[ Max often thinks back to her very first week here—well, Felfri. She remembers laying out on a cot with an unfamiliar boy whose mansion of a house she would come to live with. She remembers her ruined arm re-stitching itself together. She remembers the moment he found the deeper damage, remembers how she shook her head in fear.
That there was a chance to beg for them to be healed, but the idea of someone else poking around inside her was too terrifying to comprehend. Not after Vecna invading her mind. Not after the scientists of E+L carving her open.
It's stupid, how horrible things happening to her kept Max from seizing opportunities. What if it didn't work? But what if it did?
Those sorts of thoughts swim around her head. It's dizzying. Or...maybe that's just the weird way she's reacting to what undead do instead of drown.
Still, Basil centers her. Without her music to, it's all she has. How his support is quite literally keeping her body upright, as she can't put the weight on her knees. How the warmth from his hands radiates outward, like it's enveloping them in a gentle aura. The sobs tearing through her disrupt it a little—but they also keep her from spilling anything else from her loose lips, and at the moment, she'll take it. It's not fair, it's not, but there's nothing she can do about it.
For a long while, that's all there is. Until either her crying or his heat or some combination of the two expel all the water from her. Even her hair's airdried, and her grip on Basil's hands has weakened. If she were thinking about it, she would've shifted to a more comfortable position. But now somehow her thighs tingle with pins and needles, as do her arms. Like the water previously in her lungs, it's a reason to pull away.
But, this time she doesn't. ]
'm sorry. [ With a scratchy, hoarse voice. ] Please...don't tell, okay?
[ It already hurts that it feels like she's had her insides shown to the world, with March. It already hurts that none of this was anywhere near voluntary. That now, she's been reduced to pleading like a child. ]
cw: nonconsensual surgery/medical horror mentions
That there was a chance to beg for them to be healed, but the idea of someone else poking around inside her was too terrifying to comprehend. Not after Vecna invading her mind. Not after the scientists of E+L carving her open.
It's stupid, how horrible things happening to her kept Max from seizing opportunities. What if it didn't work? But what if it did?
Those sorts of thoughts swim around her head. It's dizzying. Or...maybe that's just the weird way she's reacting to what undead do instead of drown.
Still, Basil centers her. Without her music to, it's all she has. How his support is quite literally keeping her body upright, as she can't put the weight on her knees. How the warmth from his hands radiates outward, like it's enveloping them in a gentle aura. The sobs tearing through her disrupt it a little—but they also keep her from spilling anything else from her loose lips, and at the moment, she'll take it. It's not fair, it's not, but there's nothing she can do about it.
For a long while, that's all there is. Until either her crying or his heat or some combination of the two expel all the water from her. Even her hair's airdried, and her grip on Basil's hands has weakened. If she were thinking about it, she would've shifted to a more comfortable position. But now somehow her thighs tingle with pins and needles, as do her arms. Like the water previously in her lungs, it's a reason to pull away.
But, this time she doesn't. ]
'm sorry. [ With a scratchy, hoarse voice. ] Please...don't tell, okay?
[ It already hurts that it feels like she's had her insides shown to the world, with March. It already hurts that none of this was anywhere near voluntary. That now, she's been reduced to pleading like a child. ]