annie thompson (bumptiously) wrote in horror_story, @ 2013-02-13 21:51:00 |
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Entry tags: | annie, complete, cycle002, max |
Who. Annie and Max.
When. Dec. 30, 2 AM.
Where. The Brass Key.
What. Annie's drowning her sorrows in some alcohol, but Max comes to the rescue.
Warnings. Mentions of suicide.
ANNIE: It was past closing time, but that didn't seem to bother Annie, who was currently nursing one of the many, many beers of the night. She hadn't said a word to anyone in the bar just yet. Not even Max, who she always approached with a smile and a wink, just for good measure. He knew how to have fun and make her laugh, but she wasn't looking to laugh, and she sure as fuck wasn't looking for a good time. She just wanted to sit and think and avoid sleep, because every time she managed to drift off she saw kind eyes atop freckled cheeks, and then she saw his descent to the pavement, the blood and gasping that followed. Fighting back the sting of tears, she threw back the last of her beer and gestured for another. | |
MAX: "Annie," Max said gently when he saw her familiar hand gesture, and he shook his head as empathetically as he could. "Kid, I can't. It's already after two, I could lose my license." The rest of the bar was already emptied out, everyone's tabs closed out and their goodnights bid over jacketed shoulders, and Max had an old Nick Cave album playing at a low volume, growly nonsense as background noise quiet enough not to offend anyone. He'd already flipped off the 'open' sign in the window, but he hadn't shooed Annie back out into the cold just yet. "Tell you what, how about a cup of hot coffee and you tell me what's going on?" | |
ANNIE: "I don't want a coffee, Max," she informed him, words only slightly slurred. Annie could hold a surprising amount of liquor, but there was no denying that she was undoubtedly drunk. She wasn't belligerent or angry, more disappointed than anything. Annie wasn't a mean drunk even on the worst of nights, and this would probably factor pretty high on the scale of "worst nights ever." Max was a good guy, so she didn't want him to get in any trouble. It was the only reason she didn't push for another beer or three. "And I don't really wanna talk." That had to be a first. Annie was always more than happy to talk anyone's ear off that would listen. | |
MAX: "Sweetheart," Max said, leaning over to put his elbows on the freshly-wiped bartop for a moment, "I ain't never seen you look this hangdog and I can't say I'm alright with it. Let me get you a coffee and we'll talk, alright?" He wasn't going to take no for an answer, not tonight. If Marcus or anyone else told him to leave it alone he'd consider it, but he liked Annie quite a bit and she was usually so jubilant and happy. He knew why she was upset, of course, but he didn't think internalizing it was going to be her solution. He turned and vanished into the back room for a moment, returning with two mismatched Styrofoam cups full of black coffee, and set one in front of her. "I always start brewin' a pot around one-thirty so when ya'll get sick of drinking my whiskey I can stay up awhile," he informed her, then came around the bar to take the stool beside her. A sip of his own evil brew and then he looked at her sympathetically. "I know what happened is gnawin' on you, Annie. But this isn't the way." | |
ANNIE: Max was one of the most stubborn people that Annie had the pleasure of knowing, so she didn't put up much of a fight when he insisted on getting some coffee and talking. Had she been at her best, she would've been more than happy to fight him on it and go head to head, her stubbornness as thick as his, but not tonight. She didn't say anything as he took a seat beside her, but she did lift the cup of coffee to her lips to take a drink. Not only was it hot as hell, but it was almost strong enough to knock her right the hell off the stool. "This is terrible," Annie admitted, hoping to avoid the subject of Gideon all together. Aside from the police, the only person she'd spoken to about the ordeal was Hunter, and that was only because Hunter, wonderful thing that she was, had practically moved in to watch after her for a few days after. | |
MAX: "Yeah well, keeps me up nights," Max said unapologetically, a single shrug of one shoulder before he settled back against the bar, his elbows propped on the wood. Everyone knew what had happened to Annie; the newspaper and news crews had talked all about Gideon, shown his grief-stricken family and friends, interviewed witnesses, shown footage of crime scene tape flapping in the wind, shown a graphic for the number of a suicide prevention hotline. But it had obviously affected Annie very deeply, evidenced by the shadows around her eyes, and Max frowned for a moment into his coffee cup. "You knew him pretty well, didn't you?" | |
ANNIE: Did she know Gideon very well? They were friends, sure, but she didn't know a great deal about him. She never told a soul about her crush, not even Hunter, and it seemed pathetic somehow to say that their relationship revolved around Annie hoping against hope that he would pick up on her flirtatious hints and her little friendly touches to his arm. Now he never would. He'd never do anything. "I guess. We were friends. Not best friends, but he was a good guy. I just … I just wouldn't have thought he'd be the type to do something like this." There were no cries for help, no letters, no signs that Gideon Fair was going to jump off of a clock tower onto the cement beneath. | |
MAX: "There aren't always signs, Annie," Max said as gently as he could, hooking the soles of his Converse high-tops on the rung of the stool beneath him. "Not everyone writes it on the wall. He might've been going through something inside for a very long time." He was frowning, his expression grave and careful. "I had some friends when I was younger who couldn't deal with the world. It's a hard thing. And I can't imagine how much it sucked having to see it." | |
ANNIE: "You know, it's never like that in the movies," Annie murmured, eyes trained on the cup of steaming coffee before her. "In the movies, it's always fast. Painless." But Gideon's wasn't fast, nor was it clean, and it certainly wasn't painless. At least not from what Annie could see. There was no way that thrashing and bleeding could've been painless. It just couldn't. "I thought I could save him. After he hit the ground, I mean. I don't even know if he was still alive or if …" Or if his tremors and gurgling gasps were part of a post-mortem thing that Annie knew nothing about. Finally, she looked to her side and at Max's sympathetic face. "Stuff like that just doesn't happen here." | |
MAX: "No," Max said softly. "It doesn't, not often. But people everywhere are the same, Annie." He reached over and touched the back of her hand, his own long callused fingers gently squeezing hers. "It's a terrible thing that happened, and he shouldn't have had to resort to that. It's a damn selfish thing to do, because it hurts everyone, not just them. But he must've had his reasons. You couldn't have helped him if he was that determined to do it." | |
ANNIE: "I just wish I could go back to that day and, fuck, I don't know, maybe climb up there before he could do it." Annie kept replaying those moments like they were scratches on a record. She imagined that she would get there just a few minutes earlier or said something different, and Gideon would come down on off the roof unharmed and still vibrant. "You don't know that, Max. Maybe if I said something different or … I don't know." She thought of Gideon's parents, of their obvious love for their son, and her heart began to ache all over again. No parent should've had to bury their child. It was a universal truth. | |
MAX: "No, sweetheart," he said, and he reached over, his flannel-draped arm wrapping over her shoulders, and pulled her in. Max pressed a kiss to the top of her soft blonde hair, just a brief graze of his lips against her skull before he drew back and returned to his own barstool. "You can't think that way. Someone climbs a tower like that and jumps without thinking twice, they mean it. He didn't go up there for attention, he went up there to get it done." | |
ANNIE: Despite her "not wanting to talk about it," she was talking freely and openly to Max. There was always something about him that drew people in, made them want to chat and confide. That was what made him such a good bartender, she guessed. Annie leaned into his side, blinking back tears as his arm wound its way around her shoulders, and she took a trembling breath when he pulled back. "Yeah, I guess," she relented. Part of her still thought this was all part of some sort of nightmare. It felt very dreamlike, with the details all blurring together into a kind of fog. Annie could barely tell one day apart from another. | |
MAX: "Things are going to be okay," he told her in that same low, quiet voice, but his eyes were sad when he looked at her. She was usually a ray of sunshine, the boisterous blonde who always burst in and talked a mile a minute when he fixed her drinks. "You're stronger than you think, sweetheart. This is horrible, but you're going to make it through this and it'll be just a bad nightmare," he said to Annie, tilting his head. | |
ANNIE: "What about Gideon's parents? How are they going to make it through something like this?" Annie had never lost anyone who was particularly close to her, at least not to death, so this entire experience was new for her on all sorts of levels. She still had both of her parents, her brother, his beautiful family, and now she was able to see just how lucky she was. There were some people, like Gideon's parents, who would be going to bed tonight knowing that the person they loved was just … gone. How was that okay? How did people do it? | |
MAX: "It's going to be very hard," Max said with a nod. "Very rough on them, and I don't envy them a bit. But they'll make it through too, Annie. Everyone who's left on this earth has to keep going the best they can. It's all we know how to do. If we don't learn that, then we do what Gideon did, or we just sit and wait to die." He shook his head, then lifted his coffee cup for another long dark bitter swallow. | |
ANNIE: It made sense that Max had such a wise spirit about him. He'd lived a wild, exciting life and had experienced things that Annie could only dream of, and you didn't live a life like that without learning a few things along the way. "You should start your own radio show or some shit," she said, fighting for a smile. It was fleeting and artificial, but it was something. For starters, it was the first time she smiled since the accident. It wasn't an accident, Annie, she reminded herself. It just felt strange referring to it as anything else. "I'd listen to it." | |
MAX: "Yeah, maybe a podcast," Max said with a snort of laughter, shaking his head. "I'd need a good cohost, you know?" He leaned over and squeezed her hand again, his thumb rubbing her knuckles as soothingly as he could. Onto another topic, maybe one that would be less grim for her. "You seen Gilman around? He ain't been in here in awhile." | |
ANNIE: "I haven't seen Gilman since Christmas Eve. Haven't spoken to him, either." They had a good time, but he'd been pretty scarce since then. "Probably has something to do with him seeing that Palmer girl." Annie didn't know Dahlia personally, but she did manage to pick up bits and pieces of the rumors stirring around Crows Landing. It was kind of her specialty, after all. "You know, the blind one? He hasn't told me personally, but I've heard that the two of them went on a date." | |
MAX: "Wow, you serious?" he asked, arching his brows. "No offense to you, or to Gilman--- you know I love the slimy little shit--- but Dahlia Palmer ain't exactly his type, is she? She was a little pageant princess last I knew," Max remarked, a slow shake of his head. "I mean, I guess shit changes when you get hurt like she did, but still. Gilman?" | |
ANNIE: "You saying I couldn't be a pageant princess?" Annie asked, teasing despite the dry quality to her voice. She thought the same thing when she heard the news, and after a fleeting (or not so fleeting, whatever) moment of jealousy, she wondered what his angle was. Gilman wasn't a bad guy or anything -- sleazy, sure, but not bad -- but he wasn't the type to date former pageant queens, either. Especially not blind former pageant queens. "You know how he is. Probably just wanted to try something new." | |
MAX: "You could be anything you wanted. And I never knew Gilman to be picky about women's types; I think his main type is 'willing'. Still, I ain't so worried about why he's dating Dahlia, it's why's Dahlia dating him?" Max snorted. He took another sip of his coffee and leaned an elbow on the bar. "Either way, whatever. Hope he's happy with that. He lost a damn fine thing when you two split." | |
ANNIE: "Yeah, well, I doubt he sees it that way," Annie said, after taking a long drink of the coffee. She was still drunk, but the coffee had already started to kick in. There was no way she'd be able to drive her car home; no amount of alcohol could make her think that was okay. Still, she wasn't looking forward to the walk home. With her luck, she'd pass out in a pile of snow on the way home and wake up with frost bite or some shit. "So do you just, like, live here or something? I don't think I've ever seen you when you weren't here." | |
MAX: "No. I got a place," Max snickered, shaking his head. "I just have to stay here to watch out for all the drunk little blondes who keep me up past closing time." He reached over to tweak her chin, then lightly smiled. "C'mon, let me drive you home when you finish your coffee. You ain't getting your keys tonight." | |
ANNIE: "You're an angel, Max," Annie said, and it probably wasn't clear whether she was being serious or facetious, but she meant it. As dumb and childish as it sounded, she liked to be around Max because he reminded her of her own father -- the belly laughs, the wild stories, all of it. She missed her parents, so it was nice to be around someone who reminded her so much of dear old dad. "Hey, thank you." A beat passed as she reached out to touch his hand. "I'm serious. Thanks, and not just for the offer to take me home." | |
MAX: "You ain't got to thank me," he said with a headshake, a little embarrassed at the attention from her, and shrugged it off like he always did. His smile was earnest enough though, and he didn't pull away from her hand. "C'mon, what'm I gonna do, make you walk? It's freezing out there. You'd be a popsicle before morning and then Hunter would come kick my ass." | |
ANNIE: Annie finished off her coffee with a wince and a shake of her head. It really was the strongest coffee she'd ever had, and since she didn't even like coffee, it was a double whammy of awfulness. "She probably could, too. Trust me, as someone who has been wrestled to the floor by her skinny ass, I can honestly say she is like the female hulk." Annie stood to her feet, albeit a little unsteadily, and gestured to the door. "After you, sir." |