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]

"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?"

[little_pieces_of_time]

Max manages a true smile, glancing his way with blue eyes. "I won't pretend it's not tempting. But I-I am trying to do things the... right way. Figure out the details, get proof, bring that to the authorities, and stop him in a way his father can't pay lawyers enough to make go away. It means keeping an eye out for unintended consequences."

"And as enjoyable as the mental image is, I don't know just how 'Nathan Prescott Eats Six Flavors of Sidewalk at the Hands of a Martial Arts Master' would shake out."

If everything is connected - Nathan, Chloe, Kate, Rachel, the storm - she wants to find the right path through the whirlwind of confusion.

[old_monster]

"I like that image, of feeding somebody six different flavours off the pavement," Ye Baiyi says. "Dog shit, horse shit, rotten vegetables, spilled wine, chamber pots and spit?"

He can be mean. And crude, at times.

[little_pieces_of_time]

Max laughs. "Oh, that'd be terrible."

In a good way.

Her smile softens a little, turning a little sad. "I mean, if it turns out Nathan also had something to do with Rachel Amber's disappearance, I'd have to tell Justin and Trevor. They swore that if anyone had hurt her, they'd to go after them with their 'boards."

Max can only imagine those wheels would hurt.

[old_monster]

"If your martial arts are good, then you can afford to be as terrible as you want," Ye Baiyi grins. "What kinds of weapons are boards, though?"

Yes, planks of wood, that is a given. But she said it differently.

[little_pieces_of_time]

"Ah, they're skateboards," she replies, moving her hands to illustrate. "About this wide, this long, with four small wheels on one side. Justin and other skater-boys ride them and can do tricks on them."

She may have (absolutely has) a photo in her bag of Trevor on the ground, having just hit himself in the crotch with his board while trying to do a treflip.

[old_monster]

"Like the cultivators that are rumoured to be able to ride their swords?" Ye Baiyi asks.

[little_pieces_of_time]

"Yes! Just like that," she smiles. Max has seen them fly on their swords and thinks it's kind of amazing. "Just with wheels, and on the ground."

And about as wide as a saber instead of a sword.

"Sometimes kids as young as five or six learn to skate. I keep thinking skateboards might be an option for the youngest cultivators to hone their balance before they're ready for flying swords."

[old_monster]

"They start training when they are very little," Ye Baiyi nods. "It's amazing what even little kids can learn! I only ever had one disciple, but he was brilliant."

[little_pieces_of_time]

Max smiles at him. "A great teacher can make all the difference in the world in inspiring students to want to learn."

She is sure he'd be a great teacher.

"We're... really lucky at Blackwell - my school - that we have Mark Jefferson to teach the photography courses. He's famous enough that he could have his photos in any gallery he'd want, but I guess he wanted to teach instead."

It's nice to imagine the high end galleries' teeth grinding in frustration, having Mark Jefferson lost to some little nowhere town in coastal Oregon.

[old_monster]

"So he is your master, and you are his disciples?" Ye Baiyi asks. "So you aim to be a great artist just like him?"

[little_pieces_of_time]

Max ducks her head, smiling as he cheeks color faintly. "I've heard that comparison before, and it's pretty accurate. I didn't exactly sleep outside his door until he caved and let me study under him, but I'm pretty sure he was the deciding factor in me getting the photography scholarship to attend Blackwell in the first place. I would love to be a famous artist like him, one day."

"He... says I have a gift." It sounds inspiring when he says it, anyway. "I just need to b-be brave enough to share it."

[old_monster]

"Famous, or great?" Ye Baiyi asks. "Which is more important?"

[little_pieces_of_time]

Max grins at him. "Great, of course. But fame certainly doesn't hurt."

They go hand-in-hand.

[old_monster]

"May I look at some of our work?" Ye Baiyi asks.

[little_pieces_of_time]

Max's grin freezes as she hesitates, her gaze slipping away and down towards the bar counter. That's the part of photography she has difficulty with, the sharing of her work. It's an integral part. Letting others see your photos is the only way to become known for your photography.

"Um." she says, eventually, pretending she doesn't absolutely look like someone being asked if they'd like to be beaten. "Y-you could. I... don't have them here with me, though. They're i-in my bag, back in my room."

Through the door. Which she will have to go back through eventually, she knows. She needs to clean up the mess before she goes to meet Chloe for breakfast anyway. It's just upsetting.

[old_monster]

"You don't have any copies on the little machine all people from your time seem to carry for games and work and talking to people?" Ye Baiyi says.

[little_pieces_of_time]

"Oh! Oh yes, I-" Max starts, her hands finding her pockets but not her phone. She checks again. "I-"

A chill runs through her. Max hadn't taken her phone with her to the shower, of course, but she hadn't thought to pick it up when she ducked into her room to grab Kate's book, either.

"Damn it," Max gets to get feet, genuinely angry on top of her anxiety. "They had better not have messed with my phone. It was in my room. Hang on."

As much as she dreaded opening that door again, she does so without hesitation. The threat is still there, blazoned in red across the wall of her beloved photos. Insults, less impactful, are scrawled across the nearby mirror. Max ignores them. She doesn't hesitate to step across crumpled papers and strewn books to cross the floor to check the bedside table.

[old_monster]

"That looks terrible," Ye Baiyi says. "Are you certain you don't want me to beat them up a little? As a treat?"

He smirks.

"Nobody will believe them that suddenly a sword immortal in white came down upon them and smote them, not even using his sword."