Chapter Text
Rachel’s stuttered it weeping, slurred it hungover, muttered it sober. She’s going to stop drinking so much.
But it just didn’t seem to matter as she impressed Max in the only way she knew, a fist of whisky straight down her throat.
Max just shook her head in a daze, jaw dropping as she watched Rachel, and didn't click the picture she’d been clamouring for. She sputtered when she realised too late, but Rachel’s already lowered the empty glass. Rachel and Chloe broke into peals of laughter.
Rachel fell back onto the bed, and her head landed on Chloe’s stomach. Her stomach is soft, and that familiarity briefly sends Rachel back to six months ago, when all was well with them.
Chloe snorted, and threw an arm over Rachel. Rachel’s chest seized with longing. She quickly said, “I’m not doing that again Max, you had your chance, babe!”
Max grumbled and pouted over to the bed as Rachel and Chloe jeered at her. She patted at Rachel’s raised knees, and pouted harder when Rachel didn't lower her legs. Rachel was unmoved and raised an eyebrow in response, which won a chuckle from Chloe.
Unfortunately, all the warning she got was Max’s eyes narrowing before Max was a blur crashing into her. Her breath is warm on Rachel’s face. Rachel pushes at Max’s face as Max hugs her closer.
“Caulfield!” she said as Max ferociously cuddled her. Chloe laughs and laughs in the background, holding Max’s camera up so it doesn’t get tugged down by the cord into the moshpit that is Chloe’s bed.
Rachel’s essentially pushed further up the bed with Max’s insistent koala-bearing. She feels Chloe adjust upward and to the side to make room. With a little bending of Chloe’s long legs, they can fit together on Chloe’s bed. Max pushed past Rahel’s defensive struggle and blew a raspberry on Rachel’s cheek.
It stunk in Max’s breath, the smell of shitty beer and good whiskey, as much as they would let her struggle down. Max’s breath was hot and wet on Rachel’s neck and cheek. Rachel felt that familiar tug and heat in her gut. It’s just pavlovian bullshit crossing all the wires in her head, that’s all.
She swallowed and just sighed exasperatedly and tugged Max into her arms. She’s used to this routine when Max is drunk. She knows how it’s supposed to go. And that’s the problem.
Because Max drunk is a knife in Rachel’s chest.
Max drunk seems to forget she’s in love with Chloe. Liked to cling to Rachel, fall into her lap, and laugh so much and giggle so hysterically Rachel can never quite forget she didn’t really mean anything with her roaming hands and her nuzzles. It stung when normal Max could barely throw her arm around Rachel's shoulders.
And of course, drunk Max liked her Chloe too much to be deprived of her for even a second, so Chloe was next to her as well. Her ever present warmth was on Rachel’s shoulder, her long legs tangling with Rachel’s.
For a moment she thought about how they were so cruel for taking every choice from her, but then Max shifted deeper into her arms, and Rachel forgot to breathe. She pressed a chaste kiss to Max’s hair, because girls do that to their drunk friends, and her hands burned on Max’s back and sides.
She should stop coming over when they’re going to be like this, but if she stayed in her room alone she’d claw herself apart for missing out on this feeling. And then she’d go to Frank. And she’s tired of making him be her drive to get clean for real.
Max is lifted from her lap suddenly. Rachel looked up to see Chloe letting Max tangle into her princess' carry, grinning at the soft kiss Max pressed to her shoulder.
“Come on, Super-Max, time for bed,” Chloe cooed. Rachel laughs and gets off the bed. They lay Max in the middle of the bed, and Rachel sits on the edge.
She breathes a sigh of relief that the night’s winding down. It’ll be over soon. Then Chloe sat on Max’s other side, and tenderly brushed Max’s bangs out of her eyes, and Rachel wanted another fist of whiskey.
Chloe leant over to her dresser, keeping her fingers running through Max’s hair, and flicked through the drawers. Rachel heard the low cackling, and rolled her eyes at the lighter held aloft, shining cheap plastic in Chloe’s American Idiot fist.
“It’s a fucking bic, Chloe, calm down.”
“Ahh, Rachel,” Chloe declared, digging through her floor jeans for weed but still keeping a hand in Max’s hair, “Once again, by virtue of your bimboifying bisexual jib, you see only to the surface. It’s not just a lighter!”
“It represents so much more! I, with my wise lesbian beanie, am aware of the theory put forward by Dawson in his theory of symbolism and”-she grunted, midway through a particularly impressive reach for chair jeans-”deeper meaning-”
“You’re gonna wake Max up!” Rachel giggled. Stupid fucking monologues that were never funny to begin with, just holdovers from playing Pirates with Max, but Rachel couldn’t get enough of it. Never had.
“Yeah, you’re gonna wake me up!” Max crowed.
Oh, sorry baby!” Chloe stage whispered, and pressed a kiss into Max’s hair.
“A jib’s not even a hat,” Max said.
“It’s not?”
Max hmphed in the negative.
“Well, still, all that dick and cum’s making you dumb, baby!”
“There’s no dick, shut the fuck up!”, Rachel said, giggling. But as she said it, fury at herself spiked in her chest. Chloe didn’t care about who Rachel was fucking, she knew that. She already fucking knew that.
But Rachel didn’t want to have to wonder if Chloe was just pretending to be over her. And now she’d know from her reaction, because she knew Chloe.
“Oh,” Chloe said, and then there was silence. Great, just great, this is just what Rachel wanted. Hope.
“Guess it’s just genetic then,” Chloe continued.
“Fuck you,” Rachel fired off, dizzy with relief.
“I’d prefer smoking right now, Amethyst.”
“I wanna smoke,” Max yawned.
“No!”
Max groaned. “Can we stop with the both of you ganging up on me!”, she whined.
“No.”
Max huffed again, and pointedly turned away from the greater offender, her girlfriend. Which meant pointing her drunk doe eyes right at Rachel.
Rachel flicked an eyebrow again, pulling her smiling lips in. Fucking Max. Cute as anything. But not stupid. Or naive. Maybe a little bit.
Crafty, nosey, judgemental. And Freckles. Those goddamn Freckles.
The steadily rising stack of all the pictures she’s taken of Rachel and given to her are the best thing Rachel’s ever had. They hurt so much to look at sometimes. It’s like Jefferson some days, even if she’s visibly happy in so many of them.
Crossed wires. But that's alright. That’s deserved.
“You know, I don’t even wear hats,” Rachel said.
“You’d wear a jib,” Max said decisively.
Rachel snorted as Chloe handed her the joint and lighter. She flicked the lighter, and started the joint up.
“I’ll bounce in a bit.” Rachel said, before pulling a slow puff, so if Chloe said anything, she could have a few seconds to plan out a response while she held the stinging smoke in her lungs.
“Stay here tonight,'' Max said. She said it quietly, but it seemed as loud as a shout to Rachel. But Chloe didn’t say anything to acknowledge it, and so Rachel frantically pretended to not have heard Max. Because Max had said it wrong. Had said it calm, and even, not drunk and wobbly and needy.
If Rachel had looked over at Chloe, she would have seen how tense Chloe was, how eager, waiting for her answer. But she was too busy looking like she was focused on smoking up.
The smoke flicked out of her mouth in a handful of puffs, and she flared the rest out her nose.
She passed it over to Chloe, and then stretched and reached for her phone. As she scrolled through the phone, Max clambered off of Rachel’s chest and moved to Chloe. Rachel’s hands twitched around empty air. Max had buried her face in the pillow and her hand was twisted up tightly in Chloe’s shirts.
“Put some music on Price, your mom’s ashamed of you,” Rachel said, scrolling through her own music app. She frowned when she’d scrolled past Breaking Benjamin, and there’d been no response.
She looked up to see Chloe holding the joint in her hand, looking down at Max in her lap. Her jaw was tight, and her hair was coving her eyes.
“Chloe?” Rachel said.
Chloe looked up from Max. She had been running her hand through Max’s hair. She rolled her eyes.
“...you’re stealing my weed, you don’t get guest privileges,” Chloe muttered. She looked away and raised the joint to her lips. Then she puffed quick and small to build up the joint, and then pulled in so hard the end of the joint seemed on the edge of flaring into flame. She’d been laid back the whole night, but now she exhaled the smoke fast, bringing the joint up again.
Take it slow for once, Rachel thought, and didn’t say it. She didn’t get to do things like that anymore. Chloe could get mad at her before, but now she could just tell Rachel to fuck off and mean it, because they weren’t together anymore. Chloe took another hit, and Rachel’s hands tightened.
Her chest wondered if this is how it felt to look at a friend drink too much too easily and know it would end sadly one day. It wasn’t an unfamiliar thought. Chloe felt so much like someone who was just going to end one day. Gone so abruptly, you blinked your eyes, wondering if it was ever there.
Rachel was glad Chloe had Max. Someone for Chloe to hang around for, help her figure out that Chloe by herself was worth hanging around for. Chloe didn’t really buy weed as much anymore, except when Rachel was around. Maybe Chloe didn’t want to hang out with her ex girlfriend, the one modelling in sexy poses for her new girlfriend, so she smoked up to let some steam off.
Rachel swallowed. She didn’t want to be here. Chloe was better off now. She really was. She was doing things, trying things. Rachel tried to remember that, tried to hang onto that. Concrete evidence. What she’d done to Chloe had been another in a long line of manipulations, but it was the only way she knew how to help.
Rachel found Bon Iver on her phone and smiled, shoving her thoughts from her mind. Bon Iver had always cheered her and Chloe up before. She played an old classic.
She held her hand out for the joint. Chloe handed it to her, not meeting her eyes. Rachel took the joint and pulled. Out of the corner of her eye, as the humming and the opening bars filled the room, Chloe smiled.
The song played, slow and sweet. Except it wasn’t just any song.
As the vocals came in Chloe sang along, the joint burning away forgotten. Her voice was low and soft, and as she heard it Rachel realised she’d made a mistake.
They held each other’s gaze, lost in a memory, and Rachel was about to lean in. Chloe was drunk, Rachel was drunk, they’d been here before so many times. Rachel could be here again, and maybe she’d never have to leave this time. Then she remembered she’d be leaning in over Max. She blinked and looked away, guilt and anger tangling in her chest.
Rachel looked down at Max, and found her looking back. When they held eye contact, she half expected Max to do what she usually did, hurriedly look away, or blush and hunch her shoulders. She hoped Max hadn’t caught on to what almost happened.
Instead, Max just held her gaze, but her eyes didn’t burn with rage.
Her eyes were dark and silent, and Rachel could see herself reflected in them. She knew what Rachel had been about to do. She knew. And still Max just watched her.
Just watched her with those dull, drunk eyes. Stupid and dumb, without anything to say. Dumb meant mute, meant speechless. She can’t work with that, can’t play it off. She doesn’t know what’s going in Max’s head, Rachel just doesn’t fucking know.
Suddenly Rachel can’t stand it, the eye contact, the jokes, the whole room, this fucking night.
The terrible misery she’d been ducking since Chloe texted her about the three of them hanging at her place earlier this week slammed into her, like a riptide just as she made it back to the shore.
She looks away and gets up and leaves the room.
“Gotta take a squirt,” Rachel murmured, letting her voice slur low in a grumble.
Chloe’s singing doesn’t stop. Her voice is low and kind, and she’s Joyce Price’s daughter more than ever when she sings like this.
The sound follows Rachel all the way down the hallway. It stares her down as she closes the bathroom door behind her. It matches her glare in the mirror.
The bathroom was small, and Rachel dug her nails into her palm.
She shouldn’t have played that song. She shouldn’t have smoked up with Chloe. She shouldn't have leaned in even an inch. She shouldn’t have come tonight. And she shouldn’t have played that song.
Frank would probably still be up. He didn’t sleep well. She’ll bang on his door till he wakes up regardless. She shouldn’t have played that song. She shouldn’t have done so many things.
She realised she was breathing too fast, almost gasping. She squeezed the sink with her hands, trying to find something solid, but she just felt loose and unmoored. She curled her fingers into the porcelain at her nails and grit her teeth and pressed.
When she went back into the room and started picking her shit up, Max would be pissed. They’d know where she was going. Rachel wonders if Chloe will tell her to stay, if she’d fight her on this. If Chloe would be nasty and mean and downright cruel. She can work with that, she can be reasonable so Chloe feels unfair, she can make Max intervene and calm Chloe down.
Except Chloe doesn’t really do the whole erupting thing anymore, does she. Because Chloe fucking Price is better off without her. Chloe Price is in her truck with Max and they’re driving off and Rachel’s just here, wandering in a drunken haze around American Rust mumbling about fucking a teacher because her parents didn’t love her.
Rachel blinked, and slowly let go of the sink. Her finger bones ached and screamed with pain, her joints felt like they would pop. If she called Frank now, he’d be awake and waiting when she got there. She can weather his anger at her relapsing later.
But her phone’s not in her pocket. She still fumbles her hands around her pants. He fucked her, she didn’t fuck him, she thinks, and shoved her hands deeper in her pockets, dancing back and forth.
Her phone’s playing that fucking song down the hall in Chloe’s room. She can hear Chloe’s voice in her head, in her memories. She wasn’t stupid, she fucked around with people, and Max and Chloe are supposed to be different, but she fucked around with them too.
But he fucked her. She realised her eyes were watering over. She realised she knew exactly how this week would end the moment she saw that text telling her to bring her company and a good bottle of whisky, preferably the latter. She realised it was always going to end this way, and it always would, even if she was in LA, and Max and Chloe were still here. She’d come back, and she’d drink too much, and maybe Chloe would run her hand through her hair like she did Max, and maybe Max would hug her close and they’d drift off like that.
Too much. Too much. She needed to pull it back now, she was letting herself go haywire.
Rachel squeezed her eyes shut, and held her breath with a harsh grip. She let her chest tighten, let her body sway from side to side, let her heart beat away incessantly and madly. She held it, and held it, and held it.
Then, Rachel took a deep breath and sighed. She looked up at the mirror.
It was always easy to smile. She really didn’t look off putting or aloof. She was just some girl. She wasn’t that bad.
Rachel breathed slowly, and swayed on the cold tile until she felt herself again.
Rachel walked through the hallway, back to Chloe’s room. She paused in the hallway out of sight as she heard Chloe and Max talking. She tried to catch what they were discussing.
“...tell her, baby,” Max said.
“We keep putting it off,” Chloe murmured, “At least we know we have some time now, she’s not with…I mean she said but…”
“I know, I know, but we’re not losing…”, Max said, “We have time, we have a plan.”
Rachel knew they were talking about her. For a second, she felt a sharp, warm, childish thrill. Then Rachel shook her head and made some noise as she reached Chloe’s room. When she walked through the door, they were both the picture of unruffled and settling into bed.
“Gonna bounce now?” Chloe said, looking over at her. The joint is gone.
Rachel nodded slowly. She notices Chloe look down at Max. Their eyes meet for a second, and they look back at her.
“I’ll take the truck, come back for you and Max in the morning,” Rachel said.
“Why? Just sleep here,” Max said, voice tight, interrupting them, “I mean, you’re drunk and high.”
Rachel’s heart picked up, and she scoffed easily.
“I’m not even buzzed, Max, chill out.”
Rachel glances at Max as she tugged her jeans on. Max was looking back at her with a drunken frustration and hurt.
“What, you worried about me, Caulfield?” she smirked.
“Yeah,” Chloe muttered. “We are.”
Rachel stilled. She could see them out of the corner of her eye, could see both Max and Chloe stiffen and tense. Could see Chloe look apologetically at Max, like she’d ruined the plan.
An intervention. That’s what they were talking about, she realised.
For a moment, she’s free of any feeling. She doesn't know what to reach for. Then she scoffs.
“Jesus fucking christ, intervention brigade, wee woo, wee woo”, she muttered. Then she shoved her pants off, stumbling in her harsh irritation. She grabs the bottle. She turns away, and drinks what’s left. It burns down her throat, and mixes with the shame and the hurt twisting in her chest. She wonders if they still think she’s beautiful.
She decides not to stutter a step as she puts the bottle down on the nightstand. She tugs at the blanket and Max and Chloe obligingly raise their hips and let it slide out from below them.
The two of them kick the blanket out as Rachel pulls it horizontally, and Rachel already knows she’ll waste a period thinking about the three of them doing this together when they’re old.
As Rachel lies down next to her, Max stared at her with those sad fucking eyes. She wasn’t happy about Rachel gulping down all that whisky. Didn’t seem like anyone was happy in this room, god knew why they hung out together anyways.
“Just giving you a show Maxine, you had another picture there,” she said. Something that would probably remind Max of Jefferson. She regretted the words as she said them, like bile on white carpet, but it was done.
Max flinched, and emotions flicked across her face in rapid succession. She pursed her lips, and didn’t say anything. Her eyes were drunken and silent.
The same as just a few minutes ago, but now Rachel realised what they were. Those eyes weren’t stupid or mute. Max just seemed like she had so much to say, she didn’t know how to let it out. A horde of things all stuck in the door, each trying to simultaneously squeeze out. Rachel wanted to help her with it, but she was too tired and too drunk to be helpful.
Chloe sighed.
“Rach, come in the middle, you’re gonna roll onto your back and choke to death. Or you’re gonna fall off,” she said.
Rach sneered. She’s reaching for the anger, again. But it’s alright if she does, Chloe and Max aren’t leaving Arcadia for a good while, and she’ll bring them back around if she ruins this. She’s good at that.
She’s about to say something, when Max abruptly gets up. She says something about going to the bathroom, and it sounds awkward and stilted, like she’s not far from crying. Rachel wonders how Max ever got through getting periods at school like that.
Then she wants to punch any boy or girl who teased Max over her period because she couldn’t lie for shit. Chloe should punch Rachel for being such a bitch tonight. The whisky’s hitting her, it seems.
So Rachel sighed, and lay next to Chloe for a while. The anger slowly ebbed away. She’s tired. Neither of them spoke for some time.
“Sorry,” Chloe murmured finally. “That came out wrong.”
Her tone was heavy, and it was obvious she was talking about them “worrying” about her.
That came out wrong, Rachel thought, Not that it was wrong. Not that we were just overthinking it.
Rachel worried at her lip. Relapses are never drastic, in a way. You can fool yourself all the way down. But she doesn’t have it in her to be a wreck again. She wanted to sleep.
She heard Max flush the toilet. She felt Chloe’s hand reach out and graze her side.
She wanted Chloe to touch her again and she wanted to kiss Max for the first time.
Rachel was a bitch, she was kind, she was beautiful, she was a stupid slut, and it all went away next to them like this. She was just the want for them, the spiralling breathless need in her chest that felt like she was Kate Marsh on the school roof, hovering at the edge, picking what felt like the better way out. But it wasn’t. It could never be. There was just cold barren asphalt at the bottom of it.
But there would be Max in the crowd, and Chloe as well. And there’d be screams too, but at least she would be at their feet, reaching out, like she knew she would, like she knew she always did.
She lay there, as that familiar quiet exhaustion opened up in her again, and felt everything good and living inside her slowly bleed away. She should have drunk more. Much more. Then they’d take care of her. She’d done it before, but it had worried them back then, and she hated doing that. She hated most things she did.
She’s not sure why she’s grieving, she doesn’t want anything they're capable of giving. She wants too much for them to ever give. That should be end of story. It’s a simple thing to understand, she’s not sure why she can’t accept it.
“Rachel? It’s not…it’s not what you think,” Chloe said. “We-we talked about it…Max and I…”
Rachel said nothing. It sounded like Chloe wanted Max here to talk something out. It sounded big, and heavy.
“Rach?” Chloe said quietly. She sounds scared.
“It’s fine,” Rachel said, and closed her eyes. She felt used. She felt worse than Jefferson ever made her feel. She wanted to hold Chloe close, promise her she’d never be alone again. She wanted Max to lie down next to her and hug her close.
But nothing happens and no one does anything about any of those things. Max was lying down next to her at some point, but Rachel didn’t notice. Sleep just drifted down on to her slowly.