The silence was deafening. Both frozen, Max and Chloe kept their eyes locked on the door to the bathroom. It was different than it had been just a moment before. Brown instead of white. Solid all the way up with no slats in the center. Even the handle was different. It changed right before their eyes. Neither girl dared to move. It was hard to even tell if their chests were rising and falling with breath.
"Max..." Chloe spoke after an endless moment, "what the...hell just happened?" Max didn't respond. She didn't budge. She only kept staring at the door. Chloe slowly got to her feet and came next to Max, looking at the girl with concern. "Why...why is it different now? What happened?"
"Um..." Max swallowed and barely shook her head, "I-I don't know..."
What the fuck is this?
"Max," Chloe said again, taking hold of Max's arm, "what is going on?"
"It changed," Max whispered. She took a cautious step forward and placed her hand flat on the door's surface. "Are..." she turned back to Chloe, "are you real? Are you here?"
Is this actually happening?
"What?" Clicks came from Chloe's throat as she tried to find more words, then she yanked Max's hand away from the door. "Don't touch it! What do you mean am I real?"
"I mean, is this one of my nightmares?" Max's brow furrowed as she glanced around her. "Is this just in my head?"
No. Please not this shit again.
"No," Chloe said firmly, turning Max to face her, "I'm here, Max. This is me. It's not a nightmare..." She looked unsure for a moment, then took Max's hand securely in her own. "Not that kind, anyway."
"Chloe," Max frustratedly rubbed at her face, "I don't know what's-"
The sound of a door closing came from below them and Max looked at Chloe with frantic eyes. She touched the handle of the door, then pulled it away quickly as if checking to see if it were hot. She gripped the handle again, taking a deep breath.
"I'm...scared," Max said, wincing as footsteps came up the stairs.
"Of what?" Chloe whispered, following Max's intuition with an afraid look of her own.
Of everything.
"I don't, uh..." Max closed her eyes, listening to the thumps, "I don't want it to be different out there. I don't..." The footsteps stopped just outside and her breath caught in her throat.
"Girls?" It was Joyce. "You in there?" Max let go of a long, slow sigh and looked at Chloe.
Oh, thank god.
"Uh, hey Mom, yeah," Chloe said. She nodded to Max, who then opened the door.
"What are you two do-" Joyce gasped. "Chloe! Again?" She rushed in and took the bloody towel out of Chloe's hands, frowning as she looked it over. "Are you okay, sweetie? You have another bad nosebleed?"
Dammit. This is going to get really complicated if we can't keep this quiet.
"Yeah..." Chloe replied, looking away. Joyce put a hand under her chin and turned her face back toward her.
"What in the world is causing this? You're sure you're okay?" she asked, moving her head left and right as she surveyed Chloe's face.
"I'm...I'm fine, Mom," Chloe said. "I don't know, maybe the air's too dry or something. It's no big deal."
Joyce hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
"Okay," she said, then held up the towel, "did your bed get any blood on it? I can run things through the wash if you need." She gave Max a quick smile to suffice as a greeting, then turned her attention back to Chloe.
This is so fucking bizarre.
"Uh...yeah, probably," Chloe admitted. "I'll grab it for you." She stepped by Joyce out into the hallway, then stopped. "Hey, Mom? What...do you think of the door?"
"The...what?" Joyce asked, glancing at Max in confusion.
"The, um, door," Chloe repeated, lightly rapping her knuckles against it.
"I don't understand, hon." Joyce shook her head. "What about it?"
She doesn't notice?
"Ne-nevermind," Chloe said, turning and heading into her room.
"What is that all about?" Joyce asked. Max shrugged, offering up her most clueless smile. "Hm. Maybe the blood loss has just made her a bit loopy." She snickered and elbowed Max playfully.
"Could definitely be," Max said, "and, yanno, she's already pretty loopy to begin with."
I forgot how good I got at acting like things were normal.
"That's for sure," Joyce snirked. She sighed and looked at the towel. "Poor thing, must be so startling to wake up with a bloody nose."
"Yeah, I can imagine," Max responded quietly.
Startling isn't even in the top ten descriptors, I don't think.
"Here," Chloe said, returning with a blanket in her arms, "sorry."
"Don't apologize," Joyce said, "it's not your fault."
Might be mine.
"Right, I dunno, it's just gross," Chloe said, swinging her arms lazily at her side.
"I used to change your diapers," Joyce chuckled, walking through the doorway, "I can handle it." She stopped halfway down the stairs and turned around. "Are you two hungry?"
"Uh..." Max looked at Chloe, hoping for a 'no' since her stomach was in no condition to host food. Reading her mind, Chloe shook her head. "No thanks, Joyce. Had a big breakfast."
I think I'd get sick before it even reached my stomach.
"Alright," she said, "let me know if you change your mind!"
Before she'd even reached the bottom of the steps, Chloe pulled Max into her room and closed the door. She went over to her desk and put a cigarette between her lips, her hands trembling as she did so. Max glanced around the room, searching for any signs that something had changed.
Is everything normal?
"Okay, so..." Chloe said, expelling a plume of smoke, "she doesn't think anything's wrong with the door. She doesn't...fucking notice?"
"I guess not," Max muttered. "This is...fucked."
"Uh, yeah," Chloe laughed desperately. She took another long drag of the cigarette, then her eyes went wide. Snatching her phone off the desk, she started scrolling through it. "I'm checking to make sure everything else is the same."
"Oh, that's a good idea," Max said, grabbing hers to do the same. She sat on the bed, her lips shifting left and right as she read through her text messages.
Looks like everything's fine here.
"I'm good," Chloe said, taking a spot on the bed. She rested her back on the wall just as she did before she fell asleep.
"Me too." Max turned to look at her and shook her head. "I'm at a total fucking loss."
"Yeah," Chloe said. She jabbed the cigarette into the ashtray and leaned to the side, setting it on the floor. "Max, can you..." she reached out for her and Max nodded, crawling into her embrace. "Thanks," she mumbled, holding her close.
"We need to figure out what's going on," Max whispered. "First, the guy in the Two Whales, then your towel. And then the fucking door... I mean, right in front of us."
Nothing like this happened back then.
"It kind of sounds like we know what's going on," Chloe replied, nuzzling her cheek against Max's. The way she did it sent a dull ache through Max's heart. It wasn't out of affection. It was fear. The desperate need to be comforted.
"But...what does that mean?" Max asked. "If things are, I don't know, colliding or whatever? What does it mean if the storm wasn't my fault?"
How could that be true?
"Maybe," Chloe was silent for a beat, "maybe it was mine?" She shrugged, sniffling as she held Max even tighter.
"No," Max responded without hesitation, "that doesn't make sense. How could it even be your fault?" She grumbled and buried her face in the crook of Chloe's neck. "And I don't understand what that has to do with anything, anyway. Why would it matter? What does it have to do with what's going on now?"
How do the two things connect? What caused the storm? Was it just...natural? But then why would it disappear? Wait... Oh. Oh.
"Babe?" Max leaned back in Chloe's lap. "What if Nathan really does know something about the storm?"
"I mean, that sounds like such a reach..." She stopped and her eyes began darting in different directions as she thought. "One of my dreams, where things were all spliced together... It was just filled with Prescott shit."
"And..." Max narrowed her eyes, "and Sean could see the doe." She shook her head. "Wait, what about Samuel? He knew about it too. Or, the...squirrels did?"
Those two couldn't be further apart...
"How could either of them cause the storm, though?" Chloe asked. Her head snapped in realization. "Why the fuck did Prescott have all those bunkers built?"
"Holy shit, I didn't even think about that..." Max ran her hands through her hair. "What the fuck. What the fuck. Okay, okay... So we kn-" Her voice caught in her throat and her eyes strayed to the side. Chloe followed her gaze and squeaked in horror.
There was something off about the American flag hanging over Chloe's window. A patch in the very center was moving independently of the rest of the flag, rippling like water. The distortion became more hectic before finally bursting outward in a flash, covering the entirety of a flag. It couldn't have been more than a fraction of a second, and then Max found herself staring at a rainbow flag.
No fucking way.
"Heh...heheh..." Chloe's eyes were pried open, sparks of panic skittering through them, though she was smiling, "...hehehehahaHAHAHAHA!"
What the hell?
"Chlo?" Max cupped her cheeks and looked her over. "Chloe?"
"A...a fucking rainbow flag," Chloe sputtered, still laughing. "I mean...I mean,, that's just fucking funny!" She howled in laughter. "Holy fuck! That's just like, so perfect. I think I like that better, even!" She was laughing so hard that tears were streaming down her cheeks. Or, that's how it seemed until the laugh collapsed into a horrible sob. She shook her head as she cried. "I'm so scared."
"I know," Max said quietly, wrapping her arms around Chloe. "I know. I am too..." She glanced back at the flag and gasped. "Chloe, look."
A similar bundle-of-something-wrong was gyrating in the center of the flag, and in another moment, it was back to its original state of red, white, and blue.
It changed back...
"Cool," Chloe said dryly, "I hope that happens with my towel." She sniffled and released a heavy gust of breath. "Jesus Christ, what the fuck is going on?" Without answering, Max stood up and went over to Chloe's desk, bringing the girl's laptop back to the bed. "What are you doing?"
Answers. Need answers.
"Googling," Max replied. "Googling...the Prescotts and their fucking bunkers. Parallel universes. Anything. We need something to go on here."
"Okay..." Chloe said. "I already tried looking for parallel universe stuff and didn't really find anything. When, uh, I dreamt about my dad."
"I'm going to try again." Max pressed down on the keys hard. "I'll search through every page if I have to."
"Okay," Chloe said again, resting her head on Max's shoulder.
They spent the rest of the day like that, bundled together on the bed as their eyes stung from the laptop screen. Joyce interrupted a few times, but they were quick to get rid of her. The only time Max took a break was to talk to Kate on the phone, who had of course been filled in on everything by Victoria. Hours fell away until it was just after 2AM. Still, they hadn't found anything. Not a single, useful bit of information. On time travel. On alternate realities. Not even on the Prescotts bunkers.
"I'm thirsty," Max finally said, handing the laptop over to Chloe. "I'll bring something up for us, okay?"
"Sure baby," Chloe responded. "Uh, hey. Hurry back before my laptop turns into a tarantula or something."
God, I need that joke so badly.
"Yeah," Max snickered, happy to find it was genuine, "I'll be right back."
Max opened the fridge and bent down, peering inside of it. Though water seemed the obvious choice, she expected they both had a long night ahead of them even more than they'd already stretched it and wondered if something with caffeine would be more appropriate. Deciding hydration was more important for the moment, she snatched a bottle of water and closed the door with a sigh. As she turned around, her eyes went wide. Everything was just slightly different. It was all rearranged. But...in a way that seemed familiar. The dining room table was turned the other way. The couch was facing the garage rather than the backyard. The large, flat screen TV was gone, replaced by a smaller CRT. She took a few steps out into the room, an uneasy feeling spiraling in her stomach.
Then, the door to the garage cracked opened halfway, releasing a soft glow into the darkness. Swallowing her nerve, she went over to it and pushed it the rest of the way open, hanging her head when her fears were confirmed. It wasn't the garage. It was Chloe's bedroom. The Chloe from the other reality. The bed, all done up to account for Chloe's needs, was empty. The room was eerily silent, except for... She turned her attention to the TV, where Blade Runner's sound effects oozed from the speakers. She began to cry.
No, no, no... This can't be happening...
Suddenly, the screen was overtaken by static; a flurry of white, gray and black splotches dancing around to a crackling tune. She leaned in closer to the TV and frowned, reaching for the power button. Just as her finger made contact, the static parted like a stage curtain, and she found herself staring at her own reflection. Though, its hair was shorter, devoid of any pink. There was no piercing. No bullet necklace. No tired eyes. Max swallowed and waved her hand slowly, the image in the TV mimicking the action. Then it smirked.
"So," the reflection said, the smile growing wider, "do...you think Deckard is a replicant?"
"It...really is you," Max said quietly, her eyes closing for just a moment as she shook her head.
"You don't sound very happy to see me," the other Max pouted. "C'mon, didn't you miss me? Just a little?"
"No..." Max replied, "I...I thought you were gone."
"Me? Gone?" she chuckled as though humoring a child. "Nope, just the opposite. I'm everywhere."
"Why...are you back?" Max asked in a whisper, "why now?"
"Oh, I had this whole other thing I was wrapped up in," Nightmare Max said with a roll of her eyes. She snickered and waved a dismissive hand. "Nevermind, you don't get the joke. Truthfully, after Chloe took that hit for you and ruined my stride, I've just been...waiting. Waiting for you to finally see."
"Your warning..." Max sat down on the edge of Chloe's bed, "you were actually telling the truth, weren't you?"
"What? About that whole 'everything's gonna fall apart' thing?" she asked. "I'm not a liar, Max."
"Then...what are you?" Max glanced around the room, turning back to her doppelganger before she could be overcome with more tears.
God. She had to pick here. Why did-
"Hey, no need for inside voices," Nightmare Max said softly, earning a look of defeat from Max. She rested her arms on the bottom of the TV screen as if it were an open window. "Anyway, I'm you. I thought that much was obvious, right?"
"Can you please tell me what's going on?" Max asked. "Things are...not right. Please, if you can somehow explain this..."
"Mmn..." the other Max puckered her lips and thought for a moment, though it was clearly for the sake of making Max squirm, "let's go with what you know. Here, I'll make a diagram." She leaned back, gripping onto something near the bottom of the screen, then hoisted herself up and out of the television. Startled, Max scooted backward on the bed. Nightmare Max flicked a finger against the screen, showing that it was solid once again. It turned completely white, still continuing to give off a faint glow. "Hand me that?" she asked, gesturing to Max.
"What are you...?" Max clapped a hand to her thigh, suddenly feeling something in her pocket. She pulled out a marker and shook her head. "Why can't you just...tell me like a normal person? Why are you doing this?"
"I'm helping!" Nightmare Max said gleefully, tearing the marker out of her hand. She bit the cap off and spit it onto the floor, then started to draw on the whiteboard. "Kay, so..." she drew the letter 'A' and then circled it, "this is where you are. Imagine one of those mall maps – 'you are here!' This, is timeline A." She stepped back and looked at Max, pleased when she received a dreadful nod in understanding, then drew a straight line down from the A bubble. "Like I said before, you used to just rewrite the same timeline over and over and over. But..." she held up an index finger, "you and your dear, sweet Chloe went smash, smash, smash!" She simulated hitting the board with a hammer.
"But how?" Max asked,"what did we do?"
"Please save all questions for after the lecture," the other Max chided. "At any rate, in this timeline here, Chloe's little pirate towel is green." She wrote the word 'green' underneath it, the ink changing color to correspond to the word. "But since ya broke everything, there's other timelines, right?" She wrote the letter 'B' and then circled that one as well. "You're familiar with the whole parallel universes accounting for every possibility, blah, blah, blah. So here, in timeline B, Chloe's towel is buh-loo!" She wrote the word 'blue' beneath it, and the marker ink once again changed to match the word.
"That doesn't make sense," Max said. "Why would that be any different? I had nothing to do with that."
"You're thinking too small," Nightmare Max responded. "This isn't just about your influence. As for why it's blue instead of green..." She clicked her tongue, then shrugged. "I don't fuckin' know. Maybe green was sold out in that timeline. Let's not...dwell on that sort of thing, or we'll be here for... I mean, literally forever. It's already sad enough that this is the example we're working with."
"Okay, fine," Max agreed, "go on."
"Soooo..." the other Max drew a squiggly line from B, "this one, man, it is not stable. It's just twisting, spinning... Dancing!" She gave a joyous shake of her hips, "through existence. But, you know, sometimes this one bumps into A." She dragged the squiggle across the line of A, then weaved it back over. "They overlap. Maybe for just a moment. And then, ta-da, Chloe's towel changes color!"
"I still don't..." Max buried her face in her hands, releasing a quiet gasp of tears.
"Hey, hey," Nightmare Max said soothingly. She placed a hand on Max's shoulder, ignoring the girl's jerk away from her touch. "Let's take five, huh? Give you some time to collect your thoughts. I know it's a lot to take in."
"Are...are you being nice?" Max asked, perking an eyebrow. "Why?"
"Because I understand how crazy this must all be," she said. "Look, I'll be right back. You just take a sec to breathe and try to calm down." She trotted over to the door and gave a smile, then disappeared behind it.
"What the...fuck?" Max questioned aloud, refusing to be called out on using inner monologue for a third time. She sighed and covered her face again. "What am I supposed to do about this? What's going on?"
"C-Chloe...?" A voice said, and Max jerked upright. The room was suddenly bright, the sun shining serenely outside. Max gulped as she stared at William, a look of horror on his face. He took a slow step toward her, then past her. Max sucked in a sharp breath and robotically turned her head, yelping when she saw Chloe in the bed. Her eyes were closed, her head drooped to the side.
"What the fuck?" Max asked again, this time much more panicked. "No. No fucking way are we doing this."
"Chloe!" William bent over, cupping Chloe's cheeks. "Chloe, sweetie, are you okay? Please, wake up. Please! Chloe!" He sobbed and turned to the machine, his breath catching in his throat when he saw the dials had been tampered with. "Max..." he glared at her, "what happened?"
"William..." Max said, then she shook her head, "this isn't fucking real! I'm not doing this!" William lunged toward her and grabbed her by the shoulders.
"Max, what did you do?" he asked, his voice becoming quite loud. "What did you do, Max!?"
"Fuck!" Max shouted, tearing herself out of William's grip. "Where are you!?" She glanced wildly around the room. "Stop this right now!"
"Max," William wailed, "did you change the dial on her machine? Please, tell me you didn't!" Max spun away from him and covered her ears.
"Enough!" Max screamed, "enough!"
"Max!" William tore her hands away from her ears. "Max, stay. STILL!" Her eyes snapped open. That...wasn't William's voice. "I need you posed and framed, my way!"
"No..." Max turned to Jefferson, audibly gulping, "no, no, no."
"If you wanted to be like me so badly," he growled, tugging at her wrists, "you could have just told me!" He laughed in a way that shook with lust. "Ohh, you're a natural!" He nodded at Chloe, overdosed in her bed.
"STOP!" Max fought to escape his hold. "Stop this!" Jefferson let go of her wrists, roughly flinging them back at her, and pulled a gun from behind him. He turned and aimed it at Chloe. "Stop!"
"What the fuck!?" Chloe sat forward, then immediately crashed back into the bed as the bullet smashed through her skull. Max screamed again, then pounced at Jefferson, swinging at him frantically as she cried. She managed to claw him across the cheek, and he vanished into thin air. She stumbled forward, carried by the momentum of her swing. She immediately turned to Chloe, who was now also nowhere to be found. The sun outside faded, coating the room in darkness once more.
The door to the bedroom opened back up and Nightmare Max strolled in, taking a chomp out of an apple.
"Hey," she said, "did I miss anything?"
"You bitch!" Max huddled in on herself, crying hard, "you fucking monster..."
"Yeah, yeah," she responded, dropping the apple onto the floor, "I'm sure that's going to upset a lot of people. But I mean, hey, what can ya do?" She leaned to the side, looking Max up and down. "You ready to continue the lesson, killer?"
"Don't...call me that," Max spat, looking back at her copy with a dark gaze.
"Noted," Nightmare Max said. She took a step toward Max and reached for her ear, removing her hand to reveal she was holding the marker. "Heh, look. Magic."
"When..." Max sniffled, her blue eyes overflowing with hatred, "when are you going to let me out of here?"
"When class is over," the other Max replied. She cleared her throat and went back to the whiteboard. "Alllrighty, so..." She drew two circles above the B circle, placing a '1' in one of them and a '2' in the other. "Here ya go, so in this one," she tapped the 1 bubble, "you didn't give Chloe the juice. In 2, you did. Alive, dead. Still totes unable to walk in either."
"When are you going to let me leave?" Max repeated.
"Already answered that...?" Nightmare Max said with a perked eyebrow. "Anyway, my point here is that each of those possibilities exist in their own universe. But, actually, each of those also have their very own towel conundrum. And, actually, what's the most obvious thing about colors?" Max simply glared back at her. An invisible force yanked her hand straight up into the air. "Ah, yes, glad to see you participating, Max!"
"God, fuck you," she said.
"...close," the other Max said, nodding slowly. "No, the most notable thing about colors is that there are lots of them! Which means..." She wrote 'C,' 'D,' 'E', and then pouted. "Letters were a poor choice. Nowhere near enough of them."
"I...I get it, okay?" Max looked down at the floor. "I fucking understand. Please, just let me go."
"Do you, though?" Nightmare Max asked. "Do you understand what this means for you?"
"I don't..." Max sighed and flailed her hands, "what? Arcadia Bay is going to get destroyed? Are we playing that game again?" The other Max let out a sharp 'ha!'
"No, no, no," she said, smiling wide. "Watch closely, eh?" She turned back to the board and began chaotically drawing more circles. More and more and more. She drew lines from each, stitching them over and under each other, creating an unintelligible mess. The ink of the marker had turned dark red, and it was flowing down the board in streaks. It ran off the board, cascading onto the floor.
Suddenly, the walls began rapidly flickering through different colors. The window to the side of the room phased in and out, morphing into different styles. Photos on the wall flashed through different images. Even Max's clothes were changing on her body.
"Enough, okay!?" she screamed.
"Here's the thing," Nightmare Max said, gesturing to the board with both hands as if presenting a prize, then she pointed at the A bubble again. "It's only going to get worse. It's just going to keep going and going and going. Let me ask you this..." She stepped close to Max and bent down, her eyes filthily prodding into Max's. "If every possibility is true all at once, squeezed into one teensy, tiny timeline then..." she bared her teeth in a predatory manner, "is that really any different than none of them existing?" She glanced behind her and stepped back, revealing the television had reverted back to its original form. One of the final scenes of Blade Runner was playing, and a man was sitting down in the pouring rain.
"...all those moments...will be lost in time." the man said, "like tears...in rain..."
A massive crack ran down the center of the television, breaking it in two. Then, cracks started branching out along the walls. A huge chunk of the ceiling fell to the floor, crumbling on impact. The ground beneath Max began to quake, jostling her around on the bed. She gripped the sides, holding on tightly. One of the walls detached from the room, falling away into blackness.
"You asked if Arcadia Bay was going to get destroyed," the other Max said, staring off into the void. "Once again, you're thinking far too small. No, this is the end of...everything." She turned back to Max and grinned again, the corners of her lips reaching higher than should be possible. "Now this," she shouted giddily, "this is a real End of the World Party!"
A bell, identical to the one that signaled the end of her classes, loudly thrashed through the room.
"Ah, looks like that's all the time we have for today! How's that for some flavorful exposition!?" Nightmare Max clapped her hands. "Now, go on, shoo! Get yourself back to Chloe. I'll see ya again real, real soon!"
"Max!" Chloe shouted, shaking her violently. Max's eyes fluttered open, her vision focusing in on Chloe's worried expression. She moved her tongue around her mouth, unsurprised to find the taste of iron. "Oh Jesus fucking Christ," she hissed, hugging her tightly. "Are you okay? What the fuck happened?"
I hate her.
"I had another one of my...things," she said numbly. She looked over Chloe's shoulder, realizing they were in the garage. "Fuck..."
"You were gone for a long time. I came down to check on you," Chloe whispered, placing a flurry of kisses along Max's head. "You had a fucked up PTSD nightmare?"
"I don't even think that's what they are anymore," Max replied, closing her eyes again as she gave herself to Chloe's embrace. "I think...I think it's some kind of... I dunno, place."
"It's a dream," Chloe said, then she shook her head, "no, sorry. I can't be in fucking denial anymore." She sighed. "What, uh, what did she say this time?"
"Um," Max couldn't help but let out a bitter chuckle, "she said the world is ending. The apocalypse."
I hate how easily I said that.
"Oh...come on, that can't be true," Chloe clutched her tighter, "that's not even denial. That just can't actually...happen. Right?"
"At this point?" Max felt the sad droplets of water hit her shoulder. "Chloe, I don't know anymore." She pulled out of Chloe's grasp and stared at her, running a finger under her eye to chase away the tears. "But...you have no idea how fucking livid I am. We're going to figure out what's going on. And if we have to, we're going to stop it."
If you're there, rumbling around in my head... All you ever try to do is scare me. Mission accomplished. But you are fucking crazy if you don't think I'm not going to fight back. I'm not the same person I was back then.
"What, uh, what are we supposed to do about..." Chloe looked around, then shrugged, "life? School? Work?"
"I...know this sounds impossible, but for now, we have to try and keep going like normal," Max said. Chloe's brows knit together.
"How the fuck is that supposed to work? You've had two nosebleeds today and I've had one," Chloe argued. "Not only does Victoria and the entirety of the Two Whales know about you, but my mom must be getting concerned about me too. What if it happens to you in class? Then what?"
"I don't know, Chloe," Max replied, "but if this shit is really happening, we can't let anyone know. We..." her shoulders relaxed and she summoned a small, encouraging smile, "we've done this before, right?"
We'll fucking do it again. I am not letting this happen.
"Not like this," Chloe said, "this is entirely different. Things are literally fucking changing right before our eyes."
"And so far, we seem to be the only ones who notice," Max pointed out. She pinched the bridge of her nose and let out a slow breath. "I know this is going to be fucking hard. But we can't let on that anything's wrong. Every second that we can, we're going to try and figure this out. But we have to try and play the part of normalcy."
"I...don't know if I can," Chloe said quietly. Max shook her head.
"I don't either," she admitted, "but..." She took Chloe's hands into her own and stared into her eyes. "You're with me, right? Partners in crime?"
"Ugh, I just..." Chloe glanced down, muttering 'fuck,' then looked back up. "Partners in crime," she confirmed. Then she smiled anxiously. "We've, uh, really racked up a hell of a bounty."
"Like pirates, right?" Max asked, gently brushing the back of her fingers across Chloe's cheek.
"Like pirates," Chloe said, wiping the blood from under Max's nose.
A/N: Worst science class ever. What the hell.
Now, I know what you might be thinking: Jesus Christ, that was a little much. To which I say...
Anyways, this will be the last chapter of the year. I hope everyone had a good holiday and that you all have a happy New Year! Thanks for being a bright spot in 2017. You're all wonderful. Catch you in 2018!