Who: Max and Audrey What: Handing over the keys to 404 Where: Bathos When: Friday after work Warnings: None
Audrey was attempting to be reasonable and not fly into a freakout every time her sister asked her to go somewhere. Was it aggravating? Yeah, of course. But in this case the reasoning seemed sound. She liked Thomas, and she liked Luke, and if they needed time to themselves, that was fine as far as she was concerned. She imagined it was likely difficult for them, living in a house with so many guests, so she begrudgingly accepted the invitation to Bathos and made her way up to the apartment that Max had mentioned.
Audrey had her skates on, so she took the elevator and rolled down the carpeted hallway to the front door, skating to a stop. She couldn’t do that in Hamartia, and no matter how much she wanted her independence, she did have to admit that even the Bathos was a huge step up, and the Aubade was absolutely in the stratosphere in comparison. The hallway looked fairly clean considering how much chaos had gone on only a couple weeks before. She knocked on the door, trying to ignore what appeared to be a few spots of blood off to her left, the only real evidence she could see left over from the Reavers.
Max had arrived early, even with her stop to Hamartia and Jack’s apartment to collect the notebook. She had managed to change into cargo pants and a thermal shirt before the movers came, and it was a blessing to find even that untouched. When Audrey knocked, she was talking to the insurance representative, and the couch was being moved carried toward the door. She finished her conversation with the woman, taking the check for damages, and instructing the clean up crew to take out what remained in Mason’s room, as well, before turning her attention her sister.
“It’s not so bad,” Max said. “All things considered.” And it wasn’t. The furniture had been thrown all over, but the floors and walls were in good shape, and the door had already been replaced with a new one. “Allen went out to pick up some pizza,” she told her sister, who was still as blue-haired as ever, and she nodded toward her old bedroom. “It’s a split plan, so both rooms have their own bathrooms and hallways,” she said, as if she was giving a house tour. “Figure you’ll want my old one, since I had a key installed,” she said, twisting the doorknob when she went in and motioning to the alarm on the door and the lock on the window. “Fire escape makes a pretty good front door, if you’re so inclined,” she added.
The room was empty now, furniture already pulled out, and Max looked around at the empty space a moment and remembered all the important shit that had gone down in the room in the last six months. She remembered herself a moment later, and she handed out the key to the room and front door, along with the insurance check. “Should be able to refurnish with that. And don’t thank me. I wouldn’t know what to fucking do if you did. I still need your half of the rent. Allen’s, too.” No way in hell she could afford this entire place and the warehouse and newspaper supplies; not on her salary.
Audrey surveyed the room. It certainly looked better than her apartment in the Hamartia, which may have been hit just as hard but had been crumbling to begin with. She glanced down both sides of the apartment. "I thought you had a roommate in here?" she asked.
It was only then that Audrey fully processed what Max was suggesting, and all she could do was sigh. "So I'm moving again without my actual consent, is what you're telling me." It wasn't even that she didn't like the apartment, or that it wouldn't be good to get out of the Aubade and have at least a touch more privacy. "Look, Max, can we make a deal? From now on, when you want to make a decision for me, tell me about it first instead of telling me to come here and springing it on me."
Audrey took the check from her, trying not to look too exasperated, to her credit. "And I have a roommate. Good to know." She laughed when Max asked for the rent. "Trust me, I'm not taking charity from you." She lifted the check. "I'm considering this a loan, and I'm going to pay it back."
Audrey walked into the room. It would be good to have her own space, absolutely it would. She didn't know how she felt about rooming with Allen, since she'd managed not to meet him yet, but at least she could basically live on her side of the apartment if it came to that. It was almost like not having a roommate at all.
“It’s an insurance check, Audrey. It isn’t even my money,” she said. “Listen, you’re doing me a favor, alright? I need to keep this place.” She crossed her arms, and she tried to decide how much to say, how much not to say. “Brandon and I, we’re not a couple, and we don’t have any long term plans.” She went to the window, and she looked out at the cold, dreariness that was Seattle. “You haven’t been here long, but there’s this bastard called the Night Terror. He can crawl into your dreams and hurt you.” She turned, and she looked at Audrey for emphasis. “Really fucking hurt you. He has a beef with me because of this I write, and I met him at this masquerade,” she waved a hand, as if the details weren’t important, “Point is, he attacked me, I found out I was pregnant, and Brandon wanted me to move to Aubade to be safer until I had the baby. It’s not something from a romance. I might need to come back here in four months; I can’t afford to lose the place, and I can’t pay the entire rent. That’s why I had a roommate in the first place.”
Audrey’s eyebrow bounced. Max had said something like that before, but then the Bat had identified her as his girlfriend. Weird. She listened to the rest of the story, expression growing darker as things went on. "O-kay," she said, drawing the o out. "Wow. What the fuck." She paused. "So I need to be worried about the boogeyman coming to kill you now? How does you moving to a different physical location stop him from crawling into your dreams? And why did Thomas call you his girlfriend if you're not together?"
“Thomas did what?” Max asked, looking as shocked as she felt, because he had never- “Your words or his?” she demanded, immediately after, and then she remembered the Night Terror and the fact that dying was infinitely more important - really, it was. “You don’t have to worry about anyone killing anyone. I haven’t seen him in months, and-” She paused, thinking of Quinn, and making a decision to spare Audrey any unnecessary concerns. “- he hasn’t killed anyone since. The Reavers probably got him.” That was a distinct possibility. “Being closer just made him feel safer, Brandon. He thinks I take unnecessary risks. He refuses to understand that my entire life has been risks.” She waved that off, too, as if it was another conversation for another time. “Bottom line. Luke needs some privacy, and I need this place paid for the next four months, and my roommate skipped town with a guy named Will. It’s a business arrangement, Audrey. Not a handout.”
Audrey crossed her arms over her chest. "I said something about him tolerating his girlfriend's irritating sister, and he said he 'wouldn't leave anyone in the apartment, especially his girlfriend's annoying sister.' Those words."
Audrey noticed Max's pause after mentioning no one had seen this guy in months, which seemed foreboding. She sighed. "Great. Zombies, carjackers with guns, and the boogyeman too. Nice place you've got here." She smirked. "Man, I don't know anyone like that," she said, in reference to Thomas chastising Max for taking too many risks.
Audrey’s expression changed briefly as she thought of something, and then she turned around, walking further into what was now her half of the apartment. "Must be nice having someone around who feels better just being close to you." She looked back over her shoulder at Max. "Fine, I'll take the apartment and the money and I'll caretake the place for you in case you get kicked out for whatever freakish reason. I'll get a rubber mask and scare meddling kids off the property and everything."
“Oh,” Max said, in regards to the girlfriend comment. “You said it first. It isn’t like Brandon to correct people, not when it’s not important,” she said, and that was that. “And who feels better being around who?” she asked, brow quirking. “Because I know you aren’t fucking talking about me. He’s afraid I’m going to get the baby killed. There’s a difference. I’m an incubator,” she said, and she sounded both hurt and like she honestly believed it. It did make her look at Audrey a little more inquisitively, curiously, even. “Why did you come?” she asked, because that’s what it all came down to, wasn’t it? “It sucks here, sure, but something had to make you leave home.”
Audrey shrugged, but didn't fight her on what Thomas had meant. She didn't know him all that well, and it wasn't really her business anyway. "I'm just saying."
The next bit Audrey couldn't just pass over though - an incubator? "I really don't think so," she said. "You've known him longer than me, fine, but if that's all you are to him he definitely doesn't act like it. There's no reason for him to bother with me if that's the case."
Audrey tensed without thinking about it. "You're not the only one with complicated relationships, alright? Let's just leave it at that." She went over to the window, looking at the alarm and the fire escape Max had mentioned, fiddling with the lock to pretend she had a reason for facing away. "I came here to get away from it. I'd prefer to pretend it never happened, if I can, and I've got the luxury of doing that here. I'm not in any kind of trouble with the police or anybody, if that's what you're worried about. I just needed to...cut ties." She didn't want Max to see her expression. It was pathetic, really, how much she missed Him, even here, even knowing Him for exactly what he'd been. Eventually, though, it would get better. It had to.
Max considered telling Audrey that she and Thomas worked together, that she was part of the team, and God knows he worried about the damn team enough. But that would require a whole bunch of explanation she wasn’t going to get into, not when it would open to a whole world of shit that she had no interest in Audrey getting involved in. Hell, it was one of the reasons she’d settled on Bathos as an option for her sister (rather than keeping her in Aubade). Audrey was smart. She’d realize no one was home at night, and then she’d realize there were bruises that hadn’t been there when they’d left that morning. No, this was the best choice, she reminded herself.
“A boyfriend?” Max asked, and she realized she didn’t know shit about Audrey’s life. At least Audrey knew she’d been in the military, black ops and the government, but Max knew absolutely nothing. The General never spoke of his younger daughter, and Max hadn’t talked to her mother - not beyond birthday cards and Christmas gifts sent from military bases - in years. “Someone in college?” she asked, hazarding a guess. Audrey had always been a smart kid; smarter than her, anyway.
Audrey turned back to her again, leaning against the window sill, keeping her expression steady. She'd had long practice at it. "Yeah," she said. "And no. I made it through my first two years until I decided it wasn't worth it, taking the General's money. I figured I'd try to earn it on my own and go back when I could. It was art college anyway -" She stopped, cutting herself off. Why was she talking about herself in the first place? "That's not going to happen here, and it doesn't really matter."
Max didn’t ask what the guy had done, mainly because she didn’t know how to have that conversation with this stranger with the blue hair in front of her. She wanted to ask, but she didn’t know how. It was like talking with Luke lately, where she just didn’t know what the fuck to say, and she was always worried about doing more harm than good. So, she hugged her arms around her middle, and she went for practicality instead. “Enrolled here yet?”
"No," Audrey said. "I only got here a few weeks ago, I don't have the money yet." She had wanted to get her degree, sure. But at the same time, it was art - you didn't really need to have a degree to become a famous artist. She wasn't even sure that it would help, just that it was something she'd been told since she was young that she had to do. "How'd you get a job working at a paper, anyway?" It occurred to her that she had no idea whether Max had done the school thing at any point, though she doubted it.
“False college papers,” Max said, sounding unapologetic. “Got me a job at some shit online publication, and then Brandon came into town. Eligible billionaire that no one knew anything about. I bugged the shit out of him until he gave me a story, and that got a job at the Times. Been there ever since.” She didn’t add anything about the other paper, and she sure as hell didn’t mention any of the vigilante bullshit. If Audrey dug deep enough, she’d find her interest in Rorschach, Corbinian, Sentinel and the Bat easily enough in the press, but she didn’t think Audrey would do that. And if she did, well, her beginning articles had hardly been friendly to the vigilantes. “Luke goes to the local college. He can point you at the financial aid office,” she suggested. She had a feeling Luke and Audrey would get along, especially now that Luke had so much anger inside him.
"So he was a story," Audrey said. "Cute." It was almost picturesque, and no matter what Max said, nothing she'd actually seen about her relationship with Thomas seemed to warrant the way she'd talked about it, even if she was a newcomer to the whole situation. Either there was something else going on that Max wasn't talking about, or she was really missing something. "Maybe I'll ask him about it," she said, no sarcasm on that one. It would at least be something to fill her time along with the new job, and it would get her mind off of home and the things she'd left behind her. "How old is he?"
Max started to explain that it wasn’t like that, but she was starting to think her sister might be some kind of romantic, which wouldn’t be surprising. She remembered her mother that way, always trying to get the General to bring her flowers and go on dates. It hadn’t ever fucking worked, of course, and Max was still surprised the man had taken the time to get the woman pregnant twice. “I was seeing someone else until a few months ago. He found out I was pregnant and ended it.” There. That should kill any romantic notions whatsoever. Why it was important to disabuse her sister of what she, herself wanted so very fucking badly, she had no idea. It just was. Which left the other question - how old was Luke? “Under twenty,” was the best she could do there, and even that was a guess.
Audrey was far from a romantic at this stage of the game. That said, Max's account of dating two guys at once and getting pregnant by one was more interesting than she'd expected coming from her sister. "You were with two guys at the same time?" she said. "Way to be liberal with your love life, Max. The General would have an aneurysm."
"He seems sort of old to be Thomas' son," she said, which had been her first thought when Luke mentioned it to her. "And why didn't you tell me he was, by the way?"
“No. I slept with Thomas, and then I dated Copeland. It’s not all that soap opera, Audrey,” Max said, and she didn’t mention in there that she’d been in love with Thomas throughout the entire fucking thing, because that was treading on emotional territory, and that just wasn’t going to happen. The question about Luke being Thomas’ son made her pause, though. Admittedly, Max didn’t have a whole lot of clarity into that adoption. All she knew, really, came from what Worth had told her, which was that her own kid wasn’t going to get Thomas’ last name, and that (in exchange) there would be some money. She considered, for the first fucking time, really, that Luke might actually be Thomas’ kid. “Thomas is in his late thirties,” she said, distracted by numbers. “Getting someone knocked up at eighteen is hardly scandalous,” she replied, but her expression said she wasn’t sure about what she was saying. She knew there was some implication about the Brandon fortune, but- why the hell hadn’t she ever asked about this?
"You dated Copeland?" Audrey noted with amusement. "I thought he was just your 'friend.'" Airquotes on friend. "And he broke up with you because he found out you were pregnant?" She made a face. She wasn't sure exactly how to feel about that. If they hadn't been dating long, it was totally within his rights to break up with Max after finding out she was pregnant with someone else's child, but still sort of a dick move. "Classy."
"I guess I thought he was younger," Audrey said. She watched Max's face, however, and she looked unsure. "Wait, now you look as clueless as me."
“Copeland’s a good guy,” was all Max said, but there was some old hurt and history there, even in the casual, non-committal words. She shook her head immediately after. “I told you, Thomas and I don’t- I’ve never actually asked if Luke is his biological kid. He adopted him a few months back, but that’s all I know,” she said, sounding as frustrated with herself for not pursuing the possibility as she was. She didn’t explain why the hell Thomas would adopt Luke if he wasn’t his son, because that would get into dangerous territory.
"So he's adopted?" That was news. "I didn't know." Then Audrey asked the question Max didn't want to hear, though it was meant more rhetorically. At this point, she didn't expect Max to have an answer for her. "Why would Thomas adopt Luke if he doesn't know if he's his kid for sure? I mean he must, right? Unless there's another reason - did something happen to whoever raised him?"
Audrey was right, of course, and Max had to admit as much. It explained a lot; and it made Max feel a little better. She had felt a sting, admittedly, at Thomas naming someone his heir when she was already pregnant with his child. If Luke was truly his, well, that made sense, and it wasn’t a rejection (which it had felt like at the time). “Right. Like I said, I haven’t asked. Luke is important to Thomas, and I try not to get in the way of that.” Which was true, too. She cleared her throat. “I’ll be at the Crowne, at the convention center for the next three days or so.” She didn’t offer to have Audrey ‘pop in’ if she needed anything, mainly because she really didn’t want her sister popping in on her and Oracle in the middle of a mission. “If you need anything, you have my cell. Let me give you Thomas,’ too,” she said, motioning for Audrey to pull out her cellphone.
Audrey didn't press, but it was clear by her expression that she felt Max should ask, and didn't really get why she hadn't. Shouldn't finding out whether her not-boyfriend was adopting his lovechild or not be sort of high on the priorities list? "Sounds like fun," she said. "I'm going to be working and trying to fix this place up, but I'll call you if I manage to set the place on fire putting things on the wall or anything."
Audrey pulled her phone from her pocket, just a little black thing with a slide out keyboard. She'd brought it over from Musings. She'd had to get a new phone plan of course (her carrier, strangely, had no towers in Humanity) but it hadn't been a problem. "Hit me.”
Max entered Thomas’ number into the cell, and she handed it back with no additional mention of Luke, biological fathers or not-boyfriends. Instead, she motioned back toward the door. “I have to pick someone up to take to the hotel with me, so I’ll leave you in charge,” she said, motioning to the apartment and giving her old room one, last look, gaze going to the window. “And if anyone comes to that? Don’t answer. People would drop by with leads sometimes,” she said, which really meant ‘if you see any Masks at the window, don’t freak out.’”
Now that was the most interesting thing Audrey had heard all day. "So if strange men come to the window via the fire escape, don't panic, they just want to give me a scoop."
“Oh, shut the fuck up, Audrey,” Max said, grabbing her keys. “In case you hadn’t heard. I was a romantic fucking failure back home, just like I am here. Maybe they’re all just stopping by for a quickie. Point is, keep the damn window closed.”
Audrey's eyebrows went up. "Joke," she said, nodding a little, lips pressed together. "But okay. Duly noted. I won't take candy from strangers on the fire escape."
Max gave her a nod (along with a serious look that said she meant it, about the window), and then she disappeared out the door, leaving Audrey alone in the empty apartment.