InsaneJournal

20 Dollar Nose Bleed
Who: Audrey & Max
What: Max takes a beating and Audrey patches him up.
Where: [ where ever Audrey works ]
When: 10:36 pm
Warnings: TBA


The day had slowly gone from bad to worse, and as Max waited in the lobby of the hospital center where the police had dropped him off, he reflected on the events that had brought him to this point.

He'd had an evening class at five that went until seven, the latest in the day he could get for that particular computer programming class that was so damned essential to his degree and graduation. As was usual, he had difficulty keeping his eyes open throughout all of the class, finally succumbing to sleep when there were only forty five minutes left on the clock. Apparently neither his fellow students nor his professor had seen fit to attempt to wake him once the lesson was over (perhaps they found his strange brand of narcolepsy offending, or maybe he'd started snoring) and instead a janitor who barely spoke three words of English had been kind enough to shake him awake when turning on the lights didn't do it. It was already three hours past the end of his class at that point, and his bus' scheduled route was well past gone, so he opted to try walking back to the apartment building.

That right there was probably his mistake - instead of calling his sister for a ride that she would have certainly given him, instead of splurging on a cab or figuring out another bus route, he decided to save a little money and earn a little exercise by walking the few miles back to where he lived. Of course, it was already well dark out, but Max had never had any fear of the dark or the imaginary things that might lurk within it. He'd always been awake during those hours, and never was he given any special reason to adopt a sudden dislike of the night. So after popping his earbuds into his ears and letting some music lend him the energy to start walking, Max was focused on the GPS in his phone that was directing him back to Pax Letale. The soft glow of the screen probably alerted the muggers to his presence, or if not that, certainly drew their attention.

He didn't hear them coming, his ears instead full of Pendulum's Hold Your Color; they must have been shouting at him for some time, because the first thing Max noticed about them at all was the fist that came flying toward his face. Another one grabbed his cell phone out of his hand, wrenching it and the earbuds away from his possession; then his backpack was gone, and he was on the ground, being kicked. The blows stopped only when the wail of a siren broke through the sound of scuffling shoes and his grunts of pain.

Police Officer Bruce was polite enough. He took Max's statement and list of belongings that was in his backpack (his 3DS, a MacBook Air for note taking, as well as his wallet and cell phone), and then had kindly given him a ride to the nearest hospital. Max took no note of where he was, instead pinching his nose and keeping his head knocked back to stop the blood that had been slowly pouring down his face after the first punch. He was pretty sure it was broken, and his chest felt like it had run up against a brick wall, but he was able to make it to a seat amidst the hustle and bustle of the hospital lobby. Then he realized that he ought to check in, tell them that he needed to be seen, and maybe use their phone so he could call Lily. She was probably worried sick that he hadn't come home and that she couldn't reach him on his cell phone. And she had been - first there had been promises of reprimand, comments and questions of "what were you thinking, how could you be so stupid", and finally quiet words of relief that he was in one piece and that she'd be there soon to pick him up.

That taken care of, he was told to take a seat after all; despite the late hour, there were more than enough injuries to go around, and it seemed that the staff were stretched a little thin. Leaning back in his chair with a wad of tissues pressed to his face, Max was more than content to just sit and wait, either for a nurse or for his frantic sister.