Work Text:
It was a crisp autumn afternoon, and Max was thoroughly enjoying the angle of the sunlight as it cut through the thick evergreens in her favorite park.
She had her camera at the ready, but kept hesitating; no shots lined up. There were no squirrels doing adorably weird things, no freakish anomalies tempting her artist's eye. At least, until...
She stopped walking and cocked her head. On a bench up the path, a seated Chloe Price wrote furiously on crumpled paper, consulting what looked like a textbook.
It wasn't exactly a "freakish anomaly," but it was close.
Max approached slowly, enjoying the opportunity to study Chloe in her distraction. Chloe was all limbs and wiry muscle, and Max particularly liked the play and flex of tendon under her tattoo. It was beautiful. Chloe was beautiful. Troubled, often angry, occasionally broken and self-destructive, but So. Fucking. Beautiful. Max recognized a familiar sharp feeling in her chest when she regarded her best friend, both like and unlike pain.
They hadn't been talking much lately. Max figured it was just whiplash after what happened to Rachel, but what had felt like an intense, indelible resurgence in her relationship with Chloe had gone cold after a few weeks. Chloe was always "busy," but wouldn't explain why. Max had retreated to heal, feeling just a little bit heartbroken.
(Or epically, tragically, Taylor-Swift-lyrically completely fucking devastated. It depended on the day.)
Max's camera was at the ready when Chloe jerked a bit and kicked out a leg to pull her cell phone from a too-tight jean pocket. Chloe looked at the phone, swore, jabbed at the screen, and held the phone to her ear.
"Sherri? It's Chloe. I'm running late. Can we meet at seven thirty instead? Cool. Thanks." She nodded, tossed the phone aside on the bench, and went back to her frantic scribbling.
Sherri? Max blinked. Some... girl... Chloe was meeting later? The feeling in her chest turned into a harsh, gripping sensation that made her gasp.
Chloe heard the noise and looked up. "Max?"
"H-hi," Max said, suddenly rendered spectacularly inarticulate. Proximity to Chloe tended to make her brain go numb. She sighed and tried to put a friendly expression on her face.
"Hey!" Chloe yelped. With impressive economy of frantic motion, she crammed her paper into the textbook, slammed it shut, then hopped up from the bench and stepped in front of Max, trying to put her body in the way of the bench behind her. "What's up?" She eyed the camera in Max's grasp and smiled nervously. "No good subject matter here. Move along, hippie."
"What are you working on?" Max asked. She peered around Chloe, then finally just pushed her friend out of her way to look at the textbooks. "Calculus?" she read off one cover. "Organic Chemistry?" She gave Chloe a hard look while she put her camera away. "You're studying?"
"Ever hear of 'Breaking Bad?'" Chloe cracked, before wilting under Max's scowl. "Yes, all right? I'm studying."
"But you got expelled from Blackwell."
Chloe sighed. "I got my GED a while back, and enrolled in Arcadia Bay Community College," she explained.
Literally none of those words made sense in Max's brain, so she tilted her head in confusion, and let her mouth hang open while she tried to think of something to say.
"I've been working at the gas station across from the Two Whales to pay tuition, and taking classes at night," Chloe continued. Now that the secret was out, it was actually a relief to tell Max everything, and the words just poured out of her mouth.
"You've been going to school?" Max finally managed to say. "And working?"
"Yeah," Chloe said with a grin, feeling stupidly proud of herself for the first time in years.
"You asshole," Max hissed, as she stomped away.
That was quite literally the last reaction she expected. Chloe felt her head spin around in shock as she watched Max leave. "What?! What the fuck, Max?"
"You fall off the face of the planet, tell me you're 'busy,' make me think you've done something incredibly stupid, or are in the process of doing something incredibly stupid, but you're actually fine and you don't even tell me?!" Max yelled.
Chloe exhaled a faintly hysterical noise of disbelief. "You're pissed that I went closet bookworm? I kinda thought you'd like that."
"I'm pissed that we're friends, and we went through all this life-changing shit together, but you won't bother to tell me what's going on with you!" Max yelled, more loudly than she'd intended. The park seemed to go silent around them, while Max flushed in anger and embarrassment.
"I don't understand why this is a big deal," Chloe said weakly.
Several different responses fought in Max's mouth, before she finally clenched her teeth. "It's not. Never mind." She turned to leave.
Chloe flung out her hands in a gesture that plainly conveyed "Are you fucking kidding me?" to the universe at large and took a breath. "You know the joke about how the consistent feature in all your bad relationships is you? That's me." She scowled, unhappy at the jumbled thought. "The consistent feature. In my bad relationships. Is me." She settled for a more direct explanation. "You just said it. I'm an asshole."
Max turned, and immediately defaulted to defending her friend. "I didn't mean..."
"I am," Chloe insisted. "C'mon. Let's be honest. Sometimes people have good reason to leave."
"Chloe," Max interrupted, but stopped when the other girl raised her hand.
"I'm trying to be better, okay? I'm trying to be someone that someone else might want to be around for a while. Get an education and a job and shit. Stop being a pothead loser in my mom's house." She rolled her eyes. "Fuck, that sounds so pathetic when I say it out loud."
"For Sherri?" Max asked, trying not to look wounded.
Chloe's face went blank. "What? What about her?"
"Is she the one you want to have be around for a while?"
Chloe snorted. "Oh no. Oh fuck, no. Sherri's this spazzy girl in my Calculus class," she explained. "Well, 'girl.' She's like 28, and doesn't have three brain cells to rub together. Her parents are paying me to tutor her." She chuckled a bit. "Trust me, if there weren't hella cash involved, I wouldn't spend more than twelve seconds in her presence."
Max inhaled as the knotted grip in her chest relaxed. Her insides felt almost fizzy in relief. "Oh."
Chloe must have seen the change, because she turned shy, and rubbed at the back of her neck. "She's not... No." She trailed off helplessly and shrugged. "I've just been mad at everything for so long, and that's bullshit and I have a life to live and I want it, you know? It's been a long time since I've felt that way."
"You don't have to explain," Max said. "I know I said..."
"I do have to explain, though. 'Cause you're the one who made me realize I was being a punkass." She stared into space for a moment, deep in thought. "Some profoundly shitty stuff happened, but most of it wasn't about me." The words were still pouring out, but this time they hurt her upon exiting, tripping into the space between them.
"My dad didn't die to piss me off. I do actually know that," Chloe said, with a self-deprecating look. "And you didn't leave because you wanted to hurt me. Rachel..." She paused, and her nostrils flared. "I dunno what her deal was. But I'm pretty sure it wasn't my fucking fault."
"It wasn't," Max whispered. "And I swear I didn't mean to hurt you."
"I know," Chloe replied with a nod. "And I'm sorry for being an asshole about that, before. Repeatedly. Still. I just didn't wanna get hurt again."
"So you hurt me first," Max murmured, feeling the familiar competing impulse to either kiss or strangle her friend. The whole series of events was so amazingly, maddeningly, ineffably Chloe.
"Yeah." Chloe rocked on her heels, and lifted both hands to point at herself in irony. "Totally awesome, right here. Anyway, I'm sorry I've been a fucking jackass. I promise I'm working on it."
"I forgive you," Max replied immediately, and meant it. She gestured to the stack of books on the bench. "I just wish you'd told me..."
"About my self-improvement project?" Chloe winced. "I know it's lame."
"It's the opposite of lame," Max insisted. Seizing at a fragment of courage somewhere inside, she took a step back toward her friend. "When is your tutoring thing done tonight?"
"Eight thirty, nine? Something like that," Chloe replied with a shrug. "Right up until I want to punch Sherri in her stupid face. Then we call time."
"How about after that you let me buy you a cup of coffee?" Max asked, crazy proud that she'd managed not to stutter.
With a scowl, Chloe tried to decode the question. "That's weird for us, right? Why is that weird?" She looked around in suspicion. "What is happening right now?"
Max sighed and put a hand to her forehead in exasperation. "I'm asking you on a date, dumbass."
"Really?" Chloe asked, ever skeptical. "Why?"
"'Cause maybe I'd like to be around you for a while."
Chloe blinked, with the faintest hint of wonder crossing her face. "Yeah?"
"Yeah," Max replied, with a grin. "Definitely."
"Just 'cause I got my nerd on?" Chloe asked.
Because I've loved you since I was ten years old, Max thought. "Maybe," she conceded. "But if you show up in hipster glasses and a cardigan, you can consider these panties dropped."
Chloe somehow bypassed the golden opportunity for banter, instead looking incredibly serious as she stepped closer. "Are you sure?" she asked. "'Cause if you..."
"God, Chloe, just kiss me already," Max breathed.
With a reverent look on her face, Chloe rested her hands on Max's waist and bent to claim a gentle, nearly chaste kiss. "You're freaking amazeballs, you know?" she whispered against Max's lips when they parted.
Max's eyes were still closed, and she managed a dreamy smile. "You too," she murmured.
"I've got a lot of work to do," Chloe said, wistful as she pulled away from the moment. She wasn't just talking about calculus, and they both knew it.
"Yeah, I know," Max agreed. "Let me help."
Chloe winced a bit. "Uh, Max? Have you seen your math grades? 'Cause I have. Not so much with the 'help.'"
"Not with that, jerk," Max said. She cuffed Chloe on the shoulder. "All the other stuff. I want to be there for you. I want to be better with you."
Chloe exhaled in relief, hoping her profound gratitude was apparent but having little way to show it. "I'd like that," she said. She cast a look back at her awaiting homework, and heaved a sigh of resignation. "But first, quadratic variations await."
"Okay. I'll leave you to it," Max replied, as she took a few reluctant steps away. "Call me later, okay?"
Chloe murmured her agreement, then grinned as Max stopped in the middle of the path and smiled back at her. "Go home, dork. I'll bug you tonight."
"You'd better," Max said, pointing a stern finger at her friend. "No more falling off the face of the earth."
"Never again," Chloe vowed. She dug her hands into her pockets and waited for Max to leave.
They stood there looking goofily at each other for several seconds.
Finally, Chloe balked. "For fuck's sake, what are you staring at?" she grumbled, unable to hide a smile.
"This hot nerdy girl I just met," Max shot back, before conceding and walking away. "See you later, Chloe."
Chloe watched her go, then grabbed her phone off the bench. "Where the hell can I buy hipster glasses by tonight?" she muttered.