~!~ cherry chan ~!~ (seresa) wrote in remains_rpg, @ 2016-10-27 08:18:00 |
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Entry tags: | # 2019 [10] october, cherry chan, max mendelson |
Who: Cherry Chan and Max Mendelson.
Where: Their separate quarantine rooms. So close and yet so far.
What: Testing the waters and mendings the fences through a phone call, in which Cherry confides some of her worries.
When: Backdated to 10/3
Max watched the credits roll on “The Great Muppet Caper” for the second time today before he turned the television off with loud sigh. Even though he was becoming more and more optimistic that he wouldn’t develop a hankering for brains as each day in quarantine ticked by, it didn’t mean he wasn’t bored out of his skull. Of course he was thankful for every amenity he was allowed; heck, his room here was the Waldorf Astoria compared to the conditions he lived in while he was staying at the UMCB all those years ago. Still, he missed his family. He missed talking with people at work. He missed shooting the crap with his friends. And he missed Cherry. Max had always been clueless when it came to reading women, Cherry in particular, and both of them being stuck in quarantine hadn’t improved this ability by any stretch of the imagination. She had just been so angry when they first arrived that Max hadn’t known what to do or say to make it better. Still, with each passing day she seemed to thaw slightly. The more likely it was that they’d both get out of this place all in one piece the more her opinion of him seemed to improve. Not being able to stomach popping in another one of the five DVD’s he’d been given, he picked up his phone. He didn’t want to press his luck by annoying Cherry too much but he was itching to hear her voice. He dialed. “Would you say that me knowing most, if not all of the dialogue of ‘The Great Muppet Caper’ is turn on or a turn off?” He flushed pink around the ears; he’s still not used to his flirting being received in a positive manner but he can’t deny that being with Cherry had done wonders for both his romantic overtures and his self confidence. Max knew he couldn’t expect her to be happy to hear from him but he hoped that leading with a joke might make her warm to him a little bit at least. "It depends." Her own television was paused on a totally unflattering shot of Veronica Mars -- when it came to quarantine entertainment, most of her random DVDs totally beat Max's, but her books left something to be desired -- but she was happy to lie back on her bed, phone tucked under her head as they talked. She'd already watched the episodes five times over by this point, anyway, and despite how mad she was still that he was even in this place with her, she was grateful for the virtual company. "Because if you're going to be quoting it in completely random scenarios, especially sexy kinds of scenarios where you're inside me, that's definitely a turn off. If it's just a fun fact you kind of whip out occasionally, or when it's appropriate or relevant, that's not so bad. It would speak to your good memory." All in all, Cherry thought that was pretty reasonable and fair. It wasn't a total shut down, but hopefully encouraging all the same. “Uh,” Max replied, pleasantly flustered. “It was definitely in the more general sense. I may just be getting the hang of this between the sheets business but even I know that quoting Fozzie and Kermit isn’t anybody’s idea of dirty talk. Besides, when we’re together, I can barely remember my own name it feels so good, let alone anything else.” Max’s face blushed fully red with this admission but that was par for the course. He and Cherry had been hanging out for several months but his heart still raced and his face went scarlet whenever he heard her voice. He just wished they could be talk in person. He knew they were several days from that and from gaining her good favor back as well. But every time she picked up her phone when he called,or texted him back it was a step in the right direction. Maybe, hopefully, eventually, he’d be forgiven for what he’d done at the duplex but he knew it would take time. But, if anyone knew the value of taking things slow, it was Max. "That is all completely, absolutely fair. Then again… Unless that was the point," Cherry allowed after a moment, unable to resist messing with him despite the strange sort of truce they'd developed during their joint stint in quarantine. It was mainly because of her inability to deflate the irritation she'd built up the day they'd both checked in, of course, but missing him didn't mean all that went away. Poking fun at him, gently as this was, did sort of help. "Maybe it was some kind of muppet role play. Or, you know… maybe not." “Definitely not,” Max replied with an inward cringe, though he did allow himself to chuckle. Even if he was a novice in all things sex, he wasn’t opposed to the idea of expanding his horizons. The idea of roleplay was actually sort of intriguing and exciting but even he had his limits in terms of what kinds of characters were sexy and what ones were simply silly. He continued. “So, what are you up to?” In any other situation it would have been an innocuous question but in quarantine it could be a loaded one. There was never anything new to do when you were locked up all by yourself. She stretched out on the bed and tucked one hand under her head as she thought about how to respond. There was the surface level answer -- 'watching DVDs I've already seen a thousand times by this point' -- and then there was everything else she was thinking besides that. Even the thought of weird muppet role play sex wasn't enough to entirely distract her from everything on her mind. It would've been easier to talk about the regular stuff, but she somehow found herself diving into the deep end, so to speak. "Do you think immunity runs in the family? I guess no one's ever studied it, not that I've seen, anyway. Maybe once we get hooked up to the Internet we'll be able to search for that kind of stuff." What she wasn't saying was that she couldn't stop wondering if she'd made a mistake, leaving her family when she'd found them in the state they'd been in. Maybe they'd been immune after all and she'd left them for dead. “Hmm.” Max pondered Cherry’s question. “You’d think someone smart would jump on that and investigate. It’s something relevant and important to a lot of people out there.” Max’s inner musings turned to Zhenya. She hadn’t been immune. Did the same vulnerability run through Sasha’s veins? His thoughts strayed to Mina. She’d been bitten but as far as Max knew her father hadn’t ever been. If she turned out to be okay was the chief of police free and clear? It was too early to be definite about his own immunity but if he did walk out of quarantine with a clear bill of health, did that mean that his sister, if she was still alive somewhere, was immune as well? “I mean, we get so many things from our parents. I have my mother’s eyes. Ma always said my sister had our dad’s schnoz. At the end of the day I think it's more or less a genetic crapshoot.” He paused. There was something unspoken underneath Cherry’s question but in typical Max fashion he couldn’t immediately make it out. “Maybe you should be the one to study it. Like, sort of an extension on the profiles you’ve been doing. Do a piece on a whole family and see how immunity, or lack thereof, affects the family unit. Unless…” He drifted off. He felt as if he missed something. “Unless you’re thinking more specific? Tell me what you’re thinking, babe.” "I'm no medical researcher," Cherry said, though her thoughts shifted over to Dani and whether she or someone she knew could look into something like that. If someone else could handle the actual science behind it, the question of just how immunity worked was definitely something worth reporting. And if the rest of the United States didn't know how it worked… This was a good enough distraction, actually, and a part of her considered rolling with it for as long as she could, trying to trick Max into getting distracted from his original question. "But it's something we need to figure out," she began, playing with the bedsheet with her free hand. "After I get out of this, I'll see if there's someone up north or here who could help me look into it." Except the words 'up north' made her think of home, a place with people she'd never see again, and she shook her head. "I just wonder if my family's immune. You're right, it's probably some kind of genetic crapshoot, but… If I'm immune, it didn't come out of nowhere. At least one of them's probably still alive." What did it matter, though, if she'd never be able to see or get in touch with them? Max didn’t know what to say. He wanted to comfort Cherry but he knew there was no right answer to this line of questioning. Either her family was gone, like she originally thought, or they were alive and she had left them without knowing for sure. Neither conclusion would likely bring Cherry any closure, or hope. Max only knew what was true and he led with that. He knew it wasn’t enough but he didn’t have any other option. “One day soon our department is going to be able to connect Austin back with to the rest of the country,” he started. Max wished he could do this in person. He would be able to take Cherry’s hand and squeeze it, or press a kiss to her brow. To bring her comfort, any comfort, would mean the world to him. “And maybe then, if you’re ready, you could start looking for information about them. Or we could, if you wanted. But only when, and if, you’re ready.” "I think I'd like that." Cherry hadn't been sure until she said the words out loud, but hearing them was confirmation: she needed to know. And if the government didn't have any information about them -- a possibility she was open to, considering what had happened to Michigan -- at least she'd know she had tried. She was grateful for the suggestion. Max fell quiet for a moment. It wasn’t any wonder that Cherry was pondering heavy concepts while in quarantine (Max himself had done his fair share of profound reflection) but Max wondered what exactly besides the isolation had brought upon this train of thought. “You’re thinking deep thoughts today, Cherry Chan. I’m not sure I’m smart enough to keep up with you. You okay over there?” She hadn't wanted herself to get distracted from deflecting him away from what was bothering her, but apparently he'd been too good at listening -- and even worse, thinking critically about what he was hearing. Max was too smart for her, she was sure of it. "I'm okay," she said after a moment's silence, punctuating the sentence with a deep sigh that contradicted her words. "I'm just worried. About me, about you, about Mina…. She hasn't been answering her phone over the last couple of days, and it's really weirding me out. We were talking on the phone ever since she got in on the sixth, and now nothing. We've been texting, but it's not the same, and if she isn't uninterested in talking altogether it makes me think she's hiding something. Mina never does anything unless she's got purpose behind it, you know?" Max took in an audible, deep intake of breath and let it out slowly, pondering Cherry’s concern. There was a small, scared part of him that was still absolutely convinced he’d never get out of quarantine but that fear was getting smaller and smaller as the days went on. If he and Cherry made it this far without showing symptoms, logically, the statistics were with them. It was Cherry’s worry about Mina that made Max pause. If Cherry thought Mina was hiding something, Max believed her. She had great instincts (not knowing her college roommate had been in love with her for ten years aside) and knew Mina better than probably anyone so if her gut instinct was telling her that something was wrong, Max knew it wasn’t something to be taken lightly. “That does sound weird,” Max agreed reluctantly, biting his thumbnail. Max knew he and Mina still had a long way to go in repairing the relationship he had cracked into pieces but what he did know about her is that she put everyone else’s needs miles before her own. So if she was pulling back from Cherry, the person she cared about most in the world besides her immediate family, she was doing it to protect Cherry from something. There was no way she was withholding out of spite, or self-preservation. She was thinking about others and that made Max worry more than anything. “But not unlike her. I think that...I think that she’s scared. Like we all are, but with Mina, she wouldn’t want to let you know. She’d want to protect you from that. But the great thing about you is that you have this innate ability to make people feel warm and loved and wanted. I think if you keep at it, keep talking to Mina and telling her how awesome she is and how much you miss her, it will help, even if doesn’t want to talk or isn’t ready to confide in you just yet.” Max wasn’t stupid. The elephant in the room was obvious, even if he didn’t have it in his heart to voice it aloud. He knew that Cherry was worried that Mina was sick; that she was hiding her ailing health in all the words she wouldn’t say to her best friend. His heart broke for them both and Max prayed that Mina would be proven immune -- that they all would be -- and this place would fade into distant memory like some bad dream. "You know, I get all of that. Really, I do. Except I think it's bullshit. She's not protecting me from anything, she's just stressing me out." She wasn't lying, either; everything Max was saying did make sense, and it did sound an awful lot like Mina, but it seemed all kinds of unfair no matter how Cherry tried to look at it. "Mina's not dumb, she knows that something like this would worry me, and it's not as though I've said as much in all the texts I've sent her." Despite her words, though, her tone was more upset than angry. There was only one thing that Cherry could think that Mina would be hiding from her -- well, besides the fact that her college roommate had been in love with her for ten years. "If she converts and becomes one of those things without even giving me the chance to say goodbye or to say anything..." God, she'd been stressing over this for three days, and she wasn't anywhere closer to figuring out what the real problem is. She'd just ended up resigning herself to Mina's impending doom, just like she was still convinced Max was going to croak even though he'd gotten to the halfway point of his own quarantine. And as she kept talking, the words kept spilling out. "I'm her best friend and she won't let me be there for her. I tell her all that stuff you said, and it's not doing anything. She's the closest thing to family that I have and I've been trying and I can't just keep giving when all I get is nothing in return." Max listened in pensive silence, letting Cherry’s words wash over him. He felt helpless; nothing he could say or do could make it easier for her to weather this storm. Unless he could convince Mina to talk to Cherry, which he knew he couldn’t, he very much doubted there was much he could say that would bring Cherry any comfort. But listening to her, hearing the words meant for Mina, being there for Cherry as Cherry wanted to be there for best friend was the only thing Max could think to do. “But you will keep giving,” Max said finally. It was a quiet answer, and not a very good one at that. He knew it wasn’t what Cherry wanted to hear, and probably wasn’t soothing in the least, but he knew that was the only choice she had. “That’s how it is with family. Even when you don’t think you can give anymore, or they’re pissing you off so much that you don’t even want to, you keep giving. Because they’re family and you love them. And even though you’re scared and you’re feeling like what you’re trying to say is falling on deaf ears and that you’re being taken advantage of, eventually Mina will thank you for it. And even if she doesn’t, you’ll know you’ve done all you could. Because that’s what you do, Cherry. You give and give and give until it hurts. That’s just who you are. And that’s where I come in. I’m here to hold you up when it gets to be too much. Bear some of the load and take some of that huge burden off your shoulders. Even if it’s over the phone, I am always here for you.” He smiled even though Cherry couldn’t see it. “At the very least we could facetime and I could let you watch some of my movies so you don’t have to subject yourself to Veronica Mars for the upteenth time.” She took a deep breath, running a hand through her hair as she let the conversation lapse into a brief, tense sort of silence. At least, it felt tense to her, anyway -- she couldn't get the idea of Mina's imminent death out of her head, and thinking about how betrayed she felt by the lack of information regarding said imminent death wasn't helping. She couldn't lose Mina again, just like she couldn't lose Max, and even though both of them had hit the first half of quarantine without turning into a zombie she couldn't bear to think of the slim possibility that they wouldn't be able to get out of quarantine alive. Still, Max was trying for her, just like she was trying for Mina, too. Cherry gave one last sigh, then forced a smile even if it was solely for her own benefit. "We can do that. And Max… Thank you. That really means a lot. You know that, right?" “Anything for you,” Max replied with feeling. It didn’t feel like he was doing much for Cherry at all but if she said it did, he believed her. The only true fix was all of them getting out of this place alive. If (no, when) they got out of here, Max would do anything and everything in his power to make Cherry feel good again. But, in the meantime, he had a few options to pass the time. Max said as he stood up. He rifled through his tiny DVD stack until he found the one he was looking for and placed it in the player. He switched the view on his phone to facetime and smiled brightly as Cherry’s beautiful face filled his screen. Max resisted the urge to kiss it. “Hey there, pretty lady,” he said softly. He stared at her for a moment, savoring the sight, before switching from the selfie view to focus on the television screen in front of him. “Let me set the scene for you. The year? 1989. The place? San Dimas, California. High school students Bill S. Preston, esquire and Ted Theodore Logan have a dream together of starting their own rock and roll band called the Wyld Stallyns but that dream is put in jeopardy when they are on the verge of failing out of school. Little do they know, a man from the future named Rufus is looking out for them and has a super great plan to help them pass class…” |