Disclaimer: Anything familiar to you, I don't own. This is a work of fanfiction for personal amusement, fulfillment and a bit of self-therapy. I make nothing from any of it.
Notes: I wanted to talk with all of you briefly about something. Since about the time I began to write the first interlude I started to grow displeased with the pacing in relation to Max's secrets. At that point I took steps to rectify it and move that revelation up. Unfortunately, even having done that, I can promise you that as of the last chapter I will post today, there are still several chapters to go before Max's secret is revealed in full. However, in the coming chapters you will see the evolution of that plot line, as well as several others, including ones set into motion by the events of Chapter 25: Argus Panoptes. I hope that you understand that if there was an error made with the pacing, it has already been made and it would be detrimental to the overall story to infodump immediately. I want a 'natural' exposition to develop and even moving the timetable up, I cannot quite make it materialize immediately. I appreciate the patience with this failing of the story. I hope you enjoy, nonetheless. That being said, I am celebrating a personal milestone, graduating with my bachelor's degree. So, in celebration, today and Sunday's updates are going to be two chapters each as, since my last final exam, I have done very little besides write and edit. Hopefully, this both alleviates a little bit of the remaining wait and entertains you, as one of the coming four chapters is pretty lighthearted in comparison to many of its current compatriots and a few still to come. Thanks, as always, for the support and love on this project. Recently, as I began to write in longer bursts again, I remembered what it means to me. I wouldn't give up finishing this story for the world. Either way, expect another chapter in 2-3 minutes. Enjoy.
Chapter Twenty-Six: Atreus and Thyestes
September 9th, 2011 3:01 PM
If one were to look past the discoveries made on Monday afternoon, if one were to look past her fight with her mother about her sudden 'mood swing' and accompanying decision that she was going to be taking some time away from the house, then all-in-all Chloe would have to say it had been a good week. The fact that it was coming to an end and that meant that in a few short hours they were going to be engaged in world building and character creation for her first campaign as a Dungeon Master made it even better. That was why she was so jarred to come upon the sight of a police officer escorting Hayden Jones from the photography classroom toward the principal's office. Max was standing just to the side of that door, trying desperately to get the cop to even look at her.
"I saw everything," Max insisted to the man, doing everything but actually reaching out to the cop. The officer was doing his best to ignore her. His face was twisted into a look Chloe would name embarrassment if she had to give it one. "He just attacked Hayden for no reason." For his part, the larger boy turned toward Max and tried to relax her with a smile and a thumbs up. Chloe could understand why it failed, too: it was rather hard to give a reassuring smile when doing so let blood pour from your lip down your teeth and ultimately trail down your chin. Just behind the cop who had ignored Max (what, is she get him to leave Hayden alone) David emerged from the classroom in his security uniform. Through the open door the other party-and if Max's words were anything to go by, the guilty party- was still screaming.
"I want him fucking arrested," Nathan Prescott demanded, the volume and pitch of his voice both higher than Chloe could have ever imagined hearing them. "Do you people know who the fuck I am?" A man's voice sounded out from the room as if trying to calm him down or in some way placate him. Chloe didn't recognize it and marked it down to likely being yet another police officer: she would have recognized most of the rest of the school's security team, considering that whenever possible she worked with them on an issue and not David. Speaking of David, that was about the moment when he noticed Chloe standing a few steps behind Max, though the brunette remained entirely unaware of Chloe's presence until the large man stopped and stared at her with some disdain.
"You two clear the area," David declared. "This doesn't concern you." Max spun at his words and saw Chloe, which motivated her to take a step or two closer. She had not stood this close to David since their discovery of the house's hidden cameras. If she could have, Chloe was fairly certain she would have been fine never standing this close to that asshole again. Several people passed by them without stopping, without looking, though she thought she heard a mutter or two which suggested people knew that Hayden had been attacked. Nathan's voice rose in indignation at being asked to quiet down by the officer in the room with him.
"Nathan almost hit me with that chair, David, so I think it concerns me, thank you very much," it took everything Chloe had to hold back a cheer. This was not the time or the place to celebrate or otherwise express how hot it was to see Max put the absolute shitbag in his place. Hayden was out of sight by the time David could bring himself to respond. It was a typical David response, where everyone was guilty except the guy who threw the fucking punch. Or in this case, the fucking chair.
"Move along and mind your own business unless you have something more to do with this than you're letting on."
"And what could I have to do with Nathan Prescott throwing a chair at me or Hayden or whoever he was aiming at, David?" There was no false sweetness to this question, none of Max's usual attempt at reason. The photographer was, to put it very mildly, not okay. Behind Chloe a pair of footsteps came to a stop. Whoever they belonged to did not help David's mood any more than Max's surprising, building rage. Chloe glanced behind her to spot Rachel and Brooke. Steph was further down the hallway still, but even she seemed to know something was going on. That made sense since the only one being louder than Max was in the moment was Nathan himself.
"Someone shut that dumb bitch up," Nathan called from the room. Chloe's fists immediately clenched in response. As far as she was concerned you got to either insult a person or kidnap them. Doing both was way over the line.
"Let me put it this way, girlie. Move on or I'll be reporting you to Principal Wells for disrespect." Whatever Max was going to say when she opened her mouth, Chloe could tell from the look on her face it was going to end badly for everyone involved. She was relieved when Rachel reached up and placed her hand firmly over Max's open mouth, muffling her response. The bad news for Rachel was that she had apparently forgotten that of the two of her girlfriends, the one with poor impulse control was Chloe, not Max. Her creepy, skeevy, spycamming stepfather threatening Max was enough to shove her over the edge once she was sure her girlfriend was safe.
"You wouldn't know how to spell respect if someone held up a cue card, you fucking creep." The man's face transformed immediately from I'm High and Mighty to You Will Fear Me. Rachel sighed exasperatedly behind her and called for 'a little help here' when David opened his mouth to respond.
"I said move along or I will have to report your insubordination."
"Big word for such a small di-" this time it was her turn to be silenced by a hand across her lips. The familiar scent of Steph's shampoo (a particular floral smell she hadn't identified) gave away just who began to push her forward, away from the classroom. She knew why Max was pissed, but the honest fact that a lot of Chloe's rage was entirely personal. That was probably why Chloe reacted to being hustled away the way she did. Steph, caught off guard by the unexpected feeling of a tongue running across the palm of her hand, called out in surprise and jerked it away from Chloe's lips. Chloe would have laughed about it any other time, but she had a goal in mind with this little bit of 'acting out'. She turned to look over her shoulder as Steph wiped her hand off on it. The brunette did not stop hustling her toward the front doors of the school but that did not stop Chloe from matching David's glaring, seething eyes. "Take a picture, it'll last longer. You know all about cameras, don't you David?" The man's jaw clenched visibly and painfully shut.
Laughing, Chloe took one long stride forward to get out of Steph's reach and was the first of them out of the doors to the school. She hoped Hayden was going to be alright but the whole incident-especially David's behavior toward Max-had her livid. Once the entire party joined their wayward DM outside on the lawn in front of the school, she turned back to them. Rachel was releasing a fuming Max. The brunette looked cute with her pixie-cut all disheveled and Chloe beckoned her closer, reaching out to the photographer with a quick hug before saying her apologies, even if they were not aimed toward the right person.
"Rachel, Max, I have a confession to make," Chloe started, sounding dramatic. "I licked Steph. Can you ever forgive me?"
"You're a total dick sometimes," Rachel reminded her, exasperated as she pulled her jacket on, quite suddenly. Chloe only turned a large grin on the group as a whole, relieved to hear first Max and then Brooke break into some laughter. At least Steph was smiling as if all was forgiven. She didn't seem to have minded Chloe's off-color joke, at least. Rachel seemed to have more to say. Max stepped aside as the thespian drew nearer to Chloe, her face hard to read. "You don't get to go up against David all by yourself, Chloe." Chloe swallowed at the look which formed in the thespian's eyes, silently asking: 'you know why, right?' Perhaps the mix of seething in anger and overcompensating with humor had not been the best way to handle the situation. All Chloe could do was nod to show that she heard Rachel.
"So, who wants to roll dice instead of think about whatever just fucking happened?" As it turned out, the answer was that all of them desired a tonal shift to their Friday afternoon. Chloe wouldn't have blamed the others for getting exasperated with her, but as it turned out there was a surprising amount of forgiveness at work among their little circle, even from Brooke who was probably used to Chloe being a bit of a drama queen already. They split up, Rachel and Brooke in one car, Steph in another and Chloe and Max in the Frankentruck. While this was not actually the most ideal distribution for people, it at least got everyone where they were going and, once the other two cars had driven off, gave Chloe and Max a second to talk honestly about what had just occurred.
That talk began with a loud groan. Chloe took it to be a groan of frustration and reached out as if to pat Max on the shoulder. As she did, it became immediately obvious that frustration was the least of what Max was feeling. Chloe unbuckled her seatbelt as Max doubled over in her seat, face in her hands. She was visibly shaking in her seat The groan had changed to something of a scream that was being blocked by the photographer's hands, one of which still bore the remnants of the cut Chloe had accidentally left her with during their investigation of the Madsen house. Chloe wasn't sure what to say so she let Max spend all of the air in her lungs, her hand on the back of Max's neck, rubbing at it, trying to calm her to some degree. She's not just frustrated, she's freaking out. Of course she is. She said he tried to throw it at her. Nathan Prescott attacked Max. Again. This time he hit Hayden.
Chloe scooted as close as she could on the old, torn up truck seat and wrapped her arm around Max's shoulders. Very quickly the concern came that maybe this was Max falling into one of her 'don't touch me' moods. Hesitantly, she unwound her arm from Max, causing the girl to lift her head from her hands in confusion. A little red, perhaps at understanding Chloe's dilemma, Max pushed closer to her and this time it was the photographer who held onto her. The brunette pressed her face against Chloe's shoulder and in response she stayed relatively still if one discounted returning the embrace.
"He was aiming at you?"
"Probably," she admitted. "I was at the table with Hayden. It got him and then instead of like, dealing with it, Nathan just jumped over the table, ran right past me and jumped on Hayden like some kind of fucking angry dog." Shivering in her arms, Max gripped more tightly at her. As best as Chloe managed to understand from Max's muffled story, Hayden had only taken one or two more good shots before subduing Nathan, breaking one of his fingers in the process. Max had eventually fled the room along with the rest of the class. Instead of leaving the room when David arrived and pulled Hayden off of him, Nathan had grabbed a chair and demanded the police be called before he agreed to go anywhere. And of course those assholes agreed. Whatever the case might have been, Chloe was not inclined to let go of Max until the shaking had died down enough to be barely noticeable.
"Are you going to be okay to go through with tonight?" Chloe gently prodded her, having released her but not quite having opened any distance between them. She wanted to see Max's responses close up and personally. "I can just call it off if not, no one's going to blame you." Max shook her head once.
"No, I'll be fine, just maybe a little out of it." This seemed to end their prior discussion completely. By this point, the others were a good five minutes closer to the diner than they were, and Chloe pulled out her phone to make good use of that lead of theirs.
Me
Just get Max and I the usual. We'll meet you at Steph's house. She's not feeling up to the diner right now and neither am I.
The story had the benefit of most likely being true. Rachel knew them well enough to make sure that the diner coughed up enough fries and a couple of burgers for them. Backing out of the conversation with Rachel, she landed on Mikey's, instead. On the other side of the cab, Max was buckling in and trying to calm down. This isn't the time to confront her, Chloe. Despite herself, as Chloe buckled up herself and started the car she let herself review the conversation from Monday night.
Mikey
Dude, you need to tell me wtf is going on.
Me
What do you mean?
Mikey
I decoded it. The key was Portland.
Me
Cool, what's on it?
Mikey
Do you have anything you want to tell me? Did Max actually write this
Me
No games if it says Max is in trouble you need to tell me now.
Mikey
It says a whole lot of stuff that doesn't make any sense.
Me
Like what?
Mikey
Like that someone's following her and she saw you talking to them in Portland, like you're some sort of dream walker and Rachel's the Avatar or some shit?
Either you're keeping something from me and Steph or Max is delusional but either way she sounds like she needs help bad
Chloe?
Chloe
Chloe had not known how to answer. Later that evening she had found an email waiting in her inbox containing the decoded message, only it wasn't a message. It was more like a stream of consciousness straight out of Max's head. Now, as she drove toward Steph's house, Chloe wanted for the hundredth time to confront her about it. All that decoding that file had done was tell Chloe that Max was keeping something from her and Rachel, something big. Put into context, one line made it sound like Max was hiding some weird ass ability of her own.
Chloe did her best to bury those thoughts during the drive to Steph's but they were never far from the surface. The truth was that as much as this was a night for world building and character creation, Chloe still needed to get her head into the game a little bit. If not into the game, then at least on vaguely normal things. Or maybe not so normal things, like a certain flash drive. There's an idea, Chloe told herself.
"Where's the flash drive tonight?" Chloe asked Max, casually.
"Rachel's got it on her," Max responded, voice slowly normalizing. "Why?"
"I just want to be sure we have a safe copy of everything we've already got, including the stuff from David."
"Copy on my laptop and a copy on the flashdrive," Max promised.
"What if we hid that flashdrive away and found a cheap one to replace it? That way if something bad happens we at least have this much?" She glanced sideways at the girl, who looked almost a little relieved at the idea. Maybe she's been worrying about the drive? Let's try this.
"Something like a secret dossier?" Max asked her.
"Where did you pick up a word like dossier?"
"I read crime novels," was all the answer Max gave.
The mood among the party was entirely different by the time they were halfway through a pile of hamburgers and fries. About an hour before the flashdrive had changed hands from Rachel to Steph and been lost somewhere in Steph's home with a promise to silence in exchange for eventually being filled in on what was on it. Now, there were only two things on anyone's mind: food and tabletop. Chloe preferred it that way. It made it easier to take her mind off of the fact that her stepfather had been recording what went on in her bedroom for God knew how long.
Chloe leaned back in her seat, only it was not normally her own. She was used to sitting along one side of the table instead of at the end. Steph usually sat at an end of the table, being the Dungeon Master typically. From here, she could imagine watching the lot of them handling dice and player sheets, not hamburgers and fries. Speaking of, the small sack of fries in front of her was finally getting cold. This was a bit of a mixed bag, pun not intended. Different flavors were brought out by cold fries than by warm ones. The mark of a good french fry in Chloe's opinion was whether it had any taste to speak of after it cooled. That was why, loathe as she might be to admit it, the diner had the best fries in town.
"Are you guys going to be ready to character create any time soon?" Chloe queried. Max was too busy with her drink to respond, Brooke and Steph were generally indicating positively. The only one who was being intentionally difficult was Rachel. It wasn't that she was saying, "no," it was mostly that for several seconds she refused to match Chloe's gaze. When she finally did, though, it was not to provide any kind of clear answer.
"Maaaaybe," the thespian teased through a mouth full of fries. Chloe rolled her eyes with exaggerated slowness so that Rachel could not miss it. Difficult woman, Chloe thought. Try as she might, no immediate response came to mind. Oh god, I'm slipping. Chloe grumbled briefly and then shoved a fry between her own lips.
"You know you three are fucking nauseatingly adorable sometimes, right?" Chloe's gazed shifted from Rachel, who was now pulling a face at her, to Brooke.
"Thanks," Max responded before Chloe could, slamming down a tall to-go cup which sounded to Chloe to be mostly ice, now. "But most of the nausea comes from those two."
"Bullshit," Brooke shot back, dismissively. Still, Chloe thought that the girl was finally getting comfortable around the three of them. That was promising. It hadn't taken Steph much time at all but the rest of the school was different. It took a while for most people to get used to it and sometimes they were still asked any number of questions about it. Most of the time people didn't cross any lines, but there was still the occasional shot thrown their way. Usually this came in the form of a very suggestive question that Rachel would handle by shooting back at the asker or Max would respond to by turning red and trying to 'blankly' stare the asker down until they backed off. Chloe's own answer to those questions varied depending on who was asking but the gist of it was that she wasn't going to kiss and tell.
Then there were people like Victoria Chase. Despite having had plenty of experience with people whom she termed being 'not so bad' turning out to be otherwise, Max usually tried to convince her girlfriend's that Victoria's bitchiness was the result of deep insecurity. Rachel seemed to buy it, but every time Chloe caught wind of some comment from the girl about 'Rachel Amber's harem' she wanted to hold the pretentious Dolce and Garbana fangirl down and force her to listen to an hour and a half of Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music. Victoria had done the most to make them out to be deviants, attention whores or worse, 'faking it' depending on what kind of mood she was in on any given the day. Her apparent ascension into the ranks of the Vortex Club had done little to help their popularity at the end of the last year.
Given no clear 'yes' or 'no' from Rachel, Chloe decided to just relax and wait until people had disposed of the majority of their food. That being the case, she called them to order by lightly whacking the edge of her Dungeon Master's Guide against the table. It seemed to work relatively well as one by one from various bags or folders the party began to pull character sheets, pens and dice from their bags. While she was going to be taking up a different role for the game it was kind of nostalgic. A summer without tabletop used to be a fairly normal thing for Chloe. Now, it seemed like the summer had been missing an aspect of life that made it worth living. Then again, she thought, glancing down the table at Max toying with a D6. It was.
"Right, so we'll follow a pretty standard plan for character creation. Might as well get the stat rolls out of the way, then go pick race and class," Chloe leaned back in her seat, head turning slowly to Steph. She looked contemplative for a second and then turned to her own bag, digging a few spare six sided die from them. It took a few seconds for everyone to gather their dice together, but eventually they got enough for two people to roll at once. For Chloe's part, she removed her beanie tossed it over her notes. They all had a pretty solid plan about what kind of character they wanted to play already, choosing to roll the dice first was just about making sure they had time to think about how to distribute the values they got.
"You're enjoying this," Rachel muttered at one point as she frowned at the dice in front of her and noticed Chloe watching sharply. "Way too much." Someone just rolled low. Across the table from her, Steph opened her mouth ostensibly to comment but immediately shut it, grinning wickedly. Whether it was something a little mean or a little racy, Steph bit back whatever was on the tip of her tongue. At about that point Max muttered her appreciation of one of her rolls.
This was a quicker process than she expected. Everyone there was fairly quick on their feet with basic mental math and all four character sheets had their stat distributions recorded within a few short minutes. For the most part, people seemed to be fairly happy with their rolls, though Chloe watched Max mark down her lowest stat roll into the charisma slot with a pained wince. Note to self, if the party gets split, that could come back to bite them. Patiently, Chloe waited for the familiar and oddly comforting sound of dice hitting tabletops to stop and then cracked her knuckles. It sounded impressive in the silence left by the absence of dice rolls.
"Alright," she called, rubbing her hands together as Rachel hurried to double check what looked from where Chloe said like racial benefits for humans. "Let's start with Steph and go clockwise, tell us about your race, class and stats. Also, keep in mind I'll want a copy by next week." The brunette waited for her to finish speaking patiently and then, with a grin that betrayed how happy she was to get to play versus DM, glanced down at her character sheet.
"I'm playing Mara, a halfling paladin." Across the table Brooke raised a hand for a high five. It took a bit of effort as Steph's dinner table was actually rather wide, but they eventually got what they wanted. "But here's the thing: she's going to be a Paladin of a local war deity."
"So she'll go Oath of Vengeance?" Chloe asked, a finger rising to tap at her upper lip in a gesture of thoughtfulness.
"Absolutely. I've dropped my best roll of 15 into her constitution, next into dexterity and so on and so forth." Chloe nodded. If she recalled, halflings got the extra point in dexterity per stat increase, so that made sense. She was going for a more dexterous paladin. It was going to be cool to see how she played out a halfling as a paladin of vengeance though. I think I like the idea of Steph being the badass of the group. "Oh, and I think she'll be going Lawful Good, but she is basing that more on the ideals instilled in her by the Dwarven people whose deity she devoted herself to. By her own ideals, her people are typically too passive and allow a lot of evil to go on in the world in favor of defending the 'old ways'." Chloe grinned and grabbed a pen from beside her to start taking down ideas. Test the paladin's alignment among her people, ties to her people. The halflings in this world are considered passive and conservative.
"Excellent, Max?"
"I'll be going for a chaotic good Tiefling fighter. All I really know about him right now is that his name is Andil and he is definitely wanted in the city he grew up in for burning down a corrupt lawkeeper's home." Chloe immediately took notes. Wanted in home town for arson. Probably seen as devil-born or devil touched.
"So, did the lawkeeper die?" Chloe queried, looking up. That was kind of important in case they ever ended up in a region Andil was from.
"Oh no, he wouldn't kill the guy unless she caught him hurting someone, he just wanted to send a message that maybe taking a bribe from the local Thieves' Guild after they killed his brother was probably a bad idea." That left Chloe a few more ideas to work with. If they went through with working together to build a world, Max was going to have to eventually come up with a city name and an idea of the region of the map she-or more, her character- was from. "And I've put his dump stat into Charisma, best into Strength and Con. Unfortunately his Int score is kind of in the trash, too." Big dumb TIefling, got it. At Chloe's prompting, Brooke took over.
"Halfling bard with his high stat being charisma, low stat is constitution," Brooke declared right off the bat. "I do not know her name yet, but I think Steph and I agreed they'll be sisters. I think what happened was that some of her sister's bad habits as a kid rubbed off on her and she got bored living in their hometown and left. It wasn't particularly well received by their parents and I think they both got disowned." Across the table, Steph nodded as if in agreement with the idea. "The good news was she picked up a lot from the Dwarves they lived with, including love for panpipes. I think she's with her sister hoping that together they'll find an adventure that will give her some great story to tell and it will immortalize her in the dwarven canon."
"I'll work with a Fire Genasi rogue who introduces himself as Isp," Rachel said after Chloe had finished her notes and gestured to her. Oh sweet, I think I can get my hands on the info for Genasi. If not, I know Steph has the book. "I know he's going to be taking the thief archetype if he lives 'til level three and he's definitely going to be dex focused but his dark vision should be useful as hell." Especially for the dungeon later, Chloe mused to herself. "My dump stat will be in Charisma as well, so our bard is basically going to be the only hope we have of not being socially inept everywhere."
"Hey," Steph cried indignantly. "Mara's not horrible with Cha." Chloe leaned back and let them talk while she looked over the five or six notes she had taken through character introduction. There was still plenty to do for character creation but they had the easy stuff out of the way. It had the benefit of being the kind of things which let her know where she needed to start altering her plans to tailor them to the characters before her. The punk was, if she admitted to herself, impressed that she was not anxious about the game or distracted by thoughts of other issues. Instead, Chloe thought, she had crossed the line from being ready to being eager for the night to progress.