"And you haven't told them yet?" Chloe asked, dragging an extra chair across the room so she could sit next to Max.
"Nope." Max shrugged. "This is going to be a totally legit reaction." She clicked around the Skype window. "I'm not even worried. That's the rebel side of you wearing off on me." She gave Chloe a quick wink.
"Yeah, I'm sure they'll burn you at the stake," Chloe snarked with a roll of her eyes. "Your parents are the chillest people ever, dude." She grabbed Max's wrist when she hovered over the 'call' button. "Wait, fucking wait!" The punk picked up her phone and hurriedly brought up the self-facing camera, shifting her head around as she examined her appearance.
If only Dad knew how nervous Chloe was about talking to them. He would abuse that so bad. No one should have that much power.
"You ready or what?" Max asked after a second. "You look beautiful like always, stop stressing." The blue haired girl pouted and crossed her arms with a nod. Max finally clicked the button to call her parents. After a moment, Vanessa appeared on the screen, smiling excitedly.
"There's my beautiful daugh- ohhhhh my god!" She shot up out of her seat, cutting her head out of the frame as only her body could be seen along with flailing arms.
Oh. Well, that's not initially promising.
"Uhh...hey, Mom," Max said, her voice sliding into uncertainty. Vanessa crashed back into her seat and leaned in close to the screen. Her face wasn't registering much positive or negative, instead just showing complete shock. Finally, she leaned back in her seat and turned to the right.
"Ryan!" She called. "You have got to see what our child did now! She looks so cool!" There were unintelligible words from off screen, with Vanessa nodding in response. "No, you have to see it!"
She said I looked cool at least!
"Okay, okay, I'm coming," Ryan's voice became clearer as he got closer. He placed one hand on the desk and leaned down to see the screen, with his eyebrows immediately shooting up. "Wow, that's different." He chuckled and held his hand up before Max could even react. "Different in a good way! I know how you would take that." He reached out of frame for just a moment and pulled a chair next to his wife. "When did you do this?"
"Just a few days ago. It's actually already faded a little bit." Max puffed out her bottom lip, then corrected it into a smile. "But you guys really like it? It's one of my Christmas presents for..." She looked beside her and bared her teeth before nodding her head at the punk.
"Uh, hi, Mr. and Mrs. Caulfield," Chloe said quietly with a timid wave.
"Hey, Chloe," Ryan said. He slung an arm around Vanessa. "So, first the nose and now the hair. You're not being a bad influence on our daughter, are you?" Luckily, the chuckle as he spoke vanquished any doubt that he was joking.
"Bad influence...fun influence...I mean, is there really a difference?" Chloe asked, holding her hands out flat as she shrugged. Ryan let go of a 'ha!' before nodding in admittance.
"How are you doing, Chloe? How's the job?" Vanessa asked, shifting around in her seat so she could be closer to her husband. The blue haired girl chuckled.
"It's actually not so bad. I even kind of...like it? Ugh, I just got a chill." She laughed and leaned forward. "Who would have thought I'd end up at the Two Whales, right?" Vanessa perked an eyebrow and looked at Ryan before turning back to the screen and laughing.
"Pretty much all of us," she said. "I think we always assumed both of you girls would end up working there at least for a little while. That seemed like the plan until we had to move away." There was a somber note in her voice on that last part. Chloe ignored it.
"Nothing quite like being the last one to know," she snickered, leaning back in her chair. "How are you guys? Max said you were in San Francisco? How is it?"
"It's not bad. A little..." Ryan scrunched his nose, "warm." Vanessa rolled her eyes, clearly having heard his complaints several times over. "But it's nice. Your aunt wanted us to tell you hello, Max."
"Send one back, too," she said. She looped her arm with Chloe's. "From both of us, of course!" The punk's eyes shot wide as she turned to her girlfriend.
"Uh, only if that's, like, cool," Chloe added. Vanessa was currently leaning out of frame, though her hand waved up and down in a 'not even a big deal' motion.
"So," Vanessa began, sitting back upright, "you guys ready to open your presents!?" She balled her hands into fists and flailed them excitedly. Max chuckled and leaned to the side, flipping open the tabs on the large box situated next to her.
Making me...us...open presents over Skype. I really love that. It's like we're still together.
"Any particular order?" Max asked, retrieving two smaller globs of wrapped-something. She held them up to the camera, with her mother squinting her eyes in thought.
"No, I don't think so," she said. "But do all the paired ones together, obviously." Max nodded and handed one of the presents to Chloe. She took it in her hands as though it were fragile.
"Mrs. Caulfield, you really didn't have to-"
"Will you stop calling me that!?" Vanessa shrieked, dissolving into laughter. "Make me feel so darn old. And you just shush, of course we wanted to get you some stuff too!" She shrugged. "Most of it is probably lame but, y'know."
"No way, nothing from you guys could ever be lame," Chloe said, pulling the paper apart to reveal a pair of purple socks. She smirked and looked back up at the camera.
"You were saying?" Ryan asked, wearing a condescending grin.
"You act like I can't tell that you made these yourself," Chloe shot back, holding the socks up as she smiled. "These feel so hella comfy! Thank you!" Max turned to her and dangled one sock in each hand.
"I got green ones," she said happily. She thanked her parents and moved on to another pair of gifts, these once again containing handmade clothing – scarves. Appropriately, Chloe's was blue and Max's was pink, something her mother was very proud of in retrospect. The punk immediately wrapped it around her neck, striking a proud-as-a-peacock pose as she looked left and right.
"Okay, these ones actually are kind of dumb," Vanessa said as Max held up two more presents. "I was just bein' a mom, you know..." She shot Ryan an unsure, embarrassed look as the girls unwrapped two identical teddy bears. To her relief, they both squealed an 'aw!' simultaneously, with Chloe viciously squeezing it against her chest. "I just thought they were cute," Vanessa admitted, scratching the bridge of her nose. "I am an impulsive shopper."
"No kidding," Ryan said, heartily chuckling when Max's mother whacked him in the shoulder.
"They are cute!" Max said, holding her bear in the air and examining it. "Finally Captain has playmate!"
"And now I'll have something to hug when Max refuses to sleep with me!" Chloe laughed, though it burnt into an awkward chuckle as she prayed for the words to reenter her throat. "Um," she held a finger up, "I'm sorry?"
"Wait, what!?" Ryan shouted, lurching forward. "Are you telling me that my eighteen year old daughter shares a bed with her girlfriend!? It's almost like that makes sense!" He huffed, throwing his head back. "I can't even believe the kids these days. What happened to sleeping with a board between them until marriage?" Max eyed Chloe deviously, guiltily soaking in pleasure from the girl's awkwardness.
It's not often I'm on the fluffy cat stroking side of the super villain table.
"I don't like the board because it's not optimal for Chloe cuddles," Max said matter-of-factly to her father. He simply shrugged in understanding.
They continued through unwrapping presents. Max received three Ray Bradbury novels in an attempt to fix her long damaged nerd card, though she didn't even remember mentioning them to her mother. She was always amazed by how her mom remembered even the smallest things she said. She also received a box of her favorite coconut bites, some film for her camera and a glow in the dark clock, misshapen and melted to mimic Dali's Persistence of Memory.
To her surprise, Chloe wasn't done yet either. She was given an American Express gift card for seventy-five dollars, a Sex Pistols poster and blue nail polish. Her final gift was a DVD copy of Lake Placid, forcing her to regard Ryan with a dry smile while he shot her finger guns and winked.
"A little mean," she said with a snicker, gesturing at the laptop screen. "But I accept your challenge. Gonna watch it tonight."
"I don't want you to have nightmares on Christmas Eve," Ryan said, but Chloe waved her hand at him.
"Challenge. Accepted." She repeated through her teeth. He held his hands up in defense. "But seriously, just...wow." She looked down at her lap and the floor surrounding her. "Thank you so, so much. You guys are the coolest."
"We'll only take second to Joyce," Vanessa said with a smirk. "But you're more than welcome, Chloe. We still really want to see you so we can give you a hug! You must come here for Spring Break!"
Now that actually sounds like a great idea!
"Deal," Chloe said, hugging the teddy bear to her chest once again. Her eyes darted upward in thought for a moment before she stood up. "I'll be right back, okay? Don't hang up!" She scampered out of the room.
I hope she's going to do what we talked about...
"How bad do your cheeks hurt?" Max's father asked. "You haven't stopped smiling since the call started." Max bowed her head as she chuckled, scooping fingers through her colored bangs.
"Yeah, she has that effect on me," she replied. She looked around her and laughed, holding up a bundle of torn up wrapping paper. "You guys are ridiculous. Thank you. For everything. I love you."
"Love you too, Maxine," her mother said, now nuzzling into Ryan's side. "Thanks for indulging the whole Skype-present thing. It's..." She pretended to get choked up, "just so hard to not have my baby here on Christmas."
"And I wonder where I get my taste for theatrics," Max snarked back dryly. She could hear footsteps stomping up the stairs to Chloe's door, with the punk's voice talking to someone else. She spun around in her chair, slinging her elbow over the back.
"This better be a funny video, Chloe. I still need to do prep for dinner tomorrow!" Joyce groaned, following behind the mischievous looking blue haired girl. Chloe shot Max a big, excited smile as she slid off to the side, allowing Joyce a clear shot of the laptop as she approached. "Look at all this paper!" She laughed, looking at the ground. "I hope you girls are planning on recy-"
"JOYCE!" Vanessa screamed, once again leaping out of her seat so that her face took up the entirety of the screen. Joyce stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes slowly tracking upward until she found the source of the voice.
Trap sprung! Muahahaha!
"Vanessa...?" Joyce asked in a whisper, clearly caught off guard. Vanessa's head only bobbed up in down in a frantic nod. "Oh my word, Vanessa!" Joyce quickly stumbled next to Max and bent down. "Look at you!" Max patted the empty seat next to her so she would sit down.
"Look at me!? I look like a mess! Look at you!" There was a throat clearing sound next to her, prompting her to sit back so Max's father could be seen.
"Hi, Joyce," he said with a wave. "Long time no see."
"Oh, far too long," she said, the words constricting in her throat. "I've missed you both so much. How are you?" Flustered, she swiped her hands below her eyes.
"Oh god, don't cry! You know that I'll cry too!" Vanessa pleaded, her lip already quivering. Max placed a hand on Joyce's shoulder, her heart twisting with the warmth of reunion. Suddenly feeling a hand on her own shoulder, she turned to see Chloe nodding away from the laptop. Max excused herself and followed the punk away.
"Hey, let's let them catch up without us interfering. We can go bother David," Chloe said.
"Poke the sleeping lion! Sounds like fun!" Max chirped back, happily following her out of the room.
The girls arrived downstairs to see David using his foot to slide a present under the tree, locking it into to fit like a puzzle piece. He placed his hands on his waist and looked the tree up and down, giving a proud nod at his handiwork.
"Looks great," Max said, taking a spot next to him. She giggled. "God, I seriously love that smell." David offered her a smile with a small nod.
"I do too. Nothing like a fresh tree once you get all the spiders cleared out of it." Max pulled her face away from the tree in fear.
What.
"You're...joking," she said, cringing. David began to speak, then thought better of it.
"Yes, just a bad joke," he said, though his acting was failing him. "No spiders."
Well, I appreciate the attempt at lying, anyway.
"Hey!" Chloe called, appearing from the kitchen with a small stack of gingerbread men in her hands. "How come the star isn't on it?"
"Figured one of you two should put it on," David replied. He took on a confused expression and shrugged. "I don't know. That sounds like something that makes sense, right?"
"Well, Chloe is a giant so I guess it should be her," Max laughed, watching as the blue haired girl shoveled a cookie into her mouth. She stared at the tree for a moment, then shook her head.
"Nah," she said after struggling to swallow, "you should do it. You are the light of my life, after all." She immediately gained an open-mouthed smile and wiggled her eyebrows, looking back and forth between David and Max. They both groaned in unison. "Oh come on, it was cute!"
"It was terrible," Max replied, picking up the star from the table. She turned it over in her hands. "Do you have a step stool?" She asked David.
"Dude, no need," Chloe interjected, wrapping her arms around Max's waist and hoisting her into the air. With a quiet chuckle, David sat on the edge of the table and crossed his arms.
"Jesus, will you stop being so wiggly?" Max demanded as her hand swung by the tip of the tree several times. After she finally managed to settle the star on top, Chloe spun around, took a step and dumped Max over the back of the couch. David meanwhile connected the remaining wires so the star lit up bright.
"Now that is Christmas," he said, once again nodding. He looked around for a moment. "Where's your mother?"
"Talking to Max's parents on Skype. If they've gotten past the screaming, that is," Chloe responded. "Thought it'd be a nice surprise for her."
"Oh." David took a seat next to Max on the couch. "Were you parents close before you had to move away?"
"Yeah," Max said. "I guess I always kind of forget that they were friends too. It wasn't...easy on them, either." Chloe draped herself over the back of the couch between David and Max.
"You know, for a while I think they were forcing a friendship between us just so they had an excuse to hang out." The punk chuckled, changing her tone to something parental. "Now, you kids go have fun while we play Uno because we are adults!"
"I'm sure your parents must be great people to raise a daughter like you," David said to Max.
Aw, I like when David gets all compliment-y.
"They're great," she said. "I'm sure you'll get to meet them soon enough!"
"Great," he chuckled with a tint of nervousness. "More people to impress."
"Maximus, guess what my favorite AC/DC song is," Chloe snickered, shuffling her bright red socks across the rug as she inched closer to Max. The girl looked ahead at the wall, resigning herself to her fate.
"You're like a child," Max said, still staring ahead of her. She could feel the punk get close behind her.
"Incorrect! It's Thunderstruck!" She shouted, touching her index finger to her girlfriend's shoulder, summoning a visible shock of static electricity. Max yelped and clapped a hand over the sting.
"Mom didn't mention that these things doubled as low grade tasers," she complained. She watched as Chloe began to shuffle her feet once again. "Okay, you need to stop before you accidentally give me more superpowers." The blue haired girl ceased at once and looked up in thought.
"Fair point," she said, hopping backward until she was sitting on the bed. "I still can't believe how much shit your parents got me! It's crazy." She picked up the DVD and narrowed her eyes. "Alright, killer, you ready to undertake this challenge with me?" Max snorted as she got up from the desk.
"Babe, I can promise you're not going to think it's scary. But yeah, I think I could go for some cinematic snuggles." She sat down next to her, placing a soft kiss on the punk's cheek.
"Sweet!" Chloe cheered, leaning off the bed to get her own laptop. "You'll hold my hand when I get all afwaid, right?"
"Am I not allowed to hold your hand any other time? This seems like a bad deal, dude," Max laughed, scooting back further onto the bed. Chloe seemed to ignore her for a moment as she set the movie up. Without a word, she placed the laptop by their feet as she shifted herself to be next to Max.
"I'm just like..." She said, not looking anywhere in particular. "I'm just so mad that you have me replacing R's with W's unironically. I'm so mad."
"Aww," Max giggled, flipping onto her side to cuddle the blue haired girl. "It could be worse. You could be switching out L's and W's. That's the point of no return." Chloe exhaled a small laugh as Max brought their lips together, slowing down time to relish each others' touch. They broke the kiss when the score of the movie picked up, turning their attention to the small screen. "Hey," Max whispered, continuing to look at the screen, "I wove you."
"You're such a wittle bitch," Chloe shot back immediately, as if she had it waiting on her tongue.
"You cannot be fucking serious," Chloe said as the credits began to roll, her voice louder than she had probably meant. "It's just a crocodile!? The whole time!? I thought it like...turned into a Godzilla monster or some shit. Just fucking leave the area, people!"
"Wait, what?" Max began to laugh. "You thought it transformed into a kaiju?! What is the matter with you?"
"It's just a crocodile!" She shouted. Max nodded at her like 'duh.' "Man, your pops was right. That movie does suck."
"Go figure," Max giggled, falling back onto the sheets. "Look at you overcoming your fears! I'm so proud of you!" She let go of a small yawn. "What time is it?"
"It is..." Chloe took the movie off full screen. "Oh shit, it's 12:36!" She turned back around to Max and jumped on top of her. "Merry Christmas!"
"Merry Christmas, Chlo," Max replied in a soft voice, stroking her fingers through the girl's hair. She laughed quietly. "Remember being little and just going to sleep as soon as possible so we could wake up and get presents?"
"Uh huh, I do," Chloe said with a bit of slyness. "But what would you say to just one present before we go to sleep?"
Shit, what!? But I still don't have it all clear in my head! I have to...
"Come on, baby," Chloe purred, derailing that train of thought. She lifted herself so she was straddling the smaller girl and gripped the bottom of her shirt. Max watched on in amazement. She lifted her shirt a bit higher, exposing her stomach. The punk rolled her eyes playfully. "You gonna make your present unwrap itself? Really?"
Ooooh! Okay, I'm totally cool with this.
"So I guess this means I've been nice this year?" Max asked in her best devious voice, though it still felt a bit unnatural to her. She sat up, keeping Chloe in her lap, and pulled the punk's shirt over her head. She immediately threaded two fingers under the black bra hovering just in front of her face.
"I really want to make a naughty joke back, but..." Chloe laughed, though she shuddered when she felt Max's lips on her chest. "But, uh, I can't think of a way to pull it off."
"You know," Max said, leaning back to regard her with sincerity. "That's okay, Chlo. You can't always be the joke master. I'll just focus on pulling other things off." Her hands skittered along the blue haired girl's spine until they found the clasp of her bra. Chloe let out a 'ha!'
"I totally set that up for you."
"Uh huh, whatever," Max said, feigning disinterest. "You're kinda snarky for a present." She was abruptly slammed back into the mattress, Chloe looming over her as the bra slid down her arms, landing on Max's chest. She lowered herself to Max's ear.
"Then shut me up," she breathed, tracing her tongue along Max's earlobe.
Wowser. Best. Christmas. Ever.