Archive of Our Own ^beta

Ooohhhhhh my god, was all Max could think as she made her way back to the boys’ dorm, her posture and movements almost robotic. She was so not prepared for the absolute abuse she was about to endure from Nathan, but like what’s new? 

She paused outside of the building, taking a deep breath before she made her way to the floor. Entering the hallway, her brain short-circuited and she couldn’t move. Why the fuck did I listen to him, what am I doing here? Why didn’t I just rewind when he came in? She was so hesitant to see Nathan she physically could not move her feet. She hadn’t felt fear like this before, not like the multiple times she had had to save Chloe from the stupid shit she’d done, like shooting the bumper in the junkyard. This wasn’t just about the confusing feelings she had anymore. She fucked up.

When she tuned back in, she found herself in front of his door. She knocked lightly once before the door was thrown open and she was dragged in by the arm, and as quick as it started she found herself shoved against the door, nose to nose with Nathan as he stared into her eyes with fury.

“Nathan-“

“Why the fuck were you in my room, Caulfield?”

A few things registered immediately to her. One, her back hurt like a bitch, and the sound the door made when she was slammed against it sound like it cracked the wood. Two, Max could feel the cool metal of a knife against her neck, his hot breath on her face, and his other hand digging into her waist as she was pressed against the door. Three, she was incredibly fucking terrified.

“Answer me!”

“N-N-N-Nathan… I-I, we, um…”

Nathan narrowed his eyes further, but she could see that he was out of it. His pupils were blown and he had a wild look on his face.

“P-Please, you’re hurting me…” she whispered. His grip loosened ever slightly, but enough that she was in less pain. 

He grit his teeth and murmured, “If you don’t tell me what you were doing, you’re not leaving this room alive.”

I can believe that… fuck, what do I say?

“Nathan, c-c-can we sit down? S-So I can explain?”

He paused, staring what felt like was into her soul, before he chucked the knife on his bed, and pushed her to the couch roughly, while he stood in front of her with his arms crossed.

“S-So… Chloe knows about my powers too. A-A-And, she’s looking for Rachel-“

“Everyone knows she’s gone. She’s not coming back.”

“You don’t know that. A-Anyway, Rachel was… involved… with Frank,” Max thought she could see a flicker of sadness in his eyes, “And now Chloe thinks you’ve got something to do with it-“

“I don’t.”

“Well she doesn’t know that. You drugged Kate and the only person to get drugs from in Arcadia Bay is from Frank-“

“I didn’t fucking drug Kate! You know that!” Nathan started shouting.

“Do I?” Max stood up, making them almost touch noses. “Because I can’t name another single fucking person that would be malicious enough to do this! Look at you, you look like you’re on cocaine right now!”

“Maybe because I am!”

“Nathan, don’t you want to get better? Drugs can’t help you, they don’t care about you!"

“Well I can’t name a single fucking person that does!”

“Maybe I fucking do!” FUCK.

They both just looked at each other, breathing heavily, as Nathan tried to process what she said. 

“…What?”

Max debated rewinding, but what would she change? She didn’t want to get screamed at by him again. But truthfully, she had only known this Nathan a few days. Am I projecting the other Nathan onto this one? Time travel is so fucking confusing.

“Uh, another thing happened…”

“I thought we were meant to be in this thing together, to fight the storm. And you’re hiding shit from me?”

“Uh, to be fucking fair, it only happened, like, an hour ago. Lay off and let me explain.”

He sighed, frustrated, and dropped down next to her. He seemed to have starting to come down and was increasingly becoming agitated.

“So, yesterday, I was looking at a photo of Chloe and I from a few years ago. Weird shit started happening, and then I found myself back in that memory.”

“Wow, you time travelled, big deal.”

“Uh, yeah, it is a big deal, because this was years through a photo and I can only go back a few minutes normally. Chloe’s dad took this photo the day he was in a car crash and died. I hid the keys, but shit became so different… she was a paraplegic.”

“That doesn’t explain how you think we’re friends after like, three days.”

“You can’t say we aren’t friends, you carried me back to my room.”

“Read between the lines, who else was the dickhead principal going to blame for it?”

Ouch. “Whatever.”

“So what else was changed?”

Max grew nervous, her hands fidgeting as she stalled for an excuse, and her eyes darted around the room.

“Jesus, did you take something? Calm down.”

“Um… long story short, we were really good friends. Like, I’m-close-with-your-sister-kind of friends. You were very different.”

“You knew Kris? She didn’t ditch me for Brazil?” His expression was pitiful. His eyes dropped to his hands sitting in his lap, glassy as if he was holding back tears.

“Apparently so… I didn’t get all of the knowledge over there though, I had to learn some things… Warren got with Stella, I was in the Vortex Club, and…”

“And what?”

She sighed. No avoiding it now. “Don’t laugh, but… we were together. Like, together-together. That’s how Kristine and I were close."

She rested her face in her hands and covered her eyes, hoping she could conceal the growing blush on her face and that he heard something else.

“Sorry, what the fuck?”

Nope.

“Like, you had a panic attack over something and made me stay the night. In your bed.” She pointed to his bed, not lifting her head from her hands.

“In my bed? What did I have a panic attack over?”

Max raised her head and looked at him in disbelief. “That’s what you want to know?”

“You said you don’t know anything about the other universe apart from what happened when you were there, and I wanna know. What happened?”

“Chloe knew it was you that hit her truck and paralysed her. But, you were happier there. Less…” she didn’t want to say unstable, “…moody.”

He laughed dryly. “Moody, right. Better than psycho freak, I guess.”

She didn’t know exactly how to address that, so she moved on. “Nathan, I don’t know what’s happened in this timeline since we got back to school yesterday, and I forgot to ask Chloe. Did we do anything else?”

“No. I haven’t seen you since yesterday, and you weren’t in class either.”

“Hmm.”

They sat in silence, both contemplating what to do next.

“I think I should go now.”

“Wait.”

Max was half stood up, in some kind of crouching position but sat down again.

“Yeah?”

“Did we do anything?”

“Uhhh… no, no we didn’t.” Half a lie, she justified to herself, as it was alternate him and not actually him.

Max made to leave, but stopped and turned to face him at the door.

“Nathan?”

“Yeah?”

They made eye contact, before Max dropped it to the scratch on the carpet, and Max asked, “What did you hide behind the couch?”

“Just drugs,” he said a little too quickly as his face reddened a bit, "Are you going to the party tonight?” Nathan got up, stood next to Max and opened the door.

“I think so, yeah. I wanna see who’s won the Everyday Heroes Contest.” Max didn’t believe it was just drugs behind there. Everyone knew he abused them, why would he bother hiding?

“Don’t go,” he said, as he gently pushed her out of the door and closed it.

“What? Why?” She called, staring at the closed door.

“Because I am telling you not to go.”

“Whatever,” Max mumbled as she rolled her eyes and huffed as she left the dorm, and made her way to the bus shelter to go see Chloe.

“So, did Frank give away anything?” Max asked as she sat on Chloe’s bed, watching her pace.

“Yeah he did, now that he’s paid. He gave me the client decipher list, take a look."

In amongst the names she didn’t know were Stella as a Dachshund, Logan as a Labrador, Nathan as a Rottweiler, Justin as a Beagle and Chloe as a Bulldog. Seeing Stella’s name surprised her, but the other names didn’t.

“A bulldog?”

“Personally, I don’t see it. Prescott being a Rottweiler is fitting though. Or just rotten.”

“I suppose it is,” she started before Chloe paused in her pacing and she hastily changed the subject. “I wonder who Ms. Fancycar is."

“Probably one of the Blackhell teachers. Now, help me bring up the photo board from the backyard, so we can pin all of our clues on it.”

Lugging the heavy board up stairs, they finally sorted all the clues that they had collected from David’s “man cave”, Frank’s RV and his client list.

“Think we can do this without Nathan’s phone?” Max asked, glancing at Chloe.

“It’ll be tough… but I reckon we have enough to go off of. Let me know what you figure out and I’ll do more work on my laptop.”

Chloe headed to her desk with that final thought as Max turned to the board, starting with the client list and the book Frank kept for orders. Searching for any mention of Nathan’s dog alter, she found three, but one matched the night of the Vortex Club party that Kate had attended the previous week. She took down the non-matches and focused on another area of the board, now on David’s photos. She took down Kate’s and, recognising Nathan’s truck, the photos of a red truck that wasn’t his. Choosing the list of coordinates that matched his license plate, she scanned it for the date of the party, finding a few on the date, but none until well into the evening, when the party would be at its peak. He left his own party for this… Nathan, what are you doing?

She took the page of coordinates off the board, and brought it to Chloe.

“Check out this string of coordinates here. Where does it lead to?”

“Let’s find out.” Hitting a few keys on her keyboard, she brought up a photo of a peeling, dilapidated barn that held no memory of its former glory. “Some old barn.”

“Who owns it?”

“Uhh… some dude named Harry Aaron… Prescott,” Chloe finished, narrowing her eyes with hate.

It would be Nathan’s great fucking whatever that owns this place.

“Well, let’s go see what he’s hiding, yeah?”

“N-Now? That shit looks kinda scary.”

“Yes Max, drugging and kidnapping girls is a scary thing, but we need to make sure Rachel isn’t tangled up in it. Do it for Kate.”

“Okay… let’s go then.”

Chloe’s truck pulled up slowly as they stared up at the barn, in shock and a little bit awed. The barn stood tall amongst the pine trees, in what seemed to be the northern outskirts of the town. Hints of red from the paint that had stubbornly not yet peeled off speckled the barn in small patches, and leaves littered the ground as the air started to grow colder, in time for winter.

“Well, it looks worse in person.”

“Hmm,” Max mumbled as they exited the truck. They headed to the front doors, Chloe pushing on them. “Fuck. Couldn’t make it easy, could they?”

“No, but look,” Max said as she knelt down to touch the dirt, “Fresh tire tracks. Someone’s been here today."

“Nice eye, Max. You look for another way in and I’ll see if I can’t get this thing to open.”

Walking around the side, Max couldn’t help but start to feel resentment against Chloe. She always needs to stand around and have me go off to do the actual work. Typical Chloe, I guess. As if those stupid barn doors are going to open. If I rewind, then how are we going to get out? She won’t even stay inside, how would I get out?

Eventually, Max found some loose metal sheets, propped up against a hole on the west side. “Yo, Chloe! Come check this out!” She made a gap just large enough for them both to fit through, and ducked to get through it. Chloe followed, and they looked up and around the barn. On the inside, it looked so much larger, and calmer, as the sunlight shone down through the broken planks in the roof and illuminated the dust floating around the space. Bales of straw sat around haphazardly and the rest of the space was littered with broken farming equipment.

“Huh, I always thought the Prescotts were in the navy industry, making a fortune killing baby seals.”

“Chloe! Don’t say that, that’s so sad!”

“The Prescotts do some fucked up, sad shit. Excuse me for calling it out,” Chloe retorted sarcastically, raising her hands. “Now let’s just look around quickly, and see what they’re hiding. We don’t want to be surprised.”

“Hmph.” Chloe can be so crass.

Max supposed the reason she felt more annoyance at Chloe today is due to her growing… friendship with Nathan. She didn’t forget that he almost killed Chloe, and claims he didn’t but totally did drug Kate for some reason, but she felt remorseful, knowing how different he could be if some things didn’t happen, or some things did. Would he be happier if Kristine stayed? More stable if both siblings fought to get Nathan better treatment? It gave Max a headache to think about, but she couldn’t help it.

She looked at all of the straw sprawled on the floor of the barn, and started to clear it all to one side. It felt hopeless, like she and Chloe were looking for something that wasn’t real, until her hand brushed against cool metal. She hurried to clear it away and found herself staring at a metal trapdoor in the ground. What the fuck…

“Dude, that’s some find you have here,” Chloe laughed with shock and a little excitement. She bent down, pulling at the latch before she figured it too heavy. Max looked around for something that might be able to lift it off, then walked backwards a little bit to look at the higher levels. 

To her surprise, she saw something that would definitely be of help, tied to some rope that was wound around the hook poking off of the wooden post close to her. She wasn’t sure what it was exactly, but it looked heavy, so she grabbed the rope, untying it and wrapped it under the latch a few times, pulling at it to check the grip.

“Chloe, boost me up?” Max asked as she stood in front of the lowest platform. “You be careful up there, Max,” Chloe replied as she laced her fingers together and pushed Max’s foot up. Pulling herself up onto the platform, Max looked for something to stand on for the next higher platform, finding a large, solid box on the opposite end. Testing her weight, she tentatively stepped towards it before sighing with relief and hoped she wasn’t going to break anything by standing on it. Max pushed the box over to the edge and climbed up, finding it to be as solid as it looks and climbed up to the next platform, where the piece of farm equipment was sitting, rust not yet covering the green paint.

Thankfully, the rope was indeed tied to what looked to be the handle, so she checked the grip on it and slowly, but carefully, pushed it over the edge where the lower platform sat. The platform creaked as the weight moved, and crashed over the edge as it fell onto the other platform. To Max’s surprise, it didn’t fall right through it, but it was muffled by the elation she felt as the metal latch snapped open and let them enter.

“Shit Max, you did it! Nice! Be careful coming down!” Max slid her way down off of the platforms until she reached the ground, and made her way to Chloe who had her hand raised for a high-five. Returning it with a giggle, they opened the trapdoor, revealing concrete stairs to an underground bunker.

“Woah… I knew they were crazy, but this? This is fucking nuts,” Chloe murmured. 

“Yeah… this shit is becoming a lot.”

“Let’s see what’s down here…” Chloe said decisively, taking Max’s hand and pulling her along, down the stairs.

Arriving at a door with a large wheel on it, a small keypad to the left of it on the wall, Chloe let out a low whistle. “Fucking underground bunker-ass rich bitches. What do they have to hide?”

Max inspected the keypad closer as Chloe tried unfruitfully to turn the wheel. “Fucking open sesame, already,” Max heard her mumble. Three numbers had appeared to be worn out; two, four and five. “Hmmm,” Max poked a bit of her tongue out in concentration. “Two…” beep, “Four…” beep, “Five," ennnn.

Wrong combination. Let’s try another. Backwards, maybe?

“Five, four, two,” beep beep! The wheel spun out of Chloe’s hands, and the door unsealed and slowly turned inwards. “Damn, Max, nice job.”

“Always the tone of surprise with you,” Max replied playfully with a roll of her eyes.

Chloe pushed the door lightly, and they entered the dark bunker. Switching on a light they found a small room that leads to another, that led to another larger room, complete with a small desk and white backdrop.

“A… photography room?” Chloe looked at Max with confusion.

“They call it a darkroom, where old camera rolls would be developed and printed. Considering where this room is… I’d say it fits here as well.” Max wandered up to the bench at what looked like a makeshift kitchen while Chloe looked at the shelves back in the first room.

“Oh my god, this literally is an underground bunker. We haven’t had a tornado in Arcadia Bay like… ever! Do you reckon they know about the storm that’s meant to be coming tomorrow?”

“They’re doing something…” Max murmured with wide eyes as she picked up a plastic bottle labeled “Chloroform”, “Chloe, look at this.”

Chloe peeked over her shoulder, then swore. “Oh my god.” 

With panic in their step, they entered the darkroom again, Max searching the cupboards and Chloe going for the computer left open. She gasped loudly, and Max glanced out of the corner of her eye as she started opening the cupboard closest to the desk, then turned her full attention when she saw it.

Kate, dazed and confused, bound by her hands and feet, and leaning up against the white background. Chloe flicked to the next photo, which depicted Kate’s eyes glazed over as she held her hands almost in a praying position as she lay on her side. Max felt her eyes tear up as she whispered Kate’s name.