Life is Strange Ficlets

Things had been super weird since their talk in the photography room. Once Victoria dropped her bullshit, she fell apart for a few minutes to confess what Max guessed resembled the truth. Victoria liked her. She wanted to take responsibility for her own feelings and get over it. Max thought that was very mature.

And, well, it was starting to make things weird. Victoria was obviously uncomfortable with Max (and, apparently, Dana) knowing. At the very least, she was uncomfortable with the risk of exposure for her dirty little secret, because she’s stopped being mean to Max and Dana around campus.

Almost.

It seemed like Victoria was stuck in her old cycle, and it always took her a second to realize how the scales had changed. More than once in photography Victoria had turned to Max after she’d given an incorrect or dismissive answer, only to freeze, stare at Max awkwardly for a moment, and look away.

Well, from what Max could tell, it was an improvement, and nobody really seemed to notice.
Not until Victoria approached while she was talking to Kate.

It was the normal gang: Vic, Taylor, and Courtney, emerging from the main classroom hall’s girls’ bathroom while Max and Kate talked in front of the trophy case. As they passed by, Victoria let out a, “Hey losers,” not even pausing to create a formidable wall.

Except, unlike normal, Max replied, “Oh hey Vic.”
And that made her stop in her tracks, Taylor and Courtney taking a step ahead before they realized she’d stopped, and they all pivoted to look back at Max. Courtney put on a glare for Max and Kate’s sake, but Taylor just looked at Victoria, unimpressed.

“Oh.” Victoria said, as if she suddenly realized who she was talking to. “Right. Sorry.”
And though Courtney and Taylor visibly recoiled from the unexpected apology, Victoria just turned again and kept walking.

“What was that about?” Kate asked as she turned back towards Max, brushing some of the renegade strands of her hair behind her ear.

“I have no idea,” Max lied. If Kate didn’t believe it, she made no sign of it, and those two continued on.

Unfortunately, those five hadn’t been alone in the hallway. Victoria had tread on treacherous ground, and she’d slipped. At the other corner of the intersection, Brooke and Juliet stood discussing something over Brooke’s tablet, though their focus evaporated as soon as Max called back to Victoria. Victoria and her posse hadn’t noticed them, and Max didn’t even recognize the danger of them being there until later.

“Later” being that night, when Max was laying off the edge of Dana’s bed, scrolling through her phone while Dana sat far more comfortably against the wall, answering messages on her Facebook. Max had no way of knowing that one whip! from Messenger was any different, not until Dana spoke up.

“So, Juliet wants to know what you did to make Victoria scared of you,” Dana said, looking up from her computer, pausing her continuous clacking.

“What?” Max asked, unwilling to put in the effort to push her torso back onto the bed.

“I’m not sure, that’s all she said.”
A brief pause.
“Here, let me ask.”

Dana typed so fast it was scary, leaving more lull than typing when she was focusing on a conversation.
Maybe a minute later, though, and she said, “Apparently, you and Victoria had a confrontation in the hall today, and you leered her down and she backed off. Apparently the school’s abuzz that you neutered her. What happened?”

“Oh,” Max replied, “nothing.”

“Eh?” Dana asked, apparently unconvinced.

Finally, Max tossed her phone onto the bed and pushed herself up cross-legged. Dana’s hair was down again, a messy flop only too thin and long to call a bowl cut. Max couldn’t quite put her finger quite on why, but the way Dana’s appearance fluctuated so much throughout the day - clean and neat before practice, made-up and warm afterwards, fluffy and messy in her pajamas before bed - appealed to her a lot. She wasn’t sure whether it was the consistency or the variation, but it made Dana . . . fun to look at. 

Max scratched the back of her head, her recent undercut having left her itchy all the time.
“No, I mean like, literally nothing. I think she was going to be rude, but then she just apologized and left.”

Max didn’t quite expect Dana’s giggle, the way she covered her mouth and closed her eyes as she did. It was more reserved than normal, but also . . . to something Max didn’t quite read as funny.

“Uh . . . what?” Max asked.

Dana waved away the question, although she answered, “Oh, god, nothing. I just didn’t think my threat would work so well.”

“Wait, wait, hold up.” Max scooted herself across the comforter, sitting knee-to-knee with Dana, the laptop between them. “Threat? When did you threaten Victoria? Why?”

“Ugh, I dunno, like a week ago? Or . . . last Monday, I think?”

“Why?”

“Well, I mean. She’d been following you around a little and taking pictures.”

Max blinked. “She what?”

Dana cocked her head to the side. “Oh. I thought she would have mentioned that when you two talked. Yeah. I told her to chill out, tell you how she felt, and then leave us alone.”

“Wait, so . . .” Max paused, trying to significantly reorganize the past week or so in her head.
“Wait. So did she write that letter because of you?”

Dana’s answer came slowly. Her eyes darted away from Max towards the door, and she raised a hand away from her keyboard to rest on her cheek, smooshing her face a little (a lot).
Her answer came quietly, too. “Maybe.”

Silence.

Max reached out for Dana’s upright arm and pinched her.

“Ow!” Dana whined, recoiling.

“You knew somebody liked me and you didn’t tell me? You . . . you goblin!” Max reached to pinch her again, but this time Dana only caught her hand, bringing her fingers close enough to kiss. Which she did, of course, in an attempt to quell Max’s righteous fury.
It worked, even if Max kept making pinching gestures in the air after she’d given up.

“Yeah, I did.”

Max finally gave up her pinching entirely, settling instead for an exaggerated pout before plummeting down on the bed.

“But Daaaannnnyyyyy,” she whined. “Crushes are so fun and cute and I didn’t know about Victoria until it got weird.”

Dana managed to snort and smirk at the same time, closing her laptop and sliding it off her lap. She waddled on her knees over to Max and climbed on top of her, folding her arms as if she had something to be stubborn about.

“Well I’m sooorrryyy that you’re just soooo popular. I got you a cute-ass confession letter instead of just lamely telling you so, you know what?” Dana started to poke Max’s sides, which were so ticklish that she immediately began to squirm, futilely attempting to bat Dana’s hands away as she started to giggle. That put a smile on Dana’s smile, even as she pinched her face to show how serious she was about her tickle dominance.
“Be grateful you little punk.”

“Okay okay okay okay okaaayyyy,” Max said, finally managing to free her body enough from the prison of Dana’s legs to grab ahold of Dana’s wrists, ending her torture.
The side of her face squished in thought while she shrugged. “I mean, it was pretty cute. You haven’t written me any love letters.”

“Oh yeah?”
Dana leaned down, relying on Max to support her what with the constrained wrists, bringing her into a deep kiss. Max let go of her wrists quickly in favor of her waist, and Dana brought a hand up to Max’s cheek, feeling the movement of her jaw under her thumb.

When they broke, Max’s breath was perhaps a little more ragged than it ought to be. It was so easy to get her excited.

“Okay, fair,” Max said, convinced that that settled everything.

Dana returned upright, though her hands fell to Max’s belly instead of across her chest.
“Besides, I only messed with her because she was acting weird. Normally, if someone likes you, I just go on with my day, but with her-”

“Wai wai wai wait. Normally?”

“Yeah.”

“Who else likes me? How do you even know this?”

“Question 2: being friends with Juliet fine-tunes your gossip monitor. Question 1: Warren, duh, and Justin. I’m pretty sure.” Dana looked around the room for half a second before adding, “Plus, Justin like, told me. Before he realized I’d swooped you.”

“No way.”

Dana leaned down, pecking Max’s nose before bobbing back up.
“Way.”

Max shook her head, but then looked up dead into Dana’s eyes.
“No, I mean, do you know what this means?”

Dana tilted her head to the side, even if it just got her hair somehow more in her face.

Max raised up her hand to start counting on her fingers, though “1″ started with a pointer finger jab at Dana: “A hot jock. A geek. A stoner skater anarchist dude. And the Queen Bee.”
After she hit four, Max opened up both hands, wide like her eyes.
“Babe, I’m universally popular. I’m like one or two short of a harem. I’m-”

“Oh no,” Dana interjected, cupping her hands over her mouth in horror. “I’m dating a anime protagonist.”

Max figured that this was probably not the appropriate moment to mention that she had time powers.
Instead, she just laughed awkwardly. “Y-yeah, you sure are.”

Dana shook her head, wiping her hands under her eyes as if weeping. “I think that means I’m gonna die.”

Now it was Max’s turn to snort. The comparison brought on a surge of ego and confidence, however, and Max grabbed Dana’s waist, flipping them over so that Max now sat on top.

“Don’t worry,” she said, pulling up Dana’s shirt and lowering herself to kiss her belly. “I think it’s more of a ‘cheap thrills’ sort of show.”

Dana giggled at first, slipping into a satisfied smile as the tickling sensation gave way to more tender kissing. “I’m all right with that.”