Life is Strange AUs

With Reference to This Fic, an alteration of Tuesday morning.
Written to “Kids” by MGMT

Victoria had decided to skip out on photography today. The weekend had just ended but she already needed another break, thanks in no small part to the letter she received from a local art studio.
She needed a smoke. It was one of the only things that could help her control her nerves when she no longer could.

She pushed her way out of the roof door without looking up, digging into her pockets for a lighter. A second later, she was blasted by cold droplets all over her skin, and she flinched back, letting the heavy metal door swing closed behind her.
She looked up, and found an unexpected figure up here with her. It turned around, all but a silhouette in the dark rain, and stared at her like she stared at it.

Kate Marsh stood at the edge of the roof. Too close to the edge.

“What are you doing here, Victoria?” Kate’s voice was high and tight, her throat constricted. The water and the dark made it impossible to see, but Victoria knew that she was crying, or had been.
Shock and confusion put Victoria off-guard for a second. “Just for a smoke . . .” her eyes were wide and staring, trying to comprehend what she was seeing. Was it what it looked like? Could it really be? There was no way, right? “What are you doing up here?”

Kate glanced behind her, eyes scanning over something in the courtyard. “I’m . . .” that question really seemed to stick her for a second. Then, she answered, “I’m setting things right.”
The cold began to seep into Victoria’s skin. She took a step forward, shrouding her face in more confusion than she really felt. “So, like, a dramatic gesture? What are you trying to-” as Victoria approached a little more, she noticed Kate flinch back, and, in the courtyard below, she could see a few people standing on the opposite end, as if a crowd blocked them from approaching any further.

Victoria inhaled and no air entered her lungs. She had lost her ability for euphemism a long time ago. “Are you up here to kill yourself?”

Kate’s eyes dropped from hers, and the pause lasted seconds. “Yeah,” she answered.

Every previous experience with suicide rushed into Victoria’s mind. What words could she say? Why? No, she wasn’t going to ask for justification. Don’t do that? There’s no punishment for defiance when you’re dead, and Kate had every reason to spite her. Victoria knew how to manage suicide ideation, but here they were, at the literal edge. It wouldn’t be enough. They couldn’t just go take pictures like she and Taylor would do.

This is my fault.

“Kate.” She needed more than that. “I don’t know what to say to you. But I don’t want you to die, and those people down there don’t want you to, either.”

Kate made a sound that may have been laughter if her throat weren’t so fucked up - instead, it just sounded like choking. “Are you . . . are you serious? You don’t want me to die, you just want to hurt me? Just take my friends away, let everyone see what bad person I really am? Do you get off on this so much you need me alive?”

Knives in Victoria’s gut. Not because they were harsh, but because they were true, and they both knew them. Drunk though she may have been, Victoria wanted everyone to know that Kate was bad. That she was dirty. She wanted it then. She wanted it now, an out in case Kate really jumped. She was bad, not me.

This is my fault.

“Look, I-” Victoria breathed, feeling her defenses raising, but trying not to fight back. No, she had hurt Kate, put her in a cage, but she didn’t need to kill her. “I did, okay? I wanted to hurt you because I could. I wanted to take away everything that you had.”

Kate’s chest swelled up in a deep breath. Her face contorted like a weight lifter pushing through the pain of their final reps. “Why? Do you really hate me that much?”

Victoria wanted to say no. She wanted to point to some excuse, to some great other reason she had, some personal defect, something irreconcilable between them. But all of her fury over Mr. Jefferson, all of her disgust about Kate’s leadership in the abstinence league, all of her moral superiority, and most of all her humility. She could feel what it added up to. She wasn’t blind.
“Yeah. I do.” She swallowed, and she took another step forward. More of the crowd below became visible. “I hate that you have what I want. I hate that you don’t want what I have. I see what you get just for being, like you’re not even trying, and I want to rip it from you. You don’t do that. And I hate it.”

Victoria thought that she would fight back. She wanted Kate to fight back. But Kate never responded the way she thought she would. Instead, her shoulders sagged, and she took a step back towards the edge. Victoria flinched, but she didn’t lunge forward yet.

“Fine, Victoria. This is what you want. To punish me for something I didn’t even do. Fine.” Flat. Resolved. No, no, no.

Victoria shook her head, but she saw Kate turn her head again, this time to look at the ground, not the crowd.

Victoria’s voice was suddenly a scream, “NO! THAT’S NOT WHAT I WANT!” Her skin boiled in the cold as she took another step forward. They were just a few paces away now, but fear split Victoria’s skin all over, flaying her, leaving her suddenly bare.

It was enough, at least temporarily, to make Kate look back at her. She was so close. Just one step.
“Then what do you want from me?”

Victoria pressed her palm to her chest, the scream dying down to a yell. “I want you to hate me. Hate me! Fight me! I hurt you. That’s my fault.” Victoria pounded her chest as she claimed the blame.

Kate’s face released the spite, the resolve. It was like it was sagging under a great weight suddenly. “But I did this. I don’t remember it, but that was me. My family can see that. My church can see that. All of them down there? They know what I am. Hating you would only make me evil.”

Victoria did not understand the fury that rose up inside of her: “Fuck them then! And me! No one is worth this. This whole town is not worth dying for.”
Now it was Victoria’s turn for her voice to turn shrill as her throat closed up. Goddamn it, she hated this about her anger when it came freely, how it brought her to tears. She needed the cold anger, not this.

It took Victoria a while to get to talking again, but Kate just stood there, watching her quietly. She almost seemed to forget her purpose for being up here, if only for a second.
Victoria’s voice was quiet when it returned, “You say you don’t remember. That it wasn’t you. What happened? Why were you like that? You barely drank.”

“I don’t . . .” Kate shook her head, “I barely remember the party. I drank a little. Like, a cup? I don’t even remember if I finished it. I kissed some people and then -” Kate suddenly cut off, and Victoria could see the gears moving in her head. She was controlling what she was saying, but she was too genuine of a person to do it without being obvious. “I think Nathan might have taken me to the ER? I don’t really remember anything, not clearly.”

Victoria had seen Nathan pull Kate out of the frightening swarm of footballers she’d been making out with at the party. After that, though, he had left the party, and she hadn’t seen him the rest of the night. Had she seen Kate after that? No . . . but Nathan definitely left first.

“So, wait. One drink? Maybe? You were the most trashed person there - I thought you were h-” Victoria’s eyes fixated on Kate’s while images of the party, although hazy for her, flashed by. Replay them. Did they all fit? 
They did. “Shit. Fuck. You were high. Someone fucking dosed your drink.”

Kate seemed paralyzed there at the edge for several seconds. Then, she nodded slowly. “Max thinks so. She wants me to go to the police but I . . .” and finally, Kate began to cry - she couldn’t take the weight anymore. “I can’t. I can’t do this. This is a nightmare, and it plays over and over again and I can’t get out. The police don’t help people like me. There is no out for me.”

The gears were turning again. Kate was looking for her way out. Victoria needed her answer, and she needed it now.

She took another step forward, and they were close now. Almost arm’s length. Almost. “Yes there is. The right one. We make them pay. You, me, Max - she clearly cares about you - fuck, everyone down there. We’ll find out who did this and we’ll crucify them. It won’t put things right, I know that, but people will have the right person to blame. That’s all they want when they see something horrible. Nobody will blame you when they know what happened.”

Suddenly, the metal door to the roof pushed open loudly. Victoria pivoted to take a look behind her, and found Max Caulfield standing there, out of breath, one hand holding her sides from sprinting. Her face that never seemed to emote was carved with fear, completely different than anything Victoria had ever seen from her.
“Kate,” she said, and then, “Victoria?”

Victoria turned to look back at Kate as she called out, “Max.”

Victoria knew she could never talk Kate down. But she hoped this meant that she had kept her alive long enough. “Look, Kate,” she began, “I’m not the right person to be up here. I’m not good. I can’t show you the things you have to live for. But I hope you hate me. I hope you hate everyone who hurt you, and that it keeps you alive. And I’ll find the person who fucked this all up, and I’ll hurt them too.”

Max was approaching from behind Victoria, and as she got close, Victoria turned to get out of her way. However, Kate took a step forward and reached out, grabbing her shoulder and turning her back forward, looking into Kate’s eyes again.
“Victoria. I don’t hate you.”

Victoria reached up, and grasped Kate’s wrist. “You should.”
She pried the hand off her shoulder slowly, and then stepped back, Max quickly taking her place within arm’s reach of Kate.

“Kate,” she said again as she arrived, reaching out for Kate’s hand, still outstretched.
After a moment of hesitation, Kate reached down and took it. “Hey, Max,” she replied, her voice breaking.

Victoria didn’t see them hug or anything by the time she turned back towards the roof door, but she heard them both start to cry. She hoped neither of them could see her crying, the hot streams melting into the rain streaming from her saturated hair.