OOM and EP: Max Caulfield

[little_pieces_of_time]

(OOM: (Needing to have reality confirmed and experience enhanced by photographs is an aesthetic consumerism to which everyone is now addicted. Industrial societies turn their citizens into image-junkies; it is the most irresistible form of mental pollution.)

Breaking the early morning quiet of the bar, Max Caulfield stumbled backwards through the door, the impact sending the door swinging open to bounce off the wall behind it. Beyond its frame is a trashed dorm room, clothes and books strewn across the floor and with angry red graffiti scrawled across a photo collage wall over a twin bed.

With shaking hands, Max grabbed the door and shut it firmly, leaning against its solidity to brace against the dizziness that threatens to overwhelm her and trying like mad to regulate her shallow, frantic breaths into something that will calm her racing heart.

[oom content warnings include bullying, depression, reference to potential sexual assault, terroristic threatening]

Comments

[old_monster]

"That sounds not so unusual," Ye Baiyi says. "Rich people will always try and cause leverage for their children; it usually does them more harm than good. The mindset it causes is very damaging: I can do no wrong because dad will always make things right. Martial arts masters won't accept such disciples if they can at all afford it."

[little_pieces_of_time]

"I wish Principal Wells felt like he could afford to let Nathan go," she mutters. "Yesterday I literally heard Nathan talking to himself, remarking that he owned thr school and could blow it up if he wanted, and no one could touch him."

Max pauses. "That was right before he threatened to kill my friend Chloe."

Nathan is just bad news all over. She would feel so much safer if he weren't around. In the last day or so, Blackwell has gained a definitely ominous feeling about it.

[old_monster]

"It must be terrible for your school's leader to not be the master in his own place," Ye Baiyi muses. "There must always be compromises, of course, but no martial arts sect leader of my world would stand for a little master like that running amuck and ruining the reputation of the school. That must come first!"

[little_pieces_of_time]

"It should," she agrees, shaking herself a little. The after-affects of the panic attack earlier are still there. "I just don't know what I can do to make things better, except be there for my friends."

That's all on top of visions of tornadic doom, of course, but sometimes you have to focus on the problems right in front of you first.

"D-do you mind if we sit? I'm still a little dizzy."

[old_monster]

"Of course," Ye Baiyi said. "Would you like something to eat to settle yourself? I don't know, perhaps an apple?"

[little_pieces_of_time]

"An apple would be perfect," she replies, relieved. "It's been forever since I've had a panic attack, but I try to usually keep a banana or clementine in my bag with me, just in case."

Some small hand-fruit for the post adrenaline crash.

[old_monster]

Ye Baiyi got one from the bar, and handed it to her. It was small, sightly elderly, red-cheeked, and very, very sweet; the condensed idea of an apple in winter.

[little_pieces_of_time]

Max follows Ye Baiyi to the bar, taking a seat on one of the bar stools. "Thank you," she says, accepting the offered apple.

"Panic attacks are so frustrating," Max remarks, shaking her head before taking a bite. The apple is so very sweet - she doesn't know what kind it is, but it is delicious. "You're just going along, little things start to build up, and then Surprise! Everything is happening all at once and it's too much, and you freak out."

[old_monster]

"No, that's no fun," Ye Baiyi says. "Learning martial arts might help, though."

That's Ye Baiyi for you -- if in doubt, beat it up with a big sword.

[little_pieces_of_time]

Max glances at Ye Baiyi. She's not saying she's doubting what he said, but she isn't not saying it, either.

"How could martial arts help?"

[old_monster]

"One, you learn to calm your mind," Ye Baiyi says. "That is the basis. Two, it is extremely calming in and of itself if you know you can beat them to a pulp in under ten moves."

[little_pieces_of_time]

That second point catches Max unprepared, and she giggles into the last of her tea. "Okay, I can see how that could help."

The feeling of being powerless to help her friends who are hurting or afraid, that is one of the many things she wishes she could change about herself.

[old_monster]

"It helps a lot," Ye Baiyi assures her. "I would offer to teach you, but that problem schoolmate sounds as if he would have stabbed himself in the foot with a rusty blade several times before you have learned enough to do it for him."

[little_pieces_of_time]

"It'd... be nice if he thought twice about it or got cold feet and stopped being so awful, but I don't know if that'll happen on its own," she admits. "If..."

Max hesitates. It's a lot to consider, and scary to think about. She covers her thoughts by taking another bite of the apple.

"If... he's done what I think he's done, Chloe and I need to find out how he's doing it, and get proof, so it's not just some stupid teenagers talking shit about someone they don't like."

[old_monster]

"Yes, sounds complicated," Ye Baiyi says.

Hitting somebody with a sword until they stop is much easier.

"Don't you have cameras that can catch him doing it?"

As to offer some sort of helpful suggestion, maybe?

[little_pieces_of_time]

Max winced. "Ironically not. The head of campus security is trying really hard to get to put up security cameras all over campus. There's a student petition to keep him from doing it, too."

She can understand the good intentions of both sides.

"The closest... we have to proof is the... video of Kate's uncharacteristic behavior at the last Vortex Club party, Kate's story of what she remembers from that night, and... some remarks I overheard from Victoria, who is close with Nathan. Nothing solid.

[old_monster]

"He poisoned her to make her do something she didn't want to?" Ye Baiyi guesses.

[little_pieces_of_time]

Max's cheeks color faintly, with guilt. Kate's privacy has already been so compromised; Max knows she isn't any better, really, but the need to be able to tell someone, and be believed and taken seriously is too strong.

"I-I think Nathan drugged Kate's drink. She... has no memory of the things she did on the video, or m-much of anything after that until she woke up at her dorm room the next morning."

"And... Chloe also had a run-in with him putting something in her drink, but she was able to get away."

Max never considered she would be glad of Chloe's increased tolerance to mind-altering substances, but she is.

[old_monster]

"You would want to make him drink his own concoction," Ye Baiyi muses.

[little_pieces_of_time]

"That's an idea," she admits. "It might scare him enough to stop. And there's another Vortex Club party l-later this week..."

[old_monster]

"Dare him," Ye Baiyi says. "Mock him aloud. Don't just scare him, make him drink it and suffer."

[little_pieces_of_time]

Max face, already subject to a blush, reddens further.

"I don't know if I could do that. I'm... not that bold."

Though, if she could stop time and switch his drink for the drugged one without him knowing? That is tempting.

[old_monster]

"Then do it frightened," Ye Baiyi says. "Obvious genuine fear can move a lot, too."

[little_pieces_of_time]

"If I do that, will you be on the other side of the door with tea and an apple when I meltdown after?" Absolutely sidestepping the question whether she would actually be able to do as he suggests.

[old_monster]

"Of course I will," Ya Baiyi says. "Taking me with you to shake the truth out of that horrid Little Master will not be an option, I guess?"