Work Text:
Kate used to light fireworks with her father, when she was young.
She was enamored with them. There wasn’t much to do in their small town and Christmas as beautiful and wonderful and full of sparkling lights that glowed and shone and carols that always warmed her chest, and she’s always known it was a little sacrilegious and all, but...New Year’s was her favorite.
Her father would wake her and Lynn up from groggy sleep with a wide, impish smile, and drag all of them out in their pajamas to the back field to pull out this rusty old box from his truck. The hinges used to pop like the creak of their floorboards and the anticipation always used to clog her chest like how her dog’s rear used to get stuck in the doggy door, sometimes, until he became a little too round to fit through it at all.
Whenever the box opened, the gifts that greeted them were always the same: fireworks. Long, small, sizzling, exploding, rough fireworks.
Their mother didn’t approve (she never approves) and she never knew. Well, not for a while, anyways. It was their secret. Their father would grab a lighter like a magician (her mother hated those, too, which was always kind of lame) and they discovered what it was like to spark life in a dark forest at the start of a year. Her and her sister would laugh and giggle as sparks flew and color flooded the sky. Until red and blue and green would light their smiling faces, their father’s hands lovingly squeezing their shoulders like he was proud. Like creating this explosive, spontaneous life was beautiful, not terrifying. Not chaotic.
That God, sometimes, has a voice that booms of thunder and a spark that lights the sky. That god can burn slowly and spark loudly and irrevocably change the world around them. That God was good and fireworks were awesome and Kate…
Kate hates that when she was fifteen, her mother found her father’s trunk and fearfully banished it from the house with a yelling voice and a frowning face, both Kate and Lynn shuffling with grumbles to their room (obedient but not, like, happy about it).
Kate never understood why her mother was so scared of fireworks until she was older.
Now that she’s stood on the edge of roofs and felt rain stain her eyelashes like ash falling from the sky, she understands. Fireworks used to remind her mother, she thinks, of Solomon. Of fire reigning from the heavens.
Fireworks reminded Kate of Abraham seeing God.
Roman Candle.
They’re unassuming little fireworks, small pencil-sticks full of life and fire and sizzling sparks of light. When you light a roman candle, it’s a slow burn. It burns and burns up the wick until something catches. Something irrevocably changes. One second you’re staring at a stick and the next there’s a bombastic spit-fire of crackling life crackling from the edge. Sparks erupt from the top like a fountain of flame you can’t put out, explosive and unending in its passion, spilling onto everything it touches. Burning it. Changing it. Lighting it in singed edges until the world around it is a roman candle, too.
It’s the simplest kind of thing, she knows.
People say she’s naive--Kate hears them, she hears all of them--but she’s not. Not really. (She’s worn and tired and sometimes her shoulders feel heavy, no matter how hard she tries to lift them, but she’s not naive). And she’s not naive about Max.
She knows God has a plan for her, and Max is her angel. It’s this slow-burning knowledge that settles in her chest like a series of sparks from the end of a roman candle.
Max isn’t always interested in the books Kate lends her, but she tries to read them, and Kate notices. She catches it out of the corner of her eye in the library, sometimes. Instead of tucking herself away in the dark room like Kate expects, sometimes Max will sneak off into the corner of a sea of books to read the one that her friend gave her. She never sees Max do her actual homework (unless it’s a photo project) and anytime hazel eyes catch blue, the brunette stumbles like someone caught in the act. She’ll shove Kate’s books underneath her messenger bag like it’s a shameful thing, that she hasn’t fully read it, yet, when really Kate’s glad that Max’s started reading them, at all.
Anytime Kate ever asks about the books, there’s a hint of a blush on red cheeks and Max is always honest--always apologizes and brushes at a right cheek--and shrugs a jacket-clad shoulder with a small smile. Max never finishes the books she borrows from Kate but she cares enough to try reading them over doing her homework (over taking photos or editing or watching french films) and Kate notices.
So sometimes Kate sneaks off to the library when she knows Max is there, to help her with her homework, anyways.
Max’s hair falls in front of her eyes, all raggedy strands of smooth brunette, and Kate isn’t sure if she wants to paint tangled strands like the flowing lines of a river on a canvas page, or if she wants to help her friend tuck it up in a bun on the top of her head--because it has to be hard to take pictures without being to see, right? But there’s a third thought Kate thinks about, sometimes. Sometimes, she wants to run her fingers through it to see what art feels like underneath her skin. Sometimes she wonders if Max’s hair feels like smudging colored pencil, smooth underneath nails, but...instead of finding out, Kate winds up with a sketchbook of Max, instead.
It’s not like it’s meant to be hidden for so long. It’s just...special.
Kate shows Max the happy pictures of them together, sure. She shows her friend the childhood stories of them laughing in fields of color, the pictures she wants to paint of the world so that other people can see them--so that they can see what the world can be, full of life and light--so that the next generation of children that felt like her, when she was younger, can understand their lives can be like, someday. But...she doesn’t show Max the other pictures.
The children’s book pictures are important, too, but...the other pictures feel less important to Blackwell, and more important to Kate. More personal. She knows she should share her message with the world (should help as many people as close to the edge as she was that she can, even if she’s not as fearless as Max) but this...this isn’t her message.
This is Max.
Blank pages filled with stolen moments and pencil curves, all of her friend who spends all of her time watching the world, not realizing that Kate is watching her, back. Maybe it’s a little...weird. Or odd. Or different. But Kate sketches her, anyways. She sketches Max in class as she fiddles with her camera or zones out, watching rain patter against the window, the light barely skimming along her cheeks. She sketches the way Max’s hair falls in front of her eyes as her chin dips (maybe Kate loves the way Max’s hair falls and she never knows why, and she never does the Third Option thing). She sketches the way Max smiles at her friend Chloe across the courtyard, familiar and quiet, leaning into a twining ink of a tattoo as she laughs. She sketches Max playing her guitar in her dorm room, once, right before she sketches the way Max gets a little too into an old french films, leaning forward on the edge of her seat as fingers curl together.
She sketches her like how Max hides books underneath her messenger bag. Like it’s shameful to ever have something so precious about another person, at all, and it’s silly. She knows it’s silly.
Kate eventually memorizes the curves of Max’s shoulders in lead and graphite like she memorizes script verses and it slowly changes from a sketchbook to a portfolio that will never be seen--Moments of Max (she thinks it has a nice ring to it)--and she has no intention of the world seeing it until one day, of course, Max bumps into her and it goes flying on the floor of the thankfully empty girl’s bathroom and suddenly pages of stolen sketches are everywhere.
The last time she felt this mortified was before a Youtube video was posted, Max swooping down to gather together sketches and it takes a few seconds for her friend to notice, Kate just frozen above her.
But the teasing doesn’t come--Max is too nice, too kind and sweet and sort of like her guardian angel--and it’s only a second of time stretching between them that Kate remembers it never will. Because Max isn’t the rest of Blackwell. Max isn’t the rest of the world. Max is...Max, this fearless warrior of shy smiles and totally awesome pictures. Max is a series of caring sentences that compose the crescendo cota of an impressionalist piece, always there and caring and strong, and Kate immediately (quietly) berates herself for thinking any different.
Sometimes, maybe, the whole...Blackwell thing eats at her skin, too. No matter how hard she tries not to let it.
Kate gingerly tucks the pictures in her binder like the precious snapshots they are, and...maybe Max knows a bit about that. Stolen snapshots. Kate never really thought about the connection, before--pictures and drawings--but it makes sense. Neither one of them just works on children books, after all, and the brunette doesn’t look phased, just...surprised, when she figures out who the subject is.
“Are those...me?” Yep, she definitely sounds surprised. A little in awe, fingers wrapped around one picture in particular and Kate recognizes it immediately. It was one she’d taken in her dorm after a long night of helping Max with homework neither one of them truly understood all that much. The sunlight had danced along soft features when Max had dozed off, one day, shoulder half-slumped against the edge of Kate’s dormitory wall, lips barely parted, and the picture Kate drew shows it. Shows Max the way Kate sees her. Shows the softness of fluttering eyelashes and the hint of moisture on a lip. Shows the way Max’s arm had protectively wrapped around a pillow and brought it close to her chest like she was used to wanting to bring things with her, wherever she went, even in sleep (like maybe she’s scared to be alone, and Kate understands that, too). Shows the way Max’s hair messily falls in front of eyes, sometimes, beautiful and framed and natural...like how it kind of falls in front of bright eyes right now.
“I--I look--”
Pretty. Kate thinks, smile soft and eyes crinkling at the edges, head ducking to hide a hint of her blush but leaning over to squeeze Max’s shoulder, regardless, because otherwise she might run her fingers through her hair.
Help her, God, this is getting kind of...ridiculous. And silly. And ridiculous.
“Wonderful.” She supplies and blue eyes are deep and surprised and Kate can’t help but smile at the sight of her friend’s blush, then, soft and caring. It’s hard not to notice that Max leans into her hand like a friendly bump of a shoulder. “I hope you don’t mind, I know it’s a little weird to--”
“No, no way.” Max, without a single word, because they’re both at this school for a reason--God brought Max to this school for a reason--hands her the last remaining sketch from the floor. “These are great, Kate. Really. You should--I’d love to see your other ones, sometime. If you want.” Page-free hands now reach up to finally tuck dark hair behind an ear.
Kate can see her eyes fully, now, and her smile spreads, left hand raising to grasp a cross swaying about her neck.
It hits her fully, then. This surprising feeling spreading warmth up her chest before it settles down in her stomach. Max Caulfield lights the darkness of a forest with a roman candle, burning consistently and brightly, fire-sparks singing grass in its beauty, and Kate...
Is this what this feels like?
“Definitely.”
The simplest fuses, Kate learns, are the flaming start of the most dangerous ones, a slow burn leading to a never-ending flame in her chest.
--
Firecracker.
These aren’t light-shows. These aren’t sparkling lights or sizzling fires, these are loud, interrupting, harsh calls of reality. Unlike the roman candle that sizzles with life, Firecrackers are sudden bursts of noise. They’re rattling explosions that quiver up a spine and chatter teeth. They’re what steal breath and stop hearts like a gunshot piercing through the middle of the night. You light the fuse and there’s a hiss of life, fire burning up a wick, and then this deafening moment of silence before they explode once. And then again and again and again until you’re unsure whether there was ever a time when your heart was filled with silence instead of the overwhelming roar in your chest.
It’s a fire that’s a slow burn for a long time but, no, Kate is still never naive about Max; though she...doesn’t really understand what fire means until it burns the edges of her fingers.
They don’t spend every waking moment together, but they do spend more and more time, thoughtlessly (or maybe thoughtfully) in each other’s company. They have tea dates and study dates and Kate doesn’t hide her sketchbook from Max, eventually, anymore. She lets her go through it (sketches a picture of her doing just that, once, and maybe giggles at Max’s Inception joke, once she sees it) and, somewhere on her wall, is a picture Max’s taken of Kate drawing a picture of Max taking a picture of her.
She wants it framed.
Max wants to take a picture of it and get it framed twice.
Max borrows books and Kate borrows CDs and their afternoons are spent laughing and doing nothing and, occasionally, Kate has the rare pleasure of getting to know Max’s childhood best friend Chloe.
(Chloe, who, Kate notices, nudges Max’s side and gestures towards her when she doesn’t think Kate is looking, but the out-spoken ‘pirate’--as Max so affectionately calls her--isn’t exactly subtle. Like...at all.)
And both wonderfully and sadly the majority of the year passes pretty gosh darn fast. And painless, which is an added bonus. Max gives Kate this radical photo mural for her birthday and they spend months helping each other put together their portfolios and nervously pick and choose colleges. On the opposite side of the States. And somehow both manage to get through their finals intact with no drama and, according to Max, the minimal amount of ‘freaking’ necessary. It’s the most beautiful kind of writing, on God’s part, because it’s the best and worst year of her life, but it’s mostly the best, and before she knows it, they’re a week away from graduating when it hits her.
God sent Max to her for a reason, and Kate….
She’s watching Max, whose knees are so comfortably tucked up to her chest, shoes kicked off by a mussed bed, reading a book she probably won’t finish as hair falls in front of knees and...and it’s that firecracker. That loud, booming noise in the back of her ear that rumbles and rattles and changes the pace of her breath and before Kate knows what she’s doing she shifts across the bed, hand pushing the hair behind a warm ear. Kate finally touches her hair, and she doesn’t even feel ridiculous.
Max looks up, a little startled, dropping the book she was reading inbetween folded legs on the bed, blue widening like paint that’s been tinted white.
Kate smiles.
“I love you, you know.” It’s a simple, true statement, and Max seems frozen in time, for a moment. It’s the oddest kind of love in her chest and she thinks it’s the closest to what she likes to imagine God is. It’s like she hears his roaring voice in the pounding in her ears but this quiet peace in her fluttering stomach. It’s like finally--finally--she understands. And she’s nervous. She’s anxious. But she doesn’t expect to hear it back. She doesn’t expect anything and it’s dizzying. It wets her tongue and curls her fingers and the hair is soft underneath her fingers before a hand drops. “You don’t have to say anything, Max, I just wanted you to know I--”
“I--I just didn’t--” Max stumbles a little and Kate’s still smiling. She has no idea why she’s smiling.
Or why Max blinks at her and looks down to a right hand (no longer holding a book) like it might do something, before looking back up, again. Still stunned.
“Max,” Kate laughs a little and shakes her head, “It’s okay.” She promises. “We’re just…” Okay, so maybe it’s not nearly as fearless as Max is, because she’s totally nervous, still, but she just wants her to know. She thinks if you love someone, they should know, because she knows what it’s like to feel unloved. Not until Max reminded her otherwise. “We’re not going to see each other for a while, soon. And I just--I just wanted you to know I--”
Kate blinks because something feels different. Just a little different. The air feels like it changes and when she blinks, she’s not sure why Max is holding up her hand or why her mouth feels warm and why she swears Max is just a little closer and she never even saw her move.
Before she can say anything else, Max is suddenly holding her so tightly against her chest that Kate forgets what it’s like to not be held, at all, arms wrapped around her.
“I love you, too.”
This is it. This is the boom. This whisper of Max’s voice in her ear is the loud noise in her chest that hammers so hard against her heart that it physically hurts, Max’s fingers curling into her shoulder and Kate’s sad smile turning into her neck. Because she’ll miss her.
God brought Max into her life for a reason, and she refuses to believe he’ll take her out of it. Not if they stay in touch.
They will stay in touch, won’t they?. They have to.
They must.
Kate learns that the moment she lights a firework, it will be heard. Maybe not immediately, but eventually, and when it’s heard, ears ringing and heart pounding and fingers clenching in reflex, she can’t unhear it. She can’t go back to silence.
And she doesn’t want to.
--
Bottle Rocket.
Lighting a bottle rocket is an immediate result--something that was in your fingers is suddenly gone, a whistle of life hurtling through the sky until it’s gone above you. Until this beautiful little lit thing pierces the heavens and, in a rumble of life and exuberance, it explodes. It changes the sky in light like a star turning into a supernova--like a paint brush flicking colors of paint against a blank black canvas of God’s stars--and it’s fleeting. You can still feel it in your fingers even after it’s gone. You can still see it in the sky, burned into your retinas, as ash and color and light trickle down to the ground in a waterfall of heavens. You can still can still smell the burnt singes of string in the air and taste sulfur in the air on your tongue and you understand that it was an immediate explosion--that it was an un-endingly beautiful moment of spontaneous life--but it’s changed the sky and you forever, even in this moment, because you’ll never forget it.
It’s quieter, now that she isn’t in Blackwell.
College is...good. Open. Kate actually makes friends, here, with people who smile and laugh and take her to coffee and music festivals and book clubs. It’s not tea or a Portland she never saw or Max (or Stella or Alyssa or Warren) but Facebook makes it a little easier to stay in touch and, thankfully, they actually do. They all drift apart, a little, but her and Max still talk in pings of electronic emails and texts and pictures and Kate’s sketchbook shifts to the world around her, now, but every once in a while she’ll catch her pencil curving familiar shoulders.
Painting charcoal gray waterfalls of hair falling in front of ocean eyes.
A sigh.
Sometimes, she goes back to her apartment complex and up to a roof, feeling wind rustle through her hair, unpinning strands as she looks out over the small town her college is in. It’s a little odd, really, or maybe just graceful that God’s turned it into a place of peace for her. Something simple and quiet, because instead of being sad looking down at a town, she’ll set her phone next to her and remind herself that someone loves her out there, somewhere--that many people love her--and that her life’s never been as bad as it was, before. She’ll write on the roof, sometimes. She’ll write until she can’t write, anymore, and she’ll draw until her knuckles ache and she can barely see the page below her.
New Year’s she visits her father and his empty box and Max texts her pictures of the fireworks she knows she loves until Kate smiles through the whole night, staring up at a black, starry sky with no explosions or sparkling lights, and holds up her phone against it like a painting in a gallery, pretending the pictures light the night sky.
It’s not the same--it’s never the same--but...it’s better than pretending there were never any fireworks, at all, like her sister does.
It’s months later that she’s sitting on the edge of the roof, legs hanging from the edge in a way her mother might reasonably hate, ankles tucked, as she stares down at her phone, ignoring the texts there selfishly, for a little while. For a little bit. She has a case that will at least protect her from the rain. She knows she’ll see messages there from her mother--from her friends at school and Max, probably (maybe even Chloe, who will occasionally text her, from time to time, no matter if it’s been a year since Kate’s seen her, the girl must hold onto people tightly in a way Kate can appreciate)--because her birthday’s tomorrow, spring break is the day after that, and she feels like she’s lit the long fuse of a firework that will never ignite.
But fireworks can’t ignite in the rain and maybe she should stop thinking about it so much. Maybe she’s a little crazy, thinking about it, or being too much of a drama queen. Maybe she should be over it all, by now, but it’s not that simple. Not to her.
Because ever since New Year’s--ever since six months before that--she can’t stop thinking about what it was like to hold her phone up against a black sky, and it wasn’t the lack of fireworks. It was the lack of--
She barely hears the heavy storm door open and close, a confused voice meeting her ears that makes her still.
“...Kate?”
Kate’s standing immediately, whipping around to face hair plastered by rain to a familiar forehead, blocking blue, caring eyes, and the world is silent, for a moment. She grew it out, a little. It suits her. Breath catches in cold lungs and the rain doesn’t even phase her ears as she takes in a divine sight.
Max.
Max, who’s soaking wet and holding up a familiar jacket like a makeshift umbrella. Max, whose eyes are a little wide and obscured by shadows of dark sky with barely parted lips and Kate wonders why it’s always raining when Max appears to her like an angel.
Or...like she’s coming up on the roof to find her.
“Max?” She asks back, surprised and quiet and suddenly smiling with something so breathless and wide that she forgot what it was like, for fire to combust from air, and Max is suddenly rushing towards her, holding out a familiar hand and Kate is grabbing it, stumbling a little down into her from the rain, but this time she doesn’t fall to her knees. She tugs her stunned friend into her arms in such a tight hug that both of them will probably have bruised lungs.
But that feels okay.
Because, God, she’s missed her. God, she’s missed her.
“Are you okay? I thought--I didn’t think you’d--” And Max is stumbling a little over her words, realization slow as to what it looks like and Kate swallows down a hint of shame.
“I was just here to think.” It’s a promise, pulling back to brush the dark hair from familiar eyes, finally seeing the relief in them. “What are you--”
“Are you sure you’re--”
“Max, I’m fine. And so totally glad to see you.” Kate’s beaming and that seems to do enough to unravel whatever tight string up Max’s spine, not noticing the jacket she’d dropped in order to pull Kate close.
“I, um...I knew it was your birthday tomorrow, and I--” And just like that, the angel is visibly sheepish. Maybe nervous. And it selfishly makes Kate feel much better, watching Max scuff the foot of her converse against the edge of wet concrete. And then the sentiment settles in and Kate swallows down something rough and dry and beautiful.
“You came all this way for my birthday?” She doesn’t even bother trying to hide the fact that she’s touched from her voice. “Oh, Max.”
“We never went to Portland.” Max says like that explains everything, holding her closer, one hand raising to gently curl in the wet fabric by Kate’s shoulder, gently tugging her back until they’re under the small awning of the building’s roof, rain pounding all around them. But Kate wouldn’t be able to hear the rain if she wanted, Max talks so fast. “I, um...okay, I know it sounds kind of stupid. Totally stupid. I feel really, really, stupid, now, but I was talking with Chloe about it being your birthday and how we never got to go to Portland and how we were on other ends of the country--well, not really, but you know what I mean--and I missed you, and I’m sure you’ve got other plans, but I thought...we never really went to Portland.”
There’s a beat of silence.
“You...came here to take me to Portland?” Her bun’s lost its height, hair falling down by her ears and even in the dark, Kate can see Max’s blush.
“Did you miss the part where I said I felt kind of stupid?”
“Why would you--”
“Because I was binge-watching 90’s romcoms and totally thought this was a good idea?” Max quietly grumbles, this time barely more than a groan to herself, and Kate blinks, gently tucking up a wet chin.
“You came here to take me to Portland.” She repeats.
“I...definitely came here to take you to Portland. For...tea.” There’s another long pause and Kate searches her eyes.
“Is that really why you came all the way here, Max?” Kate presses, because she’s not naive. Not when it comes to Max. Not when she hasn’t seen her for nearly a year but she still knows the way her jaw nervously clenches. Not when she hasn’t talked to her all day, but she understands that muted hint in her eyes. Not when Kate told her, once, that she loved her, and Max told her she loved her, too.
“No.” Max quietly admits. “I--”
“I missed you, too.” Kate tries, not trying to be rude and step on her feet, or anything, but she thought Max could use some help, for once. And from the look on her friend’s face, it was the right thing to say. The rain is still falling down around them and the hesitant way Max’s hand raises to trace a bead of moisture down Kate’s cheek is so quiet and soft that a chill chases up her spine. She can feel it. That flame burning higher and higher up a fuse.
It’s wonderful. Cheeks blush in a way that she knows Max can feel with the trace of her fingers and Kate’s eyes closed.
“I missed you so much.” She whispers, barely a murmur.
“I so shouldn’t have rewound.” Max murmurs and Kate has no idea what she means--no idea at all--and all she can feel is warm breath against her lips before, suddenly, she understands what fireworks really means. Because Max is kissing her. Max’s fingers curl a little in the fabric of her shoulder and her arm winds around her waist and all Kate can register is that Max is kissing her before she kisses back.
The last time she did this it felt like stones rested on her shoulders. It felt like she’d been turned to salt and the world was heavy. It felt like her mind was faint and that God was far and that everything was wrong. This?
This feels like fireworks.
It feels like a bottle rocket that’s finally pierced the sky to explode into a cascading series of colors, twirling and mixing and painting God’s sky like watercolors. It feels like that slow burn in her chest is a fire and like that loud bang is the pound of her heart in her ears as Kate thoughtlessly, gently, tugs Max closer. It feels like a sensation that she’s only read about in books (that Max probably never finished) and it’s a little wet from rain but warm and when they pull away, both of their lips are a little swollen.
“Oh.” Kate breathes and they both share a spreading, brilliant smile, “You definitely should’ve done that sooner.” She agrees and when Max laughs Kate just brings her closer.
“I…” Max tries to clear her throat, but she’s still smiling, and Kate raises her fingers up to brush that same strand of hair back behind her ear, again, fingers experimentally skimming along her jaw, trailing ripples along wet skin. Max’s eyelashes flutter.
“What?” It’s a gentle question and Max catches her hand with her right, looking at both of them like there’s something there. Something Kate doesn’t quite understand.
“I know this might not make sense, or anything.” Max visibly swallows, “But I...I’m kind of getting used to making big decisions, again. And I...I wanted this to be the first one I made. That I wouldn’t want to change.”
Max is right, it doesn’t make sense, but Kate--taking a page out of Max’s book--leans up to brush lips over the corner of her mouth until familiar shoulders ease.
“I’m glad you did.” A faint giggle, rain still pounding around them, both of them soaking wet but Kate feels...warm. Good. She knew He’d bring them back here. She had faith, anyways. “Want to start with tea downstairs?”
“Definitely.” Their fingers twine and Kate tugs Max back down from the attic towards her small apartment with a wide smile.
Kate learns that lighting the most dangerous firework has the most explosive result, beautiful and high in the heavens, fleeting through her fingers but burned into her eyes.
Like Max.
And Kate understands in this moment: To her mother, God was fear. God was Solomon and fire of death and fear.
To Kate, God is love. God is a series of fireworks lighting up a dark sky reigning fire of life from the heavens, and Max is an angel sent to light matches in the rain.