"I'll wait, I'll wait
For you, it's never too late
Skies shelter your face
Then crown you the moon"
—"Forever" from You Will Never Know Why by Sweet Trip
The trowel cut neatly through the soil, taking less effort than Max expected. The ease made her wonder if the gloves were even necessary, but they probably had a part in making it feel so easy. They were closer to mitts than gloves, but she didn't need the extra dexterity of her nubbins to dig out two sweet potatoes and a parsnip. Gloves almost felt more like a relic from her old life the rest of the world forgot to phase out.
"Chu," Max grunted, yanking out the second sweet potato. Her ears flicked and fell at the slip. Even after almost a week since she left the hospital, the tics had barely abated. She only got better at noticing them, which only added to the stress of it. There was a treatment option, at least, though she wasn't a fan.
Pushing the soil back into the hole, she looked around the garden to see if anyone else was around. Her awareness would make it a lot easier if it wasn't also a contributing factor to the root problem. Unfortunately, she didn't see anyone in range. Not after the first search, nor the second, all the way to fifth, meaning she had no good excuse not to.
"Great," she grumbled. "God-" She shook her head. Getting frustrated wouldn't help. "Pi, bi, vi, mi," she whispered as quietly as possible. "Ka, ga, ng-gn-gn—nnnna." Speech therapy felt more embarrassing than just slipping into feral. She only did it in the hopes that it would help her slip less.
So far, it hadn't. "Chu, shu, sshhhjjj." Her cheeks started spewing sparks, so she slammed her mouth shut before she lit the crops. Already, she could feel her heart in her chest.
Her ribs had healed to the point her heart couldn't hurt them, but it still worried her. At least she could take deep breaths without those Godforsaken bandages on anymore. She chuckled at that, remembering the passionate debate between Mandy and Neb over that. Where Mandy learned better than Neb and hospital staff, Max would never know. She was just glad that Mandy had.
"All… right," Max whispered, taking a silent breath of relief. No slips this time. "Two more to go… right?" It never hurt to check, so she tugged the list half-way out of her glove. Another sweet potato, a parsnip, and… oh, that was it. Pretty light workload. She shrugged and got back to work. She was still in recovery, after all.
As she sunk the trowel into the soil again, she started to feel the fur on the back of her neck raise. Already a chilly day, a shiver wouldn't be anything out of the ordinary if not for the slimy texture of it. The air itself felt ghastly—her heart started to rebel against her chest again. She recognized this uneasy chill and started to smile. Could it really be—but it had to be.
She jerked up to her hindpaws to look in every direction. "Eleos?!" she asked the empty air. Well, the air wasn't exactly empty. When a familiar shade of purple started to precipitate out of it, though, she wished it had been. Her smile twisted into a snarl when Jake materialized on the opposite side of the fence.
"H-hey, Max," Jake said. The sheer terror in his awkward smile was honestly a very welcome change. Max narrowed her eyes and turned back to the sweet potato. Whatever reason Jake had for being there, she didn't care. "So, how've you, uh…." Jake awkwardly glanced her way, eyes contorting in surprise as he scanned her over, particularly her ear and her tail. "What happened to you?"
"I got hungry," Max said, dumping dirt to the side with the trowel. "What do you want?"
"What? Dude," Jake mumbled before shaking his head. Max half-glared up at 'dude', but decided it wasn't worth it. The glare was enough for Jake to clock that she was not interested in small talk. Her visible frustration also seemed to make him look around in terror with greater and greater frequency. "Nothing much, it's just. Stuff." He managed to look at her for precisely one second before looking around again.
"Hey, uh, so," Jake stuttered out. Max wanted to relish in his terror, but unfortunately, it only increased the amount of time she was forced to spend with the fucker. She had a sneaking suspicion why he was so nervous. "W-where's Eleos?"
"None of your FUCKING business, that's where!" Max screamed, hopping up from the ground only to crumple down to her knees. Yelling still hurt. A lot. One forepaw dropped to hold her up while the other went to hold her ribs in place, vision a mess of stars. She struggled to let herself breathe in even though she knew it wouldn't hurt.
"Whoah, man, what's wrong?" Jake asked. He'd phased through the fence to put his dirty mitts on her (out of concern, but still).
"Nothing," Max said, swatting Jake's hands away. The slip made her want to swat herself a bit. Despite her fear, she forced herself to take one full breath. Maybe she could try a deep one later. "Look, just tell my why the hell you're here."
Jake took a few steps back with both hands up in surrender. "Look, man, I'm not-" he stopped talking when Max stared daggers at him. "What?" If she didn't have gardening mitts on, she would've rubbed her eyes. She had to settle for pulling her tail forward and aggressively pointing at its new shape. Jake stared at it with increasing confusion. "What?"
"Kachu chukapi," Max swore. She crumpled back in a half-slouch. "Just stop calling me a man, all right?"
"Oh," Jake said, though his confusion hardly lessened. With the sheer terror behind it, though, it almost seemed like he was only going along for fear of getting petrified again. "All right, sorry." With another uneasy glance to her ear and tail, he shook his head. "Anyway, where've you been?"
Max stared blankly at him again. Were the bandages on her tail not enough? Maybe she should've kept them on her ribs despite the (what was it Mandy said? Right) increased risk of pneumonia. As cathartic as it'd be to insult his question, though, it probably wouldn't get rid of him as fast as being straightforward. Reluctantly, she chose peace. "Healing," she said. "Why?"
"You got discharged like a week ago," Jake countered. With a quick glance around, he seemed to get a bit bolder. Was he still looking for Eleos? "Look, you've been putting off the new assignment for a while. If you don't get there soon, someone else'll get the position."
"'Putting it off?'" Max growled. "I just collapsed from yelling at your dumb-ass." It took a lot of effort to keep from slipping, and she really didn't feel like it was worth it.
"Hey, I know that," Jake said, putting his hands up in surrender again. "Look, I'm just the messenger, all right? From the Rescue Society's perspective, a discharge from the hospital is a clean bill of health. You don't need to take on missions or anything. They just want you to-"
"I left too early!" Max barked back, much to the chagrin of her ribs. She grimaced, her paw floating up to her ribs again, while a new constellation of stars joined her light-headedness.
"Hey, purple fuck!" someone shouted from behind Max. Jake turned and immediately cowered in terror.
"Sorry! Sorry! Please, please don't!" Jake blubbered while hastily retreating. He curled into a ball with a far off stare and wide eyes, rocking slightly. "It's not me, it's not me! I'm just—it's just what they wanted me to tell him!"
Max whimpered, indignation cracking into humiliation and hurt. Mandy came up from behind to rest a paw on her shoulder, flashing a smile her way before nodding to Jake. "This bitch giving you trouble?" she asked.
"A bit," Max said, then whimpered. First, the misgendering, now this. As much fun as it was watching Jake piss his pants (figuratively (for now)), it wasn't exactly productive. "Jake," she mumbled. At least she could crawl back out of pika-speak. "Jake. This isn't Eleos." Jake stopped his rocking, peeking an eye their way. "Her name is Mandy."
"Oh," Jake said. He floated back up to a neutral position with his expression a mix of humiliation and relief. "Hello. I'm Jake."
"So I've heard," Mandy hummed. She lifted the paw comforting Max up and pulled a file out her purse with her other paw. She looked right into Jake's eyes as she started sharpening every single claw, one by one. "Now, why are you here? Maybe you don't know, but this garden has a pretty strict rule against harassment."
"Harassment?" Jake scoffed. He crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. "Look, I'm just here to tell him-" Mandy snapped her fingers and a tornado of fire swirled up and around Jake. Jake screamed in surprise and phased into the ground to dodge it. It fizzled out in a few seconds, and he reemerged from below. "What the hell was-"
"Her," Mandy said. "Ever seen a girl pikachu's tail before?" Jake's eyes flicked to her tail again, finally flashing with recognition. "Figure it out?" Max squirmed a bit at the reexamination, but Mandy was doing quite a lot for her self-confidence.
"Fine," Jake grumbled. "Sorry. There. I just came to tell her that the Rescue Society wants hi-" Another snap ignited a blast of fire in Jake's open mouth. Probably safer for the crops than fire spin, and it had the added bonus of making Jake scream in agony. "FUCK!" He coughed up smoke like he'd just swallowed a pack of lit cigarettes. "Calm the fuck down, asshole!"
Jake dug an oran and a rawst out of his bag, grumbling, "Habits are hard to break."
"Fingers aren't," Mandy wistfully mused, file scraping over her ever-sharper claws. Jake blinked, eyes twisting into shocked bafflement. He looked to Max for some kind of backup, but she was too busy wondering if gengar even had fingers to break in the first place. They were ghosts, but Jake's reaction suggested it wasn't an empty threat.
Jake finished chewing the berries and swallowed them with a grunt. They both had to go down the freshly inflamed mouth, after all. He straightened up, readjusting his bag while violently glaring at Mandy. The entertaining sight of seeing Mandy take him to task made it quite a lot easier for Max to manage her way through the lingering ache from screaming.
"Max," Jake said, not taking his eyes off Mandy. "They just want you to move already. You've had plenty of time to heal."
"Can you use your eyes really quick for me?" Mandy asked. She gestured to Max with her paw of freshly sharpened claws. "You may notice that she's still sitting, despite the both of us standing." Max managed half a chuckle before wincing in pain. "See?" At least her suffering proved a point.
Mandy swapped the file to her other paw and started sharpening the claws on her left as she went on. "Now, I am sure that you wouldn't want her moving with a bunch of fractured ribs, would you?"
"Look, it's not about what I want," Jake said. "I don't care if she waits another year, but the Rescue Society does."
"Then tell them she's still recovering," Mandy said, not taking her eyes off her filing work. "Or do they need to be reminded that you made her fear for her life?"
Jake's eyes flashed in panic for a second before he glared simmering rage at Max. "Really, Max?" He threw a hand up. "How many people are you going around telling that to?" Max started to glance away in embarrassment.
"She didn't exactly volunteer the information," Mandy said. "But she's not been able to sleep alone since she arrived here. It came up that she kept having nightmares that a jackass scared her nearly to death." Max looked further away, but not quite for embarrassment anymore. About half of what Mandy said was true, and she didn't want to give away the parts that weren't.
Jake glanced at her again, this time with significantly more guilt (though heavily tempered by his blinding rage at Mandy). "What, you planning on snitching to them?" he asked, crossing his arms to glare at Mandy. "You really think they're gonna care."
"I don't know if they would," Mandy hummed. She halted the file exactly where it was to stare dispassionately up to meet Jake's gaze. Without the slightest wrinkle of malice, she matched his intensity. "But I do." It was a challenge, silently waiting for Jake to accept. Max couldn't feel any of the intensity where she sat, but she saw its effects when Jake suddenly faltered. "Do you?"
Jake opened his mouth for another objection, but it didn't come. He looked away to run the options in his head, mouth twisting deeper and deeper into a frown until eventually grumbling, "Fine." He rolled his eyes with a shake of his head. "I'll tell them that—," Mandy prepared a paw to snap, "she's still in recovery." Even though he got it right, Max shrank in on herself a little. Was it that hard?
"Good, now scram," Mandy said. Her left paw grabbed the file to put it back in her purse while her right rested on Max's shoulder. Jake lingered for a moment, teeth grit in anger until Mandy flashed one last glare that made him flinch and flee.
"Thanks," Max sighed. She tugged her gloves off to hold her face in her paws. Mandy rubbed her shoulder a bit, then let the same paw wander around behind until it had wrapped around her from behind, then sat down next to her. It was her signature, and the familiar motion gave Max a bit of much needed comfort.
Still, it didn't mend the wound completely. She pulled her head up and brought her tail up front to hold. She'd assumed it would be obvious for anyone to tell. Neb, Mandy, Shan, and even Sam got it without hesitation. Her eyes traced the jagged outline under her bandages. She honestly liked the look of it, as grizzly as that sounded, but she was starting to worry it wouldn't work unless it was a pristine heart shape.
"Hey," Mandy said, shaking her ever so lightly. "First bit of advice about being a girl?" She smiled, lightly tapping Max on the back. "Never care about what a guy thinks of your looks." She chuckled a bit, and Max tried to follow her example.
"Thanks," Max mumbled. "I mean, I definitely don't care about his opinion." The mere thought of him made her want to hit her chest until she fell unconscious. It was a good thing Mandy had come when she did. Jake was the most exhausting person she'd ever talked to, yet Mandy played him like a fiddle. "It's lucky that you came when you did. I was about to lose it."
"Not exactly luck," Mandy said. "Don't take this the wrong way, but," she grinned a bit, "your screams carry." That connected a lot of dots. "I mean, how do you think I knew you needed help with Eleos?" That dot, Max didn't want to think about. As long as she just let it go by, she could avoid thinking about it. "How're you doing with that, by the way?"
"Chuuu," Max groaned. She slipped, too. Just her luck. That didn't pull more than an exasperated sigh out of her, though. It wasn't so bad around Mandy. "I'm…," the ongoing slip surprised her a little bit, "trying." She twisted her mouth in frustration.
"Was that, did you say 'working'?" Mandy asked. Her basic understanding had actually improved over the past week. It was far, far from perfect, but it was enough to keep Max from feeling completely alone when she slipped. At least Mandy could sort of understand, but it felt like settling. Eleos didn't 'kinda' understand—it just understood.
Max crumpled in on herself more with a whimper, and Mandy brought her other paw in to hold her up. "Whoah, all right, it's all right," Mandy said. Max pulled her tail in to hug it on impulse… and it didn't hurt. Feeling her arm in the new missing chunk was a bit strange, though.
"These things are never easy, y'know?" Mandy said. Max tried not to growl while she nodded. Somehow, the attempts at comfort always had her turning prickly. She wanted to be fine, or at least pretend that she was, but she couldn't when the mere mention of Eleos made her slip. Mandy definitely knew better, too, already aware of the real reason Max had been having so much trouble sleeping lately.
Max hugged her tail tighter and winced at its newly found limit. Behind the torn skin, there were a bunch of stress fractures from the incident, and some of them hadn't quite healed. She didn't immediately let go at the pain, though. It was a good way to feel its shape without looking.
"Mmm. Mandy?" she asked with some effort. Her tail had never been the right shape; was this just another wrong one?
"What's up, girl?" Mandy asked. She lightly pat Max on the back to help her get it out.
"Is my tail good enough?" Max asked. She wanted to squeeze it tighter despite the pain. Maybe because of it. Mandy pat her on the back a bit more, apparently needing to draw more out of her. Max had really hoped she wouldn't need to say more. "Is it really gonna stop anyone from seeing me as just a guy?"
"What do you think of it?" Mandy asked. Max side eyed her in frustration. Talking took too much effort for her to run a gambit of retaliatory questions. "Well, you used to hate it, right?" Mandy didn't wait for a nod before chuckling. "I can't imagine you doing that if you liked its shape, anyway." She reached to pull it out, but stopped when Max tightened her grip. "How do you feel looking at it now?"
"Chuuu," Max grumbled, not really having an answer. None of this was even close to what she'd asked, either.
"I don't really have other pikachu to compare to, to be honest," Mandy said. She tugged Max in for another squeeze, then let go. "It's definitely not a guy's, though." Max cautiously looked at her, trying not to whine from the broken embrace. "Would you be happier with a clean heart at the end of it?"
"Well," Max mumbled, glancing down, but not pulling it out to see. She'd already looked at it plenty. It bothered her less, but was that the same as liking it? "More people would probably think I was a girl if I did."
"Maybe," Mandy said, a mischievous smirk pulling at her lips. "But that's not what I asked." Max half-opened her mouth with an objection before settling for a quirked brow. "I asked what would make you happier. Not what would make more people think you were a girl."
"More people thinking I'm a girl would make me happier," Max said. "That's the whole point of this."
"Yeah?" Mandy mused, her smirk not faltering in the slightest. It was starting to get on Max's nerves, like she was answering a broad essay question with the wrong, specific answer a teacher wanted. "You could always wear a tail-sleeve, right? Most people would think you were a girl if you did." She kept watching Max, waiting for a realization that Max was too angry to come to.
"I did," Max growled. Maybe the slip would help Mandy get the hint. "Ka… Ih… It. It didn't work."
"Would you have been content if it did?" Mandy asked. She started tugging Max's tail again, and Max found herself resisting less. Mandy acquiesced nonetheless and let it be. "If you could've been exactly the same, but suddenly everyone treated you like a girl, would you be happy?"
"Fuck no," Max said with a grimace. She was already stuck looking like that for too long—her eyes flashed open, and Mandy got the realization she'd been watching for this whole time. It was obvious enough that Max almost managed to forgive the smug grin. Almost. "All right," she reluctantly grumbled. "Yeah, fine. I don't just want people to think I'm a girl. I want to be…," even now, saying that she could be a girl felt like a wishful fantasy, "more like a girl."
"More like a girl?" Mandy asked. Max stiffened a bit, not quite ready to tackle that insecurity. "Or more like yourself?"
Max paused. It was semantics, splitting hairs over wording, but she couldn't say it lacked a purpose. Her arm pressed lightly into the new, jagged edge of the broadside of her tail. Without Mandy's prompting, she pulled it away on her own to look at.
It didn't look natural. Anyone could see it as the shoddy job it was, and that was being generous. People would probably just assume it was an accident. That's probably what Jake thought. It didn't look like a neat heart. It resembled a girl's tail, but the jagged edge gave it an unmistakable character. Yet, looking at it, she smiled without even noticing until Mandy's paw returned to hug her.
"Yeah, thought so," Mandy said, squishing the sides of their faces together enough that her right eye had to close. "Knew you'd figure it out."
"Yeah, all right," Max said. She wanted to be snarky, to laugh away the moment somehow, but the retort didn't come. She didn't even feel ready to move on. The little moment was so minuscule, yet felt some kind of monumental, too. For as simple and soft as it was, she felt her heart beating in her throat and suddenly noticed tears in her eyes.
"K-ka?" she balked. Usually, that would be enough surprise to snap her out of it, but the tears didn't stop. If anything, more sobs came, and Mandy started holding her tighter. She wasn't even sad, though, was she? No, she definitely felt happy. And she was crying. She was happy and she was crying.
Without a conscious thought, she felt a familiar reflex reining herself in. Deep breath, clenched teeth, look up and dab the tears. The overwhelming emotion settled in the back of her throat, but she had it under control again. "Piika," she sighed. Mandy had a light, firm grip around her that almost made her tears return from how sweet it was. "What the hell?"
"Get used to it," Mandy said, patting her back with a smirk. Max tilted her head to side-eye her, which gave Mandy a chuckle. "Hormones." She shook her head, waiting for Max's realization, but it of course didn't come in time. "You fluffers get all moody when you start them."
"W-we do?" Max asked. Her bafflement remained, but not at the information itself anymore. She'd definitely 'read' (skimmed) something about emotions before informing her consent. It slipped her mind, but she had no idea how Mandy was so familiar with it. Mandy hadn't hesitated in the slightest. "Right, yeah." Max shook her head, trying to move past it. "I guess I'm just surprised how quick it's happening."
On she moved to a much more unpleasant thought. "Everything else is taking forever," she grumbled. She would've looked down at herself for emphasis if it didn't require looking at herself.
"It hasn't been that long," Mandy said with enough care that it still managed to feel empathetic. "On the bright side, losing all that weight in the hospital's got you in a pretty good position to speed things up."
Max flinched and stared at her in fresh bafflement. "That, what?" she asked. That didn't sound remotely like what she'd expect to hear from Mandy. Yet, Mandy wasn't backing down at all with that same soft smile. "What, are girls supposed to be skinny?"
Mandy shook her head with a roll of her eyes, mumbling, "Max, Max, Max Max Max." She tapped her paw on Max's back a few times and looked over with a smirk. "You need to have more faith in me." Max didn't back down, though, staying strong with little more than a raise of her brow. "Weight cycling."
"What?" Max asked. Every new sentence from this charmander brought her into a deeper layer of confusion.
"Losing weight to gain it back," Mandy explained. "Since hormones tell your body where to store fat, it's a good way to jump start-"
"Okay, what the fuck," Max said, pulling away while shaking her head in disbelief. It was way too much at this point—how could Mandy possibly know this much? "Where the hell—how do you know all this shit?" Max almost felt envy. She hadn't even known transition existed before a week ago, and here Mandy was like some Estrogencyclopedia.
"Oh, no reason," Mandy said with a shrug. She used her newly liberated arm to lean back and stare off into the distance. "I just had a really big crush on the girl who helped me design my glassblowing rig." For a moment, Max was baffled to learn about yet another trans person this one week.
Another realization quickly took over as she watched Mandy look sheepishly away. Maybe the crush wasn't quite over yet, which meant two things. Not only did Mandy like girls, but she also liked a trans girl at some point. It was almost perfect. That meant that she could… maybe—Max's cheeks spewed out a storm of sparks when she realized Mandy had stopped looking away and turned back to face her.
"Whoah, girl," Mandy chuckled. She tried to hold back her laughter while Max threw her paws over her cheeks and looked away. It was a valiant effort, at least. "You good?"
"Mmmhm," Max hummed. She was fine. She just wouldn't think about her feelings about a potential chance. She was still… kind of in a relationship, after all.
Mandy stopped trying to hold back her laughter, shaking her head from side to side. "Yeah," she said. "You'll get along great with Jan."
"Fool me, fool me
You're cold and severe as the rain
My eyes are forever doomed
To cry over you
You're forever cruel"
"Go fish," Neb said.
"What suit's your favorite flavor?" Mandy asked with a wry grin. Neb tried giving her a side eye, but Mandy didn't see it at all.
"I'm gonna take a bite out of you if you keep on with this," Max said, dispassionately looking over her hand. Not abysmal, and maybe even pretty good.
"Mandy, go fish," Neb said. Knowing both of them better than they knew each other, she'd been forcibly shoved into the role of keeping the peace. If she ever wanted kids in the first place, this week would be incredible deterrent.
"Please," Mandy said, keeping her grin. Despite Neb's request, she didn't move her paw for the deck. "I could swallow you whole."
"Mandy, g-"
"Hot," Max said.
"-o fi—Max, what?" Neb balked before falling to laughter with Mandy. Max leaned back against the wall, chest puffed up in pride. Mandy was, apparently, unmatched in wits among Neb's friends. After some adjustment, though, Max managed to start biting back (so long as the discussions were meaningless).
"Entei, Max," Mandy cackled—that was a first. Max hadn't gotten her to slip before. Mandy recovered with significantly less effort, though. "You spent too much time in Dungeons. Your head's fucked permanently, sorry."
"Yeah," Max said, flicking her tail a little. "So I've heard." She hadn't worked through that part of it all yet. The reminder still kinda stung, but the fact Mandy had just slipped herself softened the blow a bit. Maybe if Mandy could so flippantly mention their permanent impairment between laughs, it wasn't a big deal.
"Oh, right," Mandy said, stemming the tide of her laughter. "Forgot that was news to you, sorry."
"It's fine," Max said, scratching the back of her head. She'd tried to hide her discomfort, but Mandy had a sharp eye for it. Hers was probably even sharper than Neb's. It probably helped her to know exactly where the lines were so she could dance along them.
"I'm surprised you two haven't killed each other yet," Neb mused. Since Mandy was being so uncooperative, Neb floated the card over herself.
"Planning on it," Mandy mused, taking the card from the air. Having apparently been on her belly for long enough, she grabbed a cushion to roll her back onto and held the cards upside down so she could keep an eye on them and her opponents at the same time. "Not until she's healed, though. I mean, look at her." She flicked a deignful paw Max's way. "It wouldn't even be fun."
"Please, you think I can't fight like this?" Max chuckled. Both Neb and Mandy looked her way with a quick, shared glance that Max reveled in. "I spent most of my time saving the world at least this injured." She scanned her hand during the dubious brag, struggling to really care about it.
"Hey," Mandy sang. "Look who's memory's coming back!" Neb tried to signal silence, but it didn't get through. Just like that, the flow corked itself. "What?" Mandy asked, seeing the tail end of Neb's signals.
"It's all right," Max said with a shrug. She wasn't very invested in recovering her memories for the moment, but the shrug still felt a bit forced. Frustration she didn't expect to have clawed into her chest and froze on impact. A sudden chill brought her paw to her scarf as she curled against the wall behind her. Even as they shivered, she could feel stone creeping over her paws.
"Max!" Mandy hissed, grabbing her shoulders to deliver a sharp shake. Feeling returned to her hindpaws while Mandy waved a paw in her face. "You're here, c'mon." Once Max started following the movements of her paw, Mandy pulled her in for a hug. "You're all right."
Max suddenly remembered she could breathe. She wrapped her own paws around Mandy and collapsed in her hold. Her cards lay strewn behind, so she must've dropped them.
"Chu," Max sighed. The slip was inevitable after these attacks. She barely even noticed them anymore. Still, Mandy gave her a firm squeeze after just in case. The gesture made it a little bit easier to risk breathing. She leaned into Mandy more, shaking her head in frustration. "I thought these would've stopped by now." Mandy gave her another squeeze.
"This has been bothering you since we first met," Neb said. She'd watched from afar to keep Max from feeling crowded when she started to come to. "Reliving it must've been awful." The few cards face up flipped over while Neb kept her eyes firmly on Max's.
"I guess," Max mumbled. Staying strong in the moment only seemed to make its impact worse. She just wanted to move on. Unfortunately, that meant ending the hug with Mandy. She steeled herself and pat Mandy's back with one final squeeze, getting the same in return, and they released in unison. "Thank you."
"No problem," Mandy said, reaching out to ruffle her headfur. Maybe she should start styling it again. Mandy dropped a paw to her shoulder and bent down to meet Max's eyes. "You sure you're all right?"
Max immediately averted her gaze and said, "Yeah." Mandy's grip tightened, and she raised a brow. Max took a quick, deep breath in, then let a long one out. After repeating the procedure a few times, that lingering tightness in her chest started to fade. Once it was almost gone, she tried again. "Yeah," she mumbled. Annoying as it was, Mandy was right to make her take a second. "Thank you."
Mandy clapped the same shoulder she'd held with a nod, then stood up and took a few steps to flop down onto the cushion she'd rested her back on again with surprising force. Max was almost certain she'd heard a crack, but hoped it was just a popped joint. Sharing a glance with Neb suggested she was used to this.
After their glance, the lingering worry in Neb's expression faded. "Well, it's still your turn, girl," she said, nestling back into her spot. Max smiled, picking her cards up again. Even though she felt least deserving of the moniker, Neb only ever addressed Max with it. Mandy sometimes did, too, but usually just to make her squirm.
It was nice. Almost nice enough to let Max ignore the real reason they were playing this in the first place. She was a bit past playing Memory at this point, so Go-Fish was the next best thing.
Aside from her hand, she wasn't doing very well. Scanning over her cards, she knew she'd asked for some of them already, but not who she'd asked for which one. It felt a bit unfair considering she'd just spent a minute or two in a hell dimension of her own making, but she bit her tongue about it. "Uh, Mandy?" she mumbled. "Got any Jacks?" She only needed one more.
"Still no," Mandy said flippantly, but with an apologetic smile. "Go fish."
"Still?" Max mumbled, ears falling. The trophy for her failure floated its way over. A nine of hearts—oh, she already had a… six, never mind. Her tail joined her ears in their descent.
The knob of the stove clicked on, and a kettle clanked on the front, right burner. Max's ear perked up on impulse, and her other did the same when she realized what that meant. Glancing at the window to her left confirmed the day was winding to an end, which meant they were about to have supper, which meant they were about to head to bed, and her new favorite part of every day came right before bed.
"Still that excited, huh?" Neb chuckled. Max jerked out of her own thoughts. Before she could wonder how Neb could tell, she felt her tail brush against the wall behind her as it wagged in excitement.
"Chu!" Max gasped, hopping away. Luckily, it didn't seem to aggravate her stitches.
"Let her have her fun," Mandy admonished with a chuckle of her own. Both had seen her getting excited over this enough the past week to know exactly what had run through Max's head. "She'll probably settle down once she gets used to the new endocrine system."
Surprisingly, none of this left Max flustered. Even being caught wagging her tail wasn't odd in a world where so much of the population had them. She was just excited. Behind their chuckles, she knew Mandy and Neb were excited for her, too. She felt at home. Coming to Neb so soon might've been a mistake, but it turned out she needed this. If only she didn't have to go get her stitches out tomorrow.
Max was starting to find she could feel at home in more than just her body.
"This is so eternal
I've become nocturnal
Sleeping my days away
Oh, this is so eternal"
The worst part of this was Max didn't have a good reason to dispute it. Unfortunately, the sake of her health edged out the sake of her pride in importance. "What if they don't get here in time and I'm late?" she asked, glaring at Neb like a kid in time out.
"What if you get hurt so far away from civilization that no one can hear you scream?" Neb countered. It was a compelling case for sure, and she accented this fact by glancing at the emptied bowl in front of Max. "I'm sure he'll be here soon. If you'd like the time to go by faster, though, maybe you could clean up after yourself for a change."
"C'mon," Max whimpered. "I always do." She looked away when Neb glanced at her. "Usually." Not enough of a compromise to stop Neb's stare. "When I remember to." Even still, Neb did not withdraw her glare.
"Neb, please," Max whimpered. With just that look, she felt an abyss between them. "Can't we end off on a…." Suddenly, Neb wasn't looking at her at all. "Please." She was walking out of the door while Max lay down, unable to get up—to move. "Please don't go." Too afraid to move, the chill overtook her flesh. It was too late for her paw to hold her scarf.
A force tugged her into a familiar, warm bunch of fur. The fall pulled her body out of its self-imposed stiffness, the warmth greeting her with the assurance that she could still feel. "Hey, it's all right," Neb whispered. Max grabbed the paw that had tugged her back. "You're okay. You're still here."
An involuntary shiver worked its way up Max's spine. The reflex should have assured her she could still move. Instead, she felt her body grind against itself like stone shattering under its own weight.
"Max?" Neb said, giving her a harsher shake. With the impossible motion, Max waited for her body to crumble to pieces. "Listen to me. Pay attention to my voice." Yet, she stayed in one piece. "You're here. You're safe." The meaning of Neb's words started to break through. "Can you feel me?" Neb brushed her tail along Max's back, wrapping around to tickle her hindpaws, forcing them to squirm.
"Breathe," Neb continued. Her forepaw went to feel the rise and fall of Max's chest. "There, see?" The world started to come back to Max. Even bundled up with her, she still panicked a little when she didn't see Neb standing in front of her. The world lost some focus until she registered the fur entwined with hers.
Max grabbed Neb's paw with her own. She could move. She was alive. Her flesh was flesh, and her blood was warm. She was glad to have Neb behind her so she collapsed into fur instead of the hard floor.
"Piii chuuu," she whimpered. She was too exhausted to flinch at the slip, but it helped her realize the world around her had lost its focus. That meant—no, she couldn't let herself focus on that right now. She pressed her back into Neb, bringing her tail around to hug against her chest. A sudden jolt of pain let her know the world wasn't so distant anymore when she tried to squeeze it just slightly too tightly.
"Chu," she grunted in pain.
"You back?" Neb asked. Max turned to see her craning her neck to get a good look at her eyes. "Good." Even with the affirmation, she feared what Neb saw. When Max winced, though, Neb came to the rescue. "Hey, you held on. That's really good. That's not easy." Her words rang hollow.
"When I woke up, though, I didn't have to hold on," Max said. "Yeah, I couldn't talk, but I was always there."
"It's a defense mechanism," Neb said. "Mandy went through the same thing. When you first get out, you've forgotten the trauma that drove you there in the first place." She curled up further to nuzzle into Max's cheek, and Max leaned into the touch. "When the memories start coming back, your body wants to repress it on reflex." She pulled away to look Max in the eyes. "It's all part of the process."
Some of the explanation felt comforting, but it didn't change how Max felt. It didn't change what she had to do. Worst of all, she started to feel a shard of guilt digging into the pit of her stomach. Knowing didn't undo the damage she'd done to her own progress.
"Stop that," Neb said, bapping Max on the nose. Max jumped back, covering her snout with her paws with a panicked, accusatory squeak. "I know that look, little mouse." Neb shook her head with little tuts of admonishment. "Mistakes happen. Recovery is never a straight line." Max looked away, rubbing the nonexistent soreness out of her nose.
Neb rested a paw on her shoulder and said, "Recovery's never clean."
Max shook her head, and her mouth twisted down. "I know," she said. She looked up to blink a few times, then closed her eyes as she shook the frustration out of her head. The impulse didn't make much sense until Neb's tail came to dab a tear out of her eye.
"Oh, God dammit," Max grumbled. After she brought a paw up to feel the tear for herself, though, she felt a chuckle. "I swear, this didn't used to happen so much." Even as she laughed, though, she had to wonder if it was genuine, or just another way to stem the tide. The emotion didn't feel fabricated, but she couldn't make sense of it, either.
"You did read the information on hormone replacement, right?" Neb said with a playful chuckle. Max rolled her eyes and caught a flash of realization on Neb's face in her peripheral vision. Neb started to speak, but her mouth shut before Max could look over.
"What?" Max asked, tilting her head with one ear raised.
"Oh, well," Neb said, suddenly looking away. Max could practically see her trying to calculate the odds of her lie. In the end, though, Neb sighed and looked over with an apologetic smile. "Just a thought." Max nodded with an expectant stare; Neb let out a trepidatious sigh. "Didn't, well, it's possible you're getting used to not having your emotions siphoned again."
"Fuck," Max spat, flicking her head back to slouch against Neb. The train was coming, so she waited for it to hit her. "I should've let you brush it off." Any second, she'd feel Eleos's absence hit her again.
"I'm sorry," Neb cooed. She brushed the back of Max's head with a paw. "Never supposed to remind a girl of her ex." Surely that would trigger the pain.
"We didn't break up," Max said. Strangely, all she felt was a little bit more irritable than usual. "We're still basically together." She pulled herself back up to cross her arms and turn a bit away from Neb to hide her eyes wandering for a retort. "Just, y'know, a little break." Even Sam could've identified denial this obvious.
Luckily, Neb let her have the delusion. "All right," she said, petting Max's back. Something rapped against the door and made Max jump. "Oh, that must be him."
"Him?" Max squeaked. To answer, Neb nudged her up and towards the door, forcing her to stumble towards it or fall. Max managed to steady and turned back to glare at Neb. It didn't last when she saw the bowl that started this whole debacle floating itself to the sink. She ducked her head down in compliance and mumbled, "I-I'll get it." She scampered over and opened the door. "Hey, I'm-"
"Max?" Goon asked. "You put out—you could've just asked, y'know." Max stared up in open-mouth disbelief, and Goon's eyes flashed with understanding. Confounded understanding, but understanding. "Someone put the ad out for you?" Max was too taken aback to respond, but Goon had recovered enough to chuckle. "They specified Team Plasma."
Max already had a pretty good idea who did this. To erase all doubt, Neb called from behind, "Oh? Do you two know each other?"
"Only forever will tell"