InsaneJournal

Why don’t we start with taking shots of you
Who: Max and Chloe
What: They've moved in together
When: 1/15
Where: New apartment
Status: Complete
Rating: PG-13 for language



Moving out was going to be surprisingly easy. It was almost like Max’s parents were pushing her out. Telling her to spread her wings and fly. Or maybe they just were tired of her waking up screaming. She didn’t sleep well. The dreams had stopped but the nightmares hadn’t. If anything, they’d gotten worse. The only time she got a good night’s sleep was when she fell asleep next to Chloe on the couch or something.

There wasn’t as much ‘or something’ as she’d like, either, but intimacy made her nervous, though that wasn’t Chloe’s fault.

“Well, we got a bed, a couch we found on a street corner, a PS4 and a nice tv. We have our priorities straight.” They’d even gotten a place with a second bathroom that Max could turn into a darkroom. A real one and not a creepy stalkerrapist one.

Chloe grinned, giving Max the horns out of solidarity and delight. Or something. “Hell yeah we do. Even got you a guitar so you can serenade me and shit. How come you got all the talent?”

“I sucked it out of your brain when we were in middle school,” Max retorted. She grabbed Chloe’s hand and pulled her over to the couch. “What should we put on that wall.” She let go and used her hands to make a frame to peer through.

“That’s what happened to my grades,” Chloe quipped. She sprawled out on the couch, looking up at it from underneath. “Maybe your photo mosaic thing from your dorm in the dreams. That was cool as shit.”

“Yeah?” Max turned to look at Chloe. “Maybe with new pictures. But I kind of have a lot of the photos from my dreams. I got my journal and scrap book.” She rubbed her neck. “Alternately I might burn them.”

“Yeah, new pictures. That dream place was a shithole, the less we think about it the better.” Chloe sat up to wrap her arms around Max’s waist, kissing her stomach.

Max rested her fingers on the top of Chloe’s head, then started to scrunch them through her hair. She immediately relaxed. Chloe was her everything. Chloe made everything okay. “We can build a life here.”

“The one we didn’t get in our dreams, yeah. Fucking Arcadia Bay.” Chloe sighed. “I wish I could find the Rachel I knew here, though. Like. I don’t want to think she’s dead, I can’t, but ... she hasn’t reached out so I don’t know.”

Max slid to her knees next to the couch. “We could...do that tip. About the junk yard.” She took Chloe’s hand. “Might be better than going to look ourselves.” She knew how much Rachel meant to Chloe. And Chloe’s happiness meant everything to her even if it was with Rachel and not her. “If she’s not there, it means she’s okay somewhere, and we’ll find her.”
Chloe shook her head. “I don’t know if I could take it. If she was. I’m just assuming at this point she hit it big and moved to like, Amsterdam or something.”

Max decided not to point out that they might have heard something about that. Or that her own Google searches had turned up no news after Rachel had left Arcadia Bay. But Chloe was in denial and maybe it wasn’t her place to show her elsewise. Chloe had to be willing to seek the truth, herself. “Maybe…”

Pulling Max closer, Chloe smiled. “Really, I’m ... I don’t know. I just have to hope that this universe is better than the other one, so here you and I get to be together without sacrificing a whole town, and Rachel gets to be famous without dying. You know?”

“I know. No weird visions of storms hitting the OC though. And I’ haven’t messed around with time as much as I could have. So I think we’re okay.” Not that she hadn’t thought about what she’d do if she had the same choice here. OC was much bigger than Arcadia Bay. A lot more people could get hurt.

Chloe closed her eyes and nodded. She’d pull for Max to sacrifice just her if the same thing happened, but she hoped it wouldn’t. Besides, living in fear was no way to live; she tried to inhabit the Now. “I like being okay. We should get started on your new pictures, though. Gotta get you an exhibition.”

“Why don’t we start with taking shots of you,” Max replied. “Shaka brah.”

Wincing, Chloe laughed and leaned back. “If you wanna, you little perv.”

Max stuck her tongue out at Chloe, then ran to get her camera.