Chapter Text
Blue eyes lazily roamed over the police station. It was a pretty busy place; some cops filing through paperwork on their desk, some taking calls, others walking through the precinct leading criminals to cells or to friends and family who had bailed them out. It was a fairly familiar sight to the girl. She, unfortunately, spent quite some time in here, chained to some bench for some petty crime that was never quite bad enough to actually get her arrested. Today had probably been the millionth time she had heard the "once you turn eighteen you're going to be tried as an adult and we can't protect you" speech from familiar cops, whom she had gotten to know rather well over the years.
She had been sitting on the bench for quite some time. Her mother had already been called, but it was looking like Chloe would be stuck in the station until Joyce was able to get off of work and come by to pick her up and bring her home. Hopefully it wouldn't be too much longer, though. It was getting pretty boring just sitting there with no one to talk to.
Eyes followed the brunette from one end of the room to the other as she walked to the chief's office. Yes, Chloe had seen her around before, too. She was pretty well known throughout the little town as Chief Caulfield's daughter, Max. A stereotypical "do-gooder" who seemed to be mostly to herself but nonetheless went out of her way to make people smile. The blue-haired girl had heard about her from friends and acquaintances, about how she almost never seemed to speak to anyone, but somehow always said the right things when she did.
Max said something Chloe couldn't make out as she handed over the brown paper bag to the police chief, who accepted it and greeted her with a kiss to the top of her head. He pulled away slightly, his hand still resting on her shoulder as he motioned toward the desk next to Chloe. With a nod and a smile, Max turned and walked toward the desk, slumping down into the large chair.
Chloe stared down at the handcuffs that kept her confined to the bench she had donned "her bench".
"So, Pops forgot his lunch?" Chloe asked, making a pathetic attempt at conversation.
Max hummed in response, shifting to look at her better. The blue-haired girl was met with two beautifully blue eyes and a face full of freckles that she had somehow never noticed from afar. "He does that more often than you would think," the brunette admitted, kneading her hands together. Oh, Chloe knew. Though, she would never confess that. Max was in the station nearly every day that Chloe knew of. Every time the blue-haired girl got brought in, she would walk in at noon on the dot without fail, with some item on her person that she could assume the chief had forgotten at home.
Instead of telling her this, Chloe settled for a nod and averted her gaze, already out of ideas for any topics of conversation she could plausibly have with the girl.
They sat in awkward silence for a while, both sneaking glances when they thought the other wasn't looking.
"What are you in for?" Max eventually asked, curiosity getting the best of her.
Chloe leaned back on the bench, crossed her arms as well as she could manage with the handcuffs, and laughed. Well, more like she gave an amused puff of air. "Vandalism," Chloe stated giving a side-smile to the shorter girl, "I got caught tagging some of the buildings in town." She turned her head so that she was glaring elsewhere--in any direction that wasn't Max. "If you ask me, it was an improvement."
Max gave a genuine chuckle. "Graffiti is super neat. I don't know how people manage to make such cool drawings with spray paint in such a short amount of time. It really is an art form."
Chloe looked back at Max, surprised by her positive answer. After all, the blue-haired girl had her pegged as "goody two shoes" who would have been seriously offended by her answer.
"Alright, Miss Price," they eventually heard a swiftly approaching voice begin as he walked toward the blue-haired girl, effectively preventing her from . "Your mother is here and that means you're free to go." He quickly undid her handcuffs and looked at her seriously before she was able to leave. "Please don't end up in here again, Chloe," he urged in a slightly softer, more friendly tone.
"Eh, we'll see what happens," she offered with a shrug, "Catch you on the flip side, Maximus." She waved nonchalantly at Max before sauntering out with the officer, leaving the hipster to sit alone in the middle of the station.
That familiar tone that officer had spoken with had Max concerned. Sure, Max had seen that girl in the station from time to time, but she hadn't realized that it was often enough for her to begin to grow close to some of the officers. Then again, she had heard earfuls about Chloe Price from her father. The girl had lost her father, William, about five years back. This was a huge deal in a tiny town like Arcadia Bay. Naturally, word had gotten around rather quickly and many people had attended his funeral. After all, William Price had been a rather well-known and well-liked individual. Apparently, his daughter had been as well before his death.
From what Max understood, it was pretty safe to say that a part of Chloe had died with her father. After his death, she started to slowly find herself in more and more trouble, until she eventually started finding herself in the police station more and more often, until it became a norm.
"Max," a new voice greeted, snapping her from her thoughts. She looked up to see a uniformed woman smiling down at her. "Your father sent me to tell you that he's done if you would like to join him for lunch."
"Thanks," Max responded with a smile before standing and heading for her father's office with only one thing on her mind:
There was a lot she didn't know about Chloe Price.
"Really, Chloe?" yelled the blond woman with a heavy southern accent, "Vandalism?"
"Come on, Joyce, it's not a big--"
Chloe almost instantly regretted opening her mouth at all, as Joyce was quick to cut her off. "Not a big deal?" This prompted the usually eye-roll/arm cross combo that her daughter did when she was getting lectured. "Even if you getting arrested wasn't a big deal, which it is, I had to leave work early to come pick you up from the police station. Now, I don't know about you but I think that's a pretty big deal."
With an exasperated sigh and dramatic drop of her arms, Chloe argued back. "Well, I don't think it's as big of a deal as you're making it."
"Well I do," Joyce retorted, "really Chloe, I just wish you would stop getting in trouble. You're almost 18, and once you are you're gonna find yourself in a heck of a lot more trouble than this."
Chloe merely shrugged. A large part of her truly didn't care about getting in trouble. Since her father had died, a lot of things seemed to just not matter to her.
"I'm going to my room."
And that she did. She trudged up the stairs to her room. When she opened the door, much to her surprise there was a particular blonde laying on her bed, note buried in her phone.
"Thanks for leaving me to get busted all alone, Rach," Chloe snipped, a sarcastic edge to her voice that she often took with the blond girl.
Rachel shrugged, looking up from her phone. "You know me," she sat up and tossed her hair over her shoulder, "I have to keep up my perfect reputation."
With an eye-roll, Chloe walked to her desk and grabbed her ashtray, a plastic baggie, and some papers. She then plopped down next to her friend and held up the baggie. "You getting in on this?"
"You know I am," the blond said, scooting closer to Chloe. She placed a kiss on the girl's cheek and rested her chin on her shoulder.
This was the exact reason Chloe couldn't stay mad at her.
She smiled as she rolled the blunt, and in less than a minute had the small roll pressed to her lips. Her lungs protested as she coughed through the smoke, wafting it away with her free hand as she passed it to her girlfriend.
Life was good.