filled with music for the first time in what felt like forever, all of that fell away.
If Max was even half as confident in her as she was the instrument she held in her hands, Kate felt safe trusting her when she said that everything was going to be okay.
A\N|
Hi. If there are any typos I missed I'll correct them in the next day or two and cringe over every single one I find. Trust me.
With this, we're over the big 25k mark. That's a milestone for me, and I hope we see a few more of them before this story's finished. Next week's update might be delayed a few days due to my birthday and personal scheduling, but if it -is- delayed, I'll make the chapter a bit longer to compensate. In general, updates will be biweekly, posted between Wednesdays and Fridays, as scheduling allows.
If a Friday ever rolls around and I don't update, check my profile over on Ao3 for information. I post progress reports there throughout the week, so keep your eyes peeled.
Anyway, love you guys and sorry for the long A/N. Review, Favorite, PM, and all that jazz. There really aren't words for how happy all of your comments make me.
Love ya'll,
alt_
