quietplacelogs | (no subject)

(no subject)

Featuring: Max Mayfield + Others
What's Happening? Finding things on the porch, delivering a gift to Steve and a network post - OTA
When: March 5th - ?
Content Warnings: None so far.

I. [Spam - Open to Housemates/People Who Might Be Visiting]

[There's a huge box on the porch when she arrives home from her quiet maintenance duties and for a moment, she just stares at it. She approaches it with caution, poking it lightly with her left shoe. When nothing happens, she moves to kneel down beside it, carefully pulling the lid off and staring at the contents inside for a full moment, shock running through her.

Because right at the top lay her skateboard from home. Broken, but held together with gray tape. She wonders if she's hallucinating, but she reaches out and picks it up and when it doesn't crumble to dust, she hugs it to her chest. Tears prick her eyelids and she rolls her eyes at herself for getting so emotional over something so simple, but it's her board. And it's here, even if she can't actually use it.

After a long few moments, she carefully moves into the house, setting her board down on the couch and then hauling in the box to see what else is there.]

II. [Spam - Open to Steve Harrington]

[The moment she finds the bat, studded with nails, she knows exactly what to do with it. Who it belongs to. She has no clue why things are showing up here that are from home, but it's something she's relieved to see. She's seen Steve in action with it once before. There's not exactly a door to the family room, but she lingers in the door frame when she sees him sitting by the fireplace.

She lifts her hand in a wave to try and catch his attention, hiding the bat behind her back for the moment.]

[UN: MadMax]

So weird question but did anyone else get a big box of random stuff on their porch today?

[Private Network to Kara]

So...hi. Are you okay?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

not really that i can remember. but i dont know if richie's version of bev did or not.

(Eddie remembered Bev in dresses. Always dresses and bruises. Max and Bevvie were more alike than even Eddie realized. Maybe not in all ways, but enough ways that he thinks that they would like each other.)

oh. i guess that makes sense though. It's not like we know everything about our monster stuff either. It's kind of a bitch too since there's a lot of people who want all these answers and you're just like

man i lived it i didnt study it

[She makes a mental note to ask Richie about his version of Bev. She wonders how alike and similar the two are. She also wonders what it would be like to have one of her friends be from an entirely different decade. It's weird to think about.]

yeah. did you talk to will? or mike? [She's leaning toward Will, simply because Mike had been pissed to know she knew about all of that stuff.]

I only saw them once before I got here. the monsters. they called them demogorgons.

(It ....was really weird. Eddie still couldn't quite get over it sometimes. It was weird in general thinking about how he was technically a lot older than even grown-ups here if they were going by year alone.)

Will. But I met Mike before. It's wild how much like Richie he looks. Mike was pretty nice to me, but Will and I (He hesitates, his thumbs sliding over the screen. Will and him connected....in a certain way that he doesn't know how to word, and thinking about it too much makes him go a little red.)

He talked to me a little about it.

Demogorgons? Weird. But I guess monster names are always weird. Did you guys kill them?

[Max doesn't dare let her mind go down that path. Science already isn't her strong suit. She doesn't want to make her brain implode thinking about how here she'd be in her forties. Jesus.]

you met mike? and he was nice to you? [Okay, hurt feelings: ignited. So it was literally specifically her that Mike disliked so much, and not new people in general.]

Will's... [She softens almost immediately at the mention of Will.] Will's great.

Yeah I guess demogorgons are from this game Dungeons and Dragons? So they named it that.

I don't know. The last thing I remember from home is Steve pushing me out of the way and hitting it with his bat. I don't know if it died or what.

Yeah? I was like. Covered in all this shit and having an asthma attack so he helped me. (He doesn't really want to call it an asthma attack but he also doesn't really know what a 'panic attack' is either so there's not many other ways to describe his complete melt down.

But something triggers a memory and he's suddenly frowning. Maybe it wasn't obvious that Max was hurt, but Eddie was pretty aware and he remembered something Will had said that was...weird to him.)

Wait. You and Mike don't get along. I forgot.

I'm sorry, Max.

Will is great. (More than great, really.)

Oh yeah. I've been told a little about the game. I've never played it though.

That's crazy. Steve's that older guy you trust right?

Edited 2018-03-10 05:50 (UTC)

[Maybe that's the problem. Maybe Mike had to actively feel like someone new needed his help before he'd be nice to them. And Max is just too damned independent to ever admit she might need help. In which case, they're probably going to stay - not enemies, but not friends either. Acquaintances. Chilly acquaintances.]

It's fine. It's not that big of a deal. [She doesn't need Mike's friendship.]

Me either. Lucas and Dustin told me a little but there wasn't really time to learn much about it with everything going on back home.

Yeah, that's Steve.

[And that's why she trusts him. Hard not to trust someone who saves your life, even if it's a very fragile kind of trust because she doesn't really know him.]

(Eddie automatically frowns. Maybe she said it wasn't a very big deal, but truthfully, he knew how it felt wanting to be someone's friend. He couldn't imagine how it would have felt to have one of the Losers hate him or at least be mean with him.)

Hey, where are you now? Somewhere in the house?

Yeah I guess that makes sense. And kids get jack all when it comes to knowing how stuff works.

(Steve seemed like an okay dude- though Eddie would have reservations until he met him personally. Though he would be in agreement about the life-saving part. It really was hard to dismiss that sort of thing.)

Yeah, I'm just downstairs in the dining room.

[Pondering if the gray tape was enough to hold her skateboard together well enough to attempt riding on it - provided she can even find a place soundproofed enough to ride it.

Max understands reservations. She has her own, but so far Steve seemed to be the opposite of Billy, and that's the scale for her. 0 to Billy Hargrove, and anyone in the middle was apt to slide toward the latter end of the scale that she'd rather avoid. She'll trust every kid here over most of the adults, Supergirl not included. There are some she's slowly building trust with - Majima, "Hot Dog." But she's also toed the line in every way she can. She wonders what would happen if that was to change for any reason.]

Come to my room so we can talk.

(Properly talk. This device stuff killed Eddie sometimes. It was a royal pain in the ass.

Eddie was okay enough with "Hot Dog" and a handful of others. The adult he trusted the most here though was honestly Majima. Mostly because Majima has been...very open with Eddie and Eddie felt like Majima had no real reason to be. He even knew about his momma. That - that made a big difference as far as Eddie was concerned.)

Okay. Be right there.

[She leaves her board on the table and heads down the hall toward the master bedroom, peeking her head in and lifting her hand in a wave before slipping inside and closing the door behind her.]

What's up?

(Normally Eddie didn't approach these kinds of things if it could be helped. It sometimes made him feel odd, but, at the same time, he cared a lot more about Max's feelings than he did his own. He had his leg bent and an elbow resting on it. Now that he had a stereo, it was almost always playing when he had the luxury of it.

It was playing softly now, but he paid it no mind as Max entered his room. He bit the inside of his cheek, considering Max's face for a moment.)

It's okay, you know. (He starts off slowly, hesitantly, not sure if this was really his place to say anything. But, well. Had that really ever stopped him before?)

To be upset about the Mike thing. I'd be real upset if someone in my friend group didn't like me.

[It's not really what she's expecting, though with Eddie maybe she should have. She leans against the door for a minute and then makes her way over to sit down on the floor by his bed, leaning her back against it. She sits quietly, listening to his stereo and just enjoying the sound of something besides her own heartbeat.

She can't wait to get the entire house soundproofed. It'll feel like a weight's been lifted.

But she directs her focus back to his comment about Mike and she exhales slowly, pulling one knee up to her chest and craning her neck to look up at him.]

He doesn't have to like me. But I guess what worries me is that - if I wind up back home and he keeps hating me, maybe the others will stop liking me, too. He's kind of like, their unofficial leader or whatever. [Eventually it would come down to a choice, because that's just how it usually works when you're kids.]

(Eddie felt a little bad that his room had been the first. Though at the same time, a lot of people were in and out of it all the time. He moves over to lay down on his belly. He automatically picks up a lock of her hair to play with it. Doesn't entirely know why, but, well. It seemed okay to do. He tips his head to look down at her when she looks up at him.

He props his chin into his hand and considers her concern very seriously, flipping her hair idly around a finger.)

Okay, yeah, I could get why that'd make you a nervous wreck. If someone came into our group and Bill didn't like them....

(There were leaders in groups for reasons. And Eddie understood the mentality of having someone like that in his life. If Bill didn't like someone, Eddie automatically assumed there was a good reason for it and trusted Bill to make fair, good choices. He isn't so sure Bill would ever react to someone the way Mike did to Max though.)

Why does he hate you so much?

[Max isn't at all bothered that Eddie's room was soundproofed first. She's just glad there's a place in the house they can go to actually talk instead of type everything. The latter gets tiring. If she's bothered by him playing with her hair, it doesn't show. Spoiler alert: she's not bothered.]

Yeah, exactly.

[Her lips tug downward. She's extremely glad Bill hadn't taken to her presence the way Mike had. Here, at least, she has a place where she feels like she belongs.]

Honestly? I have no idea. He said I'm annoying and that the Party doesn't need anymore members in it.

Edited 2018-03-10 22:43 (UTC)

Bill would never be like that though. We love him as our leader because he's good and he's kind...He wouldn't hate someone just because. We're the Losers, you know?

(They take care of people like their own. The social outcasts. They'd had friends outside of their little group, and it hadn't been a problem, except when those people rubbed the wrong way against one of them. Like that one kid who had called Bevvie's mom a whore. But either way, Max was nothing but good and kind. She was an outcast like them, and that only made her fit even better with them. If Max had been back in Derry...

Eddie really thinks maybe there would have been an eighth member to their club. The potential felt real.)

...(Eddie's quiet at first, frowning hard. Mike had seemed honestly kind and open to making friends, so he didn't...really understand it. But he also didn't not believe Max either.)

Is it cause you're a girl? (It seemed unfair, maybe, but boys were also idiots about girls too. It wouldn't shock Eddie if that was the reason.)

You're not annoying, and honestly, aren't Parties supposed to be stronger with more members? We have seven in our Club. Well. Eight now, I think. (He gives her hair a playful tug to make it clear he means her.

And Jake....Well. That was different.)

The thing is, I don't think Mike is a bad guy.

[She's quiet for a moment, thinking about the way Will talks about his best friend, about the way Lucas and Dustin had, too. Bad guys didn't generally get admiration from good people, and the three of them were good people. Kind. But maybe she and Mike's personalities were just too different for them to be able to get along and be friends.

Or.

Because she's a girl. Her eyes narrow at that and she huffs, annoyance rising at the thought. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe Mike just hated all girls who weren't Eleven. Well, that was certainly stupid and sexist.]

It might be, I guess.

[She looks up at him, tiny smile on her face when he tugs on her hair, because she gets what he's saying and her cheeks grow warm. She chews her lower lip for a moment, then turns so she's facing him, hands resting on the sides of his bed.]

If we find a way to get out of this place, maybe we can all go somewhere different, together. You know, not your world and not mine, but somewhere else. Somewhere that doesn't suck.

[It's a thought that's been plaguing her for awhile now, as she lays awake at night, worrying about what's going to happen. She worries about what's going to happen to Eddie, specifically. To his friend Stan, whom she hasen't even met. To what it will do to Richie and Bill if it all plays out the way he'd described to her.]

I don't think he is either.

(And that was the truth. Nothing about Mike struck Eddie as a bad guy- or even a jerk. Eddie had met Mike and within the first hour of knowing him, he knew that he was a good guy. Worth being friends with, for sure.

So it was a little baffling this whole...Max and Mike thing.)

But good people can still be idiots sometimes. (Good didn't mean perfect, after all.

Eddie shrugs at her huffing- not that he can really blame her for it. He'd be pretty angry if someone hated him for such a baseless reason too. And hell, people hated him for that kind of thing all the time.)

Boys can be really fucking dumb about stuff like that.

(Eddie knows it isn't much of a comfort but well...It's honest.

When Max turns to face him, he lets go of her hair so as to not hurt her. He raises his head some, and for a second, he says nothing at all. The real funny thing was, or maybe it was real sad, he didn't...even think of there being a place 'better'.

Somewhere that doesn't suck.)

You really think there's a place like that out there?

(It's....Almost hard to believe. A place where picket fences sat in neat yards tended to by loving people who didn't want to beat their children or take their clothes off or tell them to take a bunch of pills they didn't really need. A place where if an adult saw some big kids breaking the arm of a little kid, they'd actually do something. Places where people didn't kill people's dogs just cause they were black, or where bigger boys didn't yell real bad at little girls just because they were angry at their fathers. A place where boys with abilities (and girls, he thought) could be left alone.

And he supposed, as an afterthought, a place without monsters would be pretty nice.

Did a place like that even exist though? It was...It was hard to believe. It was harder yet to think that his life could ever be something so nice. He worried too, he wouldn't lie, and he worried for Stan, and he worried for Richie and Bill. God, he never wanted to hear Richie cry like that ever again in all his life.)

All us kids?

Edited 2018-03-11 00:33 (UTC)

[She sighs softly at his agreement about Mike. Yeah. She's a decent judge of character, and she's pretty sure Eddie is too. She's trying really hard not to let herself go down the path of thinking something's wrong with her because Mike Wheeler doesn't like her. She's not the kind of person to assume everything is her fault, and she's not going to start.

Max nods slightly in agreement because Eddie's right - good people can be idiots. So Mike doesn't like her for whatever reason and thinks she's annoying? That's on him, not her. She's done wasting her time worrying about it. She can't do anything about it, so she'll just do her best to avoid him the way she's used to trying to avoid Billy.

So she shifts her focus entirely to the new topic at hand: the possibility of getting out of this place and to another place.]

I talked to Sora and Teddy. They've both done some traveling to other places. Some of them sound nice.

[She, too, has her doubts that they could find a world where kids were just safe from adults and even each other. But maybe there are worlds where there aren't actual monsters, and that would be something at least. A world without It and without demogorgons and sound eaters and asshole stepbrothers and stepfathers. At least without hers.]

Any of us who wanted to go, yeah. And Teddy. [She's nearly certain that Will won't join them because Will has a family to go back to, plus Mike, and the rest of the Party back home.]

Edited 2018-03-11 03:50 (UTC)

(Eddie liked to think he was a decent judge, yeah. Especially because he was often so paranoid that he liked to think he didn't fall for shitty people's fake nice acts. He certainly thought nothing was wrong with her. If he did, he'd of avoided her like the plague itself.

Eddie grows still and quiet. Jake had mentioned other worlds. Not only other worlds, but he had seen evidence of Pennywise in his own world. And he had spoken to both Sora and Teddy about similar things. That and his own experiences from going to Derry to the station...Well, anything was possible.

But a worry was burning a hole through his gut. He curls his hands into loose fists and then forces them to relax.)

I really like the idea of that. (There was a 'but' hanging in the air, though maybe not the one Max would expect. He swallows thickly, and admits to her quietly.)

I'm....I'm kind of afraid though. What happens if the next time we move worlds...we all get separated? I don't....I don't want to lose any of you.

(Not his friends from home, of course, but Max and Jake too. And Teddy, honestly. That dog was so good to him, to all of them. He deserved the world.)

[She watches him as he grows still, then watches his hands ball into fist and relax again. She resists the urge to reach out and lay a hand on his arm for the moment. And then she understands when he goes on. Well, shit. She hadn't really thought about that.]

Oh.

[Max leans her chin on the bed, looking deep in thought.]

Hot Dog is pretty sure we'll figure a way to either save this place or get home. But, if we all go to our own worlds we're separated then too. And...I don't want that either.

[She looks up at him.]

Edited (pfff what is capitalization) 2018-03-11 05:16 (UTC)

Back on the station, there was this moment where Richie just. Vanished. (He...He hadn't really spoken to anyone about that. For a humiliating moment, his eyes water, but he shuts them and keeps them closed until he felt more steady. He opens his eyes and stares at her. He slowly lowers his head and rests his cheek on the mattress, keeping them close together. It didn't feel weird. It felt more like they were in a very private bubble.)

...Yeah, well, he can't promise that. No one here can. I can't go back home. I can't...(His voice spiked desperately at the end but he was quick to lower it.)

And I don't want to lose you and Jake. You guys are-. Special. (He rolls his face down so that it was pressed into his mattress. He felt panic fluttering in his chest and tried to remind himself to calm down and breathe.)

Jesus.

[She can't imagine seeing one of her friends vanish right in front of her and her chest feels tight when his eyes water. She holds her breath when he rests his head down and then pushes herself to her feet, climbing onto the bed and lying down right beside him, reaching out and resting a hand on his back.]

No, you're right. No one can promise that. I'm pretty sure no one here knows how to open a portal, so I think we're okay for now, Eddie.

[She lays her head down so it's facing him even though his is facedown in the mattress at the moment.]

Breathe.

(Sometimes Eddie felt stupid for how weak he could be, but at the same time, he loved his friends. He hadn't even really talked to Richie about it. He hadn't really...talked to Richie much lately and that hurt in a different way. Her hand on his back is enough to unwind something in him. Touch was always...prominent for Eddie. It grounded him.

He hopes she's right, and he does believe it enough. He doesn't think anyone was able to do that either. He gives a shaky breath when Max tells Eddie to breathe. He drags in, and then exhales. Then slowly he rolls his face out and rests his cheek against the mattress. He smiles shakily.)

Sorry. (He sounds a little breathless, but at least the panic was subsiding.) I'd fight like hell to...to keep you all with me. Just so you know. If we can, we'll go together to a new world. And we'll stay there.

(He really hoped so anyway. Really.)

[She feels him relax a little beneath her touch and she rubs his back gently, not really thinking about it. She relaxes when he finally looks at her again and she gives him a little smile in return, eyes still worried.]

It's okay. You don't need to apologize.

[She nods her agreement with his words, because she's going to fight to keep them with her, too.]

Yeah, we will. We'll be okay. All of us.

(It's probably one of the best things for her to have done, truthfully. Eddie was prone to panic attacks worse than regular people and his struggle with his psychosomatic need for an inhaler was still....Wobbly at best. He could focus on her hand instead of his lungs doing that frustrating pinhole-feeling, and he could focus on the simple two facts: Max was here right now, and if he opened his mind, he'd find Jake too.

Everyone was here now. He had to think about that instead of future what-ifs. He had to stop letting the future cast its shadow over him so much.)

We will be. (He agrees firmer this time, and smiles slowly.)

And we'll take Teddy. He deserves a safe place too where can be a dog instead of a constant protector.

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cw; child abuse in...p much every aspect.

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