#we'll call this a booker/max drabble but it's really xena/max booker is just a supporting character

[maxbronte]

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SEND ONE FOR MY MUSE’S REACTION // CLOSED FOR NOW.prompt. 回 :  p a t c h i n g   a   w o u n d .set. one week after their garden investigation, and after her week’s worth of preparation.disclaimer. permission HAS been granted from Blythe for the godmodding in this post.

     I.

She is so viscerally afraid of dogs.

It’s always been primal thing. She was never bitten or otherwise traumatized by one before. There’s just something about big dogs—German Shepherds, especially— hulking fanged monsters that weigh more than her, that double her muscle mass, that look like they survived being burned by the flames of hell and emerged with a vengeance, that can pick her dainty flesh right off the bone like she’s one small chicken wing in an appetizer tray.

Seventeen years of crossing to the other side of the road when jogging past a dog walker are about to be validated.

     II.

Things will go according to plan, for the phases Alpha through Delta. Her entrance is spotless. Fortunately or unfortunately, so is Mr. King’s case. Shifting through every drawer, cabinet, attainable secret entrance, checking for loose floorboards… The only pieces of personality she finds are a bunch of uninspired trinkets he must have gotten from your standard garage sale. It is obvious that a man furnished this apartment. It is abysmal. This investigation has brought her nothing but drowsy boredom and newfound appreciation-by-comparison for Ruby’s half-assed decor.

Max starts to feel mix of relief and shame and a dash of disappointment when she settles into her hiding spot in the tight, claustrophobic little nook between the sofa and the wall with a back window overhead to bring a bit of moonlight into her line of vision, then texts her mercenary to set off the alarm. She soaks in her guilty calm for two, then five, then ten minutes, before she starts wondering why she still hears no sirens and sees no status update.

While waiting for any response, she’s staring at piles of THICK BLACK DOG FUR littering the couch, and her mind is left to muse miserably on what kind of “small dog” this could belong to. Texts to Dan grow more and more frantic until he hears a sound like six big feet touching hardwood floor in the bedroom, followed by the even more disturbing sounds of the door opening and four trotting footsteps getting louder. Through the tiny crack of vision in her hiding spot she can only make out one thing:

That is not at all a small dog.

     III. 

HOW TO MAKE YOUR IMMACULATE GETAWAY:

1.) Rise slowly from your hiding spot when you hear the dog growling and watch as a shadow of a man stretches from the bedroom. Creep your hand into position to slide the window open with and slowly let the air in before you suffocate in your fear. When the dog finally barks, make your first sudden movement: throw the window open and do not look back at what you’re sure is a man about to throw butcher knives at you.

2.) Do not waste time fumbling to open the screen when you have the cheerleader leg strength to kick it out. Dash out the window like a cat being chased with a water squirter and swing to the fire escape without hesitation or risk of slipping and falling for your death. Dart down the steps and turns of the staircase platforms faster than you ever thought you could.

3.) Pay no mind to the jagged piece of metal that sticks out from one of the bars at the corner of the fire escape, that rips right through the hoodie sleeve and pretty lace of your undershirt and gashes open your upper arm when you run past it. In a haste of adrenaline, you will not feel it. You will not notice your own blood loss.

4.) Do not even check to see if the dog is chasing you. Do not take into consideration that your assumably-unassuming teacher could have been onto this plan of yours for days, and had his dog on a leash that you didn’t notice because you were too focused on blinding white teeth in the darkness, and that he only let her bark at you to scare you straight.

5.) RUN, RODENT, RUN. Run faster than you did when you were being chased through the woods by a cloaked figure with a mystery syringe, because your paranoia is screaming that you know for a fact that it’s not just a PRANK this time.

6.) Continue sprinting down the streets in the dead of night. It is a good idea to duck into dark alleyways to ensure that you lost him. He and his dog certainly will not have the perceptive ability to follow the tiny trail of blood you left or the sound of your rampant steps. It’s not like he’s an investigator and she’s a trained FBI hound, or anything.

7.) After at least seven minutes and nearly a mile of sprinting, duck into an alley and try to catch your breath, but instead start hyperventilating when you finally notice your wound. In the midst of your panic attack it will to look much worse and feel much deeper. Dying of your sensationalized blood loss out here will fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum of your current worries, with the mildest being an inescapable prison sentence, and the worst being two-to-six weeks of captive torture leading up to your death at the hands of the scary figure standing at the edge of this alleyway, who looks much larger than 5′11″ with his hundred-pound Demon Shepherd.

Part I of your immaculate getaway attempt ends here. You are in no state to outrun these monsters. Take solace in the fact that there WILL be a Part II. The culprit is theatrical. He will not kill you immediately. You will have an opening for an exit. Play up your fragility when he helps you up off the ground. Eliminate all signs of posing potential threat to him. Then remember that there is a knife in your pocket that you’ve only kept sheathed thus far to avoid the legal baggage of B&E with a concealed weapon. Stay alert and use it with underestimated tact when you have the proof you need that he can be booked for something much worse than your burglary.

     IV. 

The King takes Max back to his minimalist castle while she continues to act (“act”) like she’s still too shaken by whatever is happening to speak real words or give a coherent explanation. 

He goes into the hall bathroom cabinet, tells her to sit tight, promises he’ll be right back. And this, of course, is when she stands up and creeps into the bedroom to finish what she started.

She starts out quiet and sneaky in her search, then hastens when she thinks he’s coming to find her. She calls out that she’s using the bathroom when her head is peeping under the bed.

( No plant life. There is not one leaf in this drab, drab apartment. )

When she finishes investigating his bathroom, only the closet remains. She flushes the toilet and creeps over, takes a deep breath before pulling open the doors with two hands, but gasps instead when she realizes THE KING IS RIGHT BEHIND HER. This is the part of the movie where she turns around and he is holding a pair of tremendous garden shears over his head grinning like Jack Nicholson just before he chases her around the apartment, and she tries to escape through the front door but the dog is standing guard there, and so she turns around and tries to repeat her exit through the window but peers out to see that the fire escape has been rigged and fallen off the side of the building, and she’s locked inside with a madman. This is where she turns around and becomes his next victim– BUT SHE’S PREPARED. SHE REACHES FOR THE KNIFE IN HER POCKET AS SHE TURNS AROUND TO SEE….

Nothing. He is standing there not with syringes or samurai swords, but with medical gauze and a bottle of antiseptic.

…Biting lip, she shuffles back to the living room table with her eyes down. He finds it in his heart to sit beside his snot-nosed student and dress her wound.

     V.

Max finally confesses that she came here to search his home for a garden. Just says it outright. He was her suspect and she tried to be the plucky, antiheroic investigator.

             “ The good news is you’re off the hook…!! ” 

Then she figures she owes him more than that after everything she’s done. She’s going to jail tonight anyway– may as well go an honest woman– so with a face full of shame but not too much regret, she pulls that highly illegal weapon from her pocket, and forfeits it onto the table to accept whatever repercussions it’s going to have. 

A defeated little sigh.

                                           “ …And I… am not. ”

Mr. King’s dog, Xena– supposedly no reference to that old Disney Channel movie– rests her chin on on Max’s thigh, stares up with pretty brown eyes and what seems like a look of pity. It is somehow the second or third most consoling thing she’s experienced since her life ended.

—So, maybe “validated” was not the right word to describe Max’s fear of dogs tonight.