Chapter Text
“Move it, dork,” groused Victoria, pushing Max to the other side of the couch as she sat down. Pushing was a strong verb though, taking into account the fact that her hand hadn’t left Max’s shoulder after the fact, fingers lingering against the soft skin, the exact same way they had been for a while. A while, of course, being since their little photography session earlier that December.
The brunette remembered clearly that after she had finally been able to take a couple of shots of Victoria, she had been unceremoniously pushed in front of the camera, softly handled into a pose that the more technical photographer desired in a way that Max could only internally call affectionately overwhelming, and then photographed for a good solid hour or so. It had been embarrassing but also so awfully sweet, the other girl never raising her voice beyond the usually snappiness, and guiding the whole event until their stomachs had gotten in the way of art.
Memories of that moment in the woods would have certainly been on replay in Max’s head for weeks were it not for the fact that stuff like that had been happening so often these days she couldn’t really overthink one singular instance of it. It was driving her mildly insane, the constant touches, the kinder looks that Victoria would send her way when Max felt nervous or unhappy, the texts she’d get asking her to swing by, watch a movie or something.
Every single one of those instances made the fluttering in her gut grow ever more vibrant, her body temperature rising by noticeable degrees whenever she was near Victoria at all, and how much her ridiculous stutter would creep up on her if she wasn’t ready.
“S-shut it, Chase,” Max protested lamely, poking her knee (as if that would do much). What was wrong with her?
The blonde scoffed, and looked back at the television idly playing a movie, trying to hide a smile that Max now found as familiar as her own. It was a small thing, like a slip on a mask that couldn’t quite be contained, and so was instead restrained to the bear minimum. It happened more and more often these days, though Max could never be sure if it was just her imagination sometimes.
“Maxine, tell me to shut it again, and I am shoving your camera down a very unfortunate, freckled place.” The retort was simple, yet as graphic as it needed to be.
And that was another problem. Victoria was still a snappy, bitchy girl that could barely stand being around people she thought of as idiots without looking like she wanted to murder everyone in the room. Barking out orders still came naturally to her, and to this day, ‘Lamefield’ was the only thing even remotely close to Max’s surname she would ever utter with any degree of sincerity. Max’s outfits were still torn verbally to shreds every few days, and if the brunette had to hear another comment about her needing a hair cut, she swore to Dog Victoria would find herself missing her front teeth.
But, well… She didn’t actually insult her friends all that much anymore, only when they pushed past an invisible barrier that Max was starting to figure out. The orders didn’t entirely seem to come from haughtiness and a superiority complex (which were both still present), but from a genuine attempt to guide people to do the most optimal thing. Lamefield was always said with such utter fondness behind all the bite that Max had caught herself stupidly doodling it on the margins of her science notebook before she erased and vowed to never do it again.
And the outfits, wowsers, that was a surprise when it first came about. Three days after their outing at dawn, Victoria had snagged Max after classes, driven to town, and bought her ‘proper clothes for modeling, Maxine, I will not have my portfolio infected with your hipster nonsense’. Proper clothes for modeling included at least 7 full new outfits, and those never got any critiques from Victoria.
Point was, Max was very aware of all the details of her friend, and it was driving her (gay) little heart a little crazy, because it seemed only she got to see the depth of it. Well, Kate also apparently did, but the girl had elected to go home for the winter holidays, and so Max was now stuck in Blackwell with all these feelings and thoughts and no one to properly share them with.
“…ground control to Major Lamefield, do you copy, or do I need to call a nurse?” Asked someone, barely disguised amusement coloring her voice. Max looked to the side, and Victoria had an eyebrow raised, lips pulled into a mocking little smile.
“Got distracted,” Max mumbled, trying to hide her blush.
“By?”
“Thinking of how nice you’ve gotten,” was out of her mouth before she could tell it to shut it.
As it was so habitual between them now, silence fell, broke only by the hitch in Max’s breath, and the faint sounds of holiday explosions coming from the TV, that frankly, neither of them heard over the sound of the tension that settled over the room. Victoria’s fingers, still touching the smaller girl’s shoulder, stiffened, but didn’t let go at all. They stayed there, warm reminders of how close they were. And wowsers, they were really close at this point, weren’t they?
Legs touching, hips almost glued together, and the hand lingering softly on her exposed skin. It felt electric, and tortuous too, as the silence stretched on. The room was abuzz with faint fairy lights looming above them that Max had insisted on bringing over to Victoria’s earlier that day, which only added to the feeling of closeness, the dim lights making each shadow darker, and their features softer, warmth leaking into every corner. The smell of apples now mixed with something Max couldn’t identify, especially on the little blanket that sat on their laps, patterned like an avant-garde painting, which was so pretentiously Victoria that it wasn’t even funny. They had spent so long inside the blonde’s room nowadays, together, just like this, and Max had to go and open her big mouth.
Max could only imagine that Victoria was thinking of ways to get out of this, or how to best word ‘fuck off, Maxine’ while keeping to the holiday spirit. ‘Merry go fuck yourself’, maybe? That would fit, and honestly, it would be merciful.
Worse yet, was the possibility that Victoria wouldn’t tell her to buzz off, but-
“Nicer?” she asked, something akin to caution in her tone.
Fuck.
“Y-yeah. Nicer,” Max repeated with what she hoped was confidence. “You’ve been, uhm, you know, nicer. In general.”
Victoria squeezed her shoulder softly, and turned to face Max, expression utterly unreadable. Her lips were pursed though, into a thin line that promised she was wording whatever came next in her head. “You… You’ve been more yourself.”
That was absolutely not what Max expected to hear, and the shock on her face didn’t hide that fact at all.
“Which is good.” Victoria hastily added. “I enjoy it a lot more than when you acted like a wallflower, Maxine.”
“I did not!” Pushing down the warmth creeping up her throat, and the giddiness spreading through her chest, Max shook her head, bangs swaying. “I, I was just new to here!”
“Please, Lamefield, you were so afraid of people you looked like a fawn, trembling, half the time I saw you.” Victoria’s eyebrow assumed its familiar position of ‘mocking Max Caulfield’, and a sly smile stretched across her face.
“Absolutely not-”
“It was adorable.”
The cough that followed, along with the utter shade of red that Max assumed were the result of that particular interjection. She sputtered, and tried really hard to tell her brain to respond, somehow, but all she got back was a very flustered ‘bwuh?’ and very little else.
The worst part of it all is she was currently gormlessly staring at Victoria Chase’s bright green eyes like the aforementioned fawn, and growing redder by the second, with no hope of escape aside from spontaneous combustion.
“W-where did that come from?” she managed to choke out, her voice rising to a register that Mickey heckin’ Mouse would be proud of.
Victoria leaned slightly closer to her. It wasn’t anything scandalous, no lips hovering over the other, no ‘eyefucking’ (as Chloe would have put it, she missed Chloe so much, she wanted to tell her of this, fuck-), and certainly no wandering hands. No, she leaned closer to Max, so that they shoulders would touch, with a small, but utterly confident smile gracing her features, and answered, “My lips, Lamefield. That’s where words come from.”
Well that utterly destroyed any hope Max had of being anything close to fully coherent for the next few seconds. In fact, it might have destroyed any lingering doubts about her sexuality that might have remained, somehow, through all that had happened to her.
“Now,” Victoria started, either unaware, or uncaring, about Max’s inner freak out, “you were calling me nicer. Want to elaborate?”
Yeah, Max knew that Victoria was teasing her. The tone said it all, the way her voice had dropped just slightly lower, fingers caressing her soft arms, or even just the way that Max could absolutely feel the temperature rise between them. But, Max, wallflower extraordinaire, and time-detective, had honed in some skills over the years, and caught the cautious curiosity under it all. So, she took a deep breath, calming her shuddering little heart as much as she could afford, and nodded.
“I, I actually do. Wanna elaborate, I mean.” At the expectant little eyebrow raise, Max continued, “Ever since the.. the shooting, you’ve been trying really hard to be nicer. To care for those around you, in your own Victoria Chase way.”
Said girl scoffed, but Max could tell it was not derisive like usual. Disbelief, maybe, or even embarrassment colored her features in a way that was decidedly past the usual mask and faux nonchalance.
“Really.” Max continued softly, trying not to lose momentum. “You’ve been helping people with photography for example-”
“Because they are pathetic at it and I would rather bleach my eyes than let them go on fumbling over the simple matter of light and negative shapes,” came the quick correction.
“But you still do it. And it’s not just that, Victoria,” the smaller girl pushed against her, and tried to meet her eyes (she’d been told so many times you should when having important conversations by her parents and the school counselor), “it’s all the little things.”
“You’re a little thing.”
That was followed by a yelp as Max pinched Victoria’s side, glaring at her.
“You are so gentle with Kate now.” Victoria didn’t move when Max spoke, going as still as ice, but her eyes betrayed the utter guilt still lurking behind there. They’d had a small attempt at that conversation before, and Max remembered getting swiftly dressed down with more spite than she’d seen in the girl for a while. “You are. She speaks highly of you now, did you know?”
“She fucking shouldn’t, Maxine.” Victoria spat out, no fire in her voice. For the first time since she’d sat down, the blonde moved away, and the loss of contact hurt, just a little bit.
“She should.” She insisted. Max wanted to scoot closer, to get back that warmth and comfort, but maybe it was time for that conversation they hadn’t gotten to back when dawn littered the frost with beauty. “Because you deserve it.”
Silence. A breath. And the sound of nails, scraping against fabric.
“I don’t.”
Victoria fully pulled away now, sitting on the other side of the ample couch, arms crossed over her chest, her face locking into the familiar disdain and anger, perfect features warped into something uncannily practiced. The sweater that had looked so cozy for a movie night now looked designer, and the comfy little blanket slid off her map, pooling by her feet, discarded. She looked like herself, from back in October, before the bathroom, before Max had broken, before Chloe was shut in a box and that box shoved under the earth. She looked like the girl that had hurt Kate, looked like the girl that had made Max cry into her phone after the first week of classes, asking her mom for advice. Victoria Chase looked like the picture of how people saw her, a bitch with a cold heart and more money than she could spend.
Max had never seen someone look so fake, and so clearly full of self-loathing in her life.
(That wasn’t true either. Max saw someone exactly like that every time she had glimpsed herself in the mirror those first two months, saw it even nowadays, when there was too much blue in the sky, or the sound of train tracks echoed in her ears, or when the first snowfall danced across Arcadia Bay.)
“You do,” Max said softly.
“Maxine, I do not need your pity.”
“Good. Because I wasn’t offering you any, Victoria.” This time her voice came out resolute, confident almost. “I’ve never offered you any pity, and I’d hella appreciate it if you stopped accusing me of it.”
“Oh please, I know it’s all-”
“Finish that f-fucking sentence, Chase, and I am leaving.”
Victoria’s mouth audibly clicked shut, and her eyes snapped to Max’s. She couldn’t quite tell what swam behind them, and honestly? It didn’t really matter right now. It could be anger, or betrayal, or sadness, screw it, it could even be some weird lust brought on by a secret kink of being told to shut it. But right now, it didn’t matter.
“I don’t pity you. You were an asshole, and I really didn’t like you when we met, and honestly, neither did most people. You, you were mean and a bully.” Max didn’t hold back, she wouldn’t. “And even if I did pity you, I’m not nearly self destructive enough to hang out with a bitchy bully just because I feel bad for her, especially when that pity would come from her losing her, her, her fucking best friend who killed the first girl I ever loved.”
The flinch was visible even in the dim light. It was as clear as anything with Victoria could be, which meant it was guarded, stiff and a clear unexpected emotional display that the blonde would otherwise never allow to slip.
“I hang out with you because you changed,” She continued, mentally trying to calm herself down. This was going to be a lot, but it was necessary. “I spend more time with you than perhaps with anyone else, bar Kate, because I wanna. Because I feel happy and, honestly, Tori, because being around you makes me feel like myself.”
Max’s small hands curled into fists on her lap, gripping the blanket for support.
“And I’ve been trying to think of, of ways to bring this up since we talked on the roof, of how to bring up that I know you feel guilty and shitty, and you refuse to talk about it, and it’s so frustrating, because I wanna help.”
“Maxine, I know you do, but-” Victoria muttered, worry clear in her voice before Max spoke over her.
“I don’t care! I wanna help, and you need to talk. I need to talk!” She was nearly pleading, literal months of bottled emotions seeping into her thoughts, into her voice. Her hand twitched nervously, to rewind this away, but she ignored it. “So, you’re going to scoot closer, and, and we’re going to talk, because I can’t take losing another friend without talking to her about the important things.”
Her body convulsed, a sob that she didn’t know was there pushing past her lips. Oh Dog, she refused to cry. She had already cried her tears dry a long time ago, and she didn’t want to repeat October again, didn’t want to be back in that stupid bathroom, and she could feel her head swimming, and her hand raising, and fuck, Super Max, you’re okay, just calm down, and-
A hand tenderly found its way back onto her arm, though this time, it wasn’t in a casual way. It was purposeful, fingers splayed out to feel the warmth, a thumb gently going in patterns.
Max forced her eyes to focus in the dim light, and found Victoria’s, glistening green and orange, staring at her with worried brows, and far closer than she had been before.
“Hey,” she spoke softly, reassuringly. “Let’s talk then, Max.”
Said Max nodded dumbly, and swallowed down the setting panic for long enough to get her bearings. She still felt it, clearly there, but it would be enough for now.
“Yeah. Talk.” She thought of words to say, and blurted them out without much further thought than that. “Why are you so mean to yourself?”
“..Not the first question I was expecting,” Victoria freely admitted, a confused smile on her face, followed closely by a tired sigh, “but knowing you, I should’ve.” A moment passed, the blonde never moving away, her expression unchanging. “I don’t think I am. Mean to myself, that is. I think I’m fair.”
“You aren’t though!”
“Max, please let me finish.” Victoria asked politely. After receiving a begrudging nod that was far too stiff to be content, she continued, “I’m fair to myself. I fucked up a lot, you know? Kate, she, well, Kate told me some stuff after. And I think driving a nice girl like her to suicidal ideation warrants a tiny bit self reflection and appropriate punishment.”
This time, it was Max that scooted closer, a fact that was impressive considering that at this point the both of them were nearly on top of each other’s laps. But she still did it, ignoring the buzzing in her gut. “I know, but it’s been months, and she has forgiven you.”
“She’s Kate Marsh. She’d forgive Lucifer if he asked for it.”
Max snorted quietly, before schooling her features. Her hand settled against Victoria’s leg, right above the knee, and she squeezed. “That’s a fair point, but she forgave you still. I did too, a while ago. You didn’t know, and… well, I know for a fact someone scrubbed the internet of the video as much as she could.”
“It was the bare minimum I could do, and how do you know that, Max?” It might be a trick of the low light, but Max would swear she saw a faint blush against the pale skin.
“I didn’t,” Max blatantly lied, “but you just confirmed it for me.”
Victoria Chase then did something Max never thought she was capable of. She stared at the brunette, for a long uncomfortable time, let out a frustrated little huff (that was almost cute, even though Max would never admit to it) and let her head flop down to Max’s shoulders, completely ungracefully. “Bitch.”
Frozen in place, Max let out a mix between a laugh and a squeak.
“But,” Victoria carried on, not even giving Max the decency of time to react to the sudden contact, “that doesn’t erase the literal years I’ve spent doing shit like that. What if there were other Kate’s before and I just never noticed?” She worriedly asked.
“What, what if there were other Max’s too?” was the soft mumble that came after. It was so low Max was pretty certain it wasn’t meant to be heard, but months of being around Warren and Alyssa had trained her ears really well.
“You are right that it doesn’t erase it,” Max agreed, trying to mentally stomp down her blush, even as the hand that had been resting on Victoria’s leg valiantly defied her owner’s wishes and found itself cupping the back of the blonde’s head. “But I never said it did. I said you changed, not that you were perfect.”
It wasn’t that Max didn’t notice the way Victoria’s breath getting faster, or the way her body shook. It was simply that she knew her well enough by now (in such a short time, wowsers, what knowing someone could do to time…) to know that bringing attention to it was a bad call. So, she simply let the girl feel, no words, no judgement.
“I think people have told you before you must be perfect, right?” Max asked softly. When the girl resting against her hummed in the affirmative, she continued. “Well, that’s, uhm, bullshit. Yeah, that’s the right word. And, I just, all I ask of you is that you are kinder to my friend, the same way she is to me already.”
They stayed like that, with the words hanging between them, for a while. Moments stretched into a minute, stretched to two, and the only thing that could be heard was the long forgotten TV, the buzz of electricity, their breathing, and the gentle ruffling of blonde hair under small fingers. It was comforting, in a way Max found inherently odd the longer she thought about it. She could feel Victoria against her, the weight feeling just right, like it was meant to be there. The smell of apples was strong now, and the rise and fall of her chest had a calming effect that was as unfamiliar to Max as it was exhilarating. The time-traveler could feel the silky hair under her touch, and it dispelled any want to rewind for a long time, because removing her hand seemed nonsensical.
In short, as the quiet stretched comfortably, Max found herself being lulled into a sense of belonging she hadn’t felt since… well, since Chloe.
“Why do you care?” Victoria mumbled heavily, not looking up from Max’s sweater.
Well that was a silly question wasn’t it?
“I, uhm, I could tell you a lot of reasons,” Max started clumsily, “some of them sounding generic even for me, but, no less true. You’re a person, and deserve care. You’re changing for the better, and, and that deserves something as well.” The next words got stuck in her throat, embarrassment and fear mingling into a powerful deterrent. But then, Victoria looked up at her, green eyes wide full of caution, and maybe a little bit of curiosity. “But if I am being fully honest, it’s because I want to be. Because you’re my friend and, uhm, someone I care a lot about, and I want to be there for you.”
That was it. Maxine ‘Max’ Caulfield, dead at 18 from a heart attack, and possibly embarrassment. Her chest constricted, her heart drummed in her ears, and if someone asked, Max was certain she could hear her blood pumping through her, which was disconcerting at the very least.
And then, once again, a hand settle against her, but this time, on her hand. Wowsers, Victoria’s hands were soft. Max knew this, of course she did, but they felt like they were barely touching her, soft as anything, and it made the vibrant blush on her face worsen by the minute.
After some hesitation, came a response, short and to the point, “Thank you, Max.”
Max simply gave her a shaky smile, genuinely elated this wasn’t turning into an argument or something. That is, until Victoria squeezed her hand, and her expression went from soft, to sharp.
“But, that was one side of the conversation.” Fuck, fuck, oh Dog- “We need to talk about you.”
“M-me? I’m doing-”
“Max.”
The freckled girl would try to hide under a blanket were it not for the unfortunate reality that she couldn’t do that without pushing Victoria off of her, and no force in this world could do that right about now. No, this was just a thing Max was going to have to brave without the help of hiding her expression, so she nodded in acknowledgment, and waited.
“We should talk about Chloe.” Victoria started, straight to the point, though Max would swear to anyone that the softness in her voice was as gentle as sunlight. “I know you haven’t talked much about her except to, uh, Joyce. And I let you have this grace period because you needed it after the roof, after everything, but, especially with,” she hesitated, looking away from Max subtly, “how things are between us, we need to have that conversation.”
“I, I know.” Wowsers, Max sounded lame even to herself. “But I don’t…” She didn’t know what came after that, didn’t know what combination of words better portrayed her feelings at this point regarding that week, regarding Chloe.
Surprisingly, Victoria did know how to continue. “You don’t know how to talk about it, and don’t want to, because it hurts to do it, and I won’t get it, correct?” There was no bitterness or judgment in the sentence, just a simple explanation.
“Uhm, I, yeah,” she responded lamely, shrinking to herself.
“That’s acceptable. I can talk, and you correct me, and when you feel like you can, you add to it, got it?” The blonde ordered, a serious expression on her face, even as her fingers carefully started caressing Max’s arms comfortingly. A small nod, and Victoria continued, “You feel guilty for not stopping Nathan. You feel bad for having abandoned Chloe, I think, though I’m not super clear on what happened there.”
“I, me and my parents moved to Seattle right after C-Chloe’s dad died in an accident. It was just poor timing, but I felt so guilty about abandoning her and, was struggling with a lot of stuff regarding adapting to such a big city and not knowing how to talk to her and, I just-” her throat felt like it was swelling uncomfortably, a numb pressure building up in the back of her eyes, and she hated it, “n-never reached out until I came back.”
Victoria mulled over her words for a second, hands still softly against Max.
“She didn’t either. I told you before, it’s a two way street, Max.” In part, the brunette wanted to brush that off, to tell her it was her fault, that Chloe hadn’t done anything wrong, that she had reached out, before the texts had turned aggressive, before their bond had snapped from the distance, but she didn’t have the time. “And even if it wasn’t, you just went off on me about how people can change shitty behaviors, and you talked to Price after, right?”
“W-we only- a week, we only got a week, because I wouldn’t reply to her texts-”
“Some people get not even that.” Victoria didn’t snap, not really. When she snapped at people, it was like a fancy alligator snapping their jaws at you, ripping out a part of you with a single, sudden clack. No, this was more akin to her chiding Max for something that wasn’t quite clear. Worse, Victoria then took a deep, meaningful breath, akin to considering what her next words would be, but Max knew her well enough that the action was taken for what it was: finding where she had been in her mental script. “Most people, Max, never get to say goodbye, or reconnect, or any of that when losing a friend, or.. or when wronging someone.”
Quiet again. The little fairy lights almost appeared to dim in response, the air grew utterly still, and Max swore to every deity she knew that she could hear what was left unsaid.
For the first time since they started speaking on this, the smaller girl squeezed Victoria’s hand, as delicately as she could, as if it dealing with a doe.
The imagery was painful to think about, but in a way, Max was glad to have thought of it. It mattered, all of this, it really did, and if they were talking about Chloe, about all that haunted Max, then she wanted to remember those odd, peaceful, horrible moments.
“Maxine, I need you to listen, and to listen well. I know you feel guilty,” Victoria started, lips thinning into a fine line, her green eyes flickering with warm light even under the tiny penumbra that had settled over the room, “and that you cannot fathom letting go. That you’ve been telling yourself you have, and that this is just pain that will fade, in time.”
“I, I have been moving on,” Max protested weakly, but even her voice disagreed with her. It broke at the end, and she could feel her throat clogging up, tightening (like tape around her wrists, or a mouthful of smoke from something shared).
“No.” Strangely, it wasn’t said to cut her off, or to deny her the right to argue. It was simply stating it, a truth that wouldn’t budge no matter what Max wanted. “You’ve been avoiding it, and mulling it over, and trying really hard to be useful and present, but I think aside from our sparse conversations about it, you haven’t been moving on simply because you don’t want to chance losing her.”
She reeled like she was slapped, and almost pulled her hand away from Victoria’s, when the slender fingers tightened, slipping between her own.
“And that’s okay,” Victoria whispered, leaning closer to the skittish doe-eyed girl, far past the distance that was normal or practical or platonic in any sense of the word. “Nobody blames you, and it’s okay if that’s what you needed. Hell, if it is what you still need, that’s alright too,” she sighed, a small tired smile flickering across her features. “But, you have to acknowledge it. You have to admit that’s what you are doing, because then we can work on this together.”
Together. Together, together, together.
Even as the word rattled in her brain, even as it kept bouncing between the edges of her skull, ringing like thunder, Max couldn’t stop her thoughts from racing. So many different ones too. She wanted to move on, she needed to, in a way, even if it terrified her, because it was the right thing, because Chloe would kick her ass thirty ways to Sunday and back if she found out she hadn’t. Because Kate deserved a friend who was there, all the way there, one she didn’t have to shoot sad looks at every time something that shade of blue passed by. Because Max wanted to live, for herself, if nothing else, and be free from this horrible grief that kept haunting her, more and more, even as she processed it, that throbbing longing that forced her to think of her best friend, her first love, whenever she let her mind wandered too long.
Max didn’t want to forget that week, didn’t want to regress to who she was before. Worse, she didn’t want to lose who she was now, after the calendar had moved forward, after the snowfall of winter, after the click of the camera, and the movie nights with her friends, grieving together with Joyce and David, after growing up past the broken parts that she had left behind in that bathroom.
Her voice failed her, because those thoughts wouldn’t come unbidden. Max was not the greatest at words at the best of times, and as her mind swam together with a million reasons to move on, and a million fears of losing all she was and is now, her throat felt like it was closed for business, gone for lunch and possibly to Guatemala without her permission.
‘Together’.
Words didn’t work, and as Victoria squeezed Max’s hand with concern at her silence, the photographer in her saw the perfect shot, and leaped before her brain could stop her to press on the shutter.
She kissed Victoria.