Step City

Maxilith gets a more serious injury than expected and when trying to call someone to help him to a Dr. Vendy, accidentally dials Velina. They end up having a lot to discuss.

Setting: Research District back streets then Velina's apartment, mid March X113 in the small hours of the morning

Maxilith walked away from his fight that night feeling fairly nonchalant- maybe even a little confident about how things had turned out. His opponent had some sort of plant vibe, favoring brambles that were exceptionally easy to slash through. Aside from cred earned, he was just a little tired and scratched up from the bramble thorns. No reason to get checked by a Dr.Vendy at this point.

At least that's what Max thought.

Over the walk, Maxilith’s condition worsened. It was like a fever was setting in but his limbs didn't want to move right either. The onset of the symptoms struck him as oddly quick- like Tessa's vibe forcing an immune reaction even though she was nowhere near close enough to incite illness like that. He’d have noticed if she were. It took him finally taking note of the angry discolored state of the scratches left behind by his match to reach some sort of conclusion. Poison? Is that why his opponent had seemed so frustrated that nothing they did seemed to deter him? Was it meant to have kicked in faster? The scratches were really beginning to sting- was that from his sweat or whatever was making him feel so awful?

Maxilith stumbled into the nearest wall. By now, he was mentally berating himself for being so reckless about that fight, to assume everything was fine. He certainly needed a Dr.Vendy now but the way his vision blurred when he tried to force himself forward only left him cursing. It was getting worse. He clenched a fist, memories of nagging from several people in the back of his mind now joining the mental lecture he’d been giving himself many of the voices also chide him for putting himself in the position to even need help, even though logically he knows that Cori and Feli would never say anything like that. Still, it was coming to a point where he had to weigh his options; he needed help and preferably sooner rather than later.

Max slid himself down to sit on the ground and pulled out his phone. Reading the screen was difficult not a good sign but he fumbled around with the interface nonetheless. Strive was in his recent texts, right? He might get shit from the idiot, but he was closer than Cori (and if he wouldn’t let this go he could just beat him up again about it later though Strive would no doubt just look forward to fighting him again). Maxilith pulled up the options on a number and then hit dial.

Elsewhere in the district, Velina’s phone began ringing.

"Eugh, okay, uh, fuck, didn't mean to do that," Velina laughed, having just accidentally set her virtual campground on fire in a survival game. She watched the chat light up with her personal BURN emojis, ones she'd commissioned for the stream due to a particular penchant to accidentally lighting things fire. In any game it was possible to do so in.

"I bet you'd all be pissed if I wound this day back, huh?" Truth was, Vel was not great at video games, and most of her streams weren't video games, but they had become easy things to throw on whenever she didn't have any new makeup to show off or anything particular to chat about--low preparation stream days. They were becoming a little more common than she'd like, too, considering she had something like three or four jobs, now.

"Alright, alright, I'll, like, suffer with my loss--" Vel reassured her viewers, letting the day/night cycle over just as her phone buzzed. She reached for it to mechanically ignore it when--

Max? When did Max call her?

"Hey, give me a minute, chat. I know the timing is sus, but I gotta take this," she announced, muting the mic, shutting off the camera, and answering the call.

"Max? What's up?" She tried not to be immediately worried, but it was rare to never for him to call her first.

Max’s eyes went wide when he heard a voice he didn’t expect on the other end of the call. How the fuck did he call Vel instead of Strive? Those names weren’t even remotely similar! Of course she stayed relatively high up in his list of messages with her penchant for sending him stupid videos but this wasn’t helpful right now!

“No! Shit- Fuck!” Max cursed sharply before fumbling with his phone to try and hang up as quickly as possible. Something like this would only make Vel panic. Of course, it didn’t occur to him that cursing and hanging up was likely troubling in its own right. He just knew Vel wasn’t ready to see him like this or maybe it was him who wasn’t for her to see him like this.

"Max? What's wrong? What--??" Whatever was happening, it made Vel's anxiety spike sharp and fast. "Don't hang up, what's going on? Where are you?"

Rapidly she typed into chat, hoping someone would see it while she tried to get Max to stay on the line and give her a location.

• Sorry all! Emergency came up. Give MB my love!

She switched the broadcast over to raid MB's stream as quickly as possible, still on the phone with Max. If he managed to hang up, she'd call him back, pushing the one old pair of tennis shoes she had onto her feet and fumbling for her jacket.

She'd be out the door in minutes, even if she didn't know where to go.

In his fumbling, Max did manage to hang up. He focused for the next moment on just breathing- a part of him noting how much he ached all over. Maybe if he tried again but looked extra hard, he'd get the right person? Or if he could get to the button that activated the microphone for voice commands, he could- And his phone was vibrating. And the blur where the name on the Caller ID should be was too short to be Coriander (though if Cori had chosen that exact moment to call Max would have worn to eat his left shoe or something equally ridiculous).

Ultimately, if Max knew that if he tried calling someone else again there was the chance he'd dig this hole even deeper. Not to mention, knowing Vel, she’d just keep calling. And if he didn’t answer she might call someone else to help her find him- she couldn’t leave well enough alone. And if he didn’t get ahold of someone, he would be stranded until whatever the poison’s end goal was met…

Squinting very hard as if it would help him see any better, Maxilith hit the green answer button. He leaned on his knees where he sat as he brought the phone to his ear.

“Vel, don’t…” Maxilith hesitated for a moment, hearing how much weakness came through in his own voice. With considerable effort he tried to sound more normal as he continued. “Don’t panic, alright?”

He picked up. That, at least, gave her a shot of relief. Vel locked her front door so she could head for the stairs, her heart breaking over how wrong Max sounded over the phone. It wasn't even like when he was tired or exasperated with her. She'd not heard him sound like this.

"Okay. Okay, I won't panic." That meant it was bad, right? She made her tone even, her breathing calm, and she pretended everything was alright. "Where are you? What's wrong?"

Maxilith looks up at his surroundings again, trying to recall the best way to describe where he was at. After all, he couldn’t just say ‘just about halfway between home and the illegal fighting ring I frequent’. He had to stifle a slight groan at the inconvenience of it all.

“I’m not anywhere dangerous. I just need help to a Vendy, alright?” Max rested his head on the arm braced against his knees, “If you think you can do that… without freaking out, I’ll try to tell you how to find me.”

I will absolutely freak out if you don't tell me!

The words hovered on Vel's tongue, but she bit them back. She hovered outside her building, not wanting to start moving in the wrong direction and having to backtrack. "I won't freak out, I swear. I'll help you to a Vendy. I just need to know, like, where to go."

She masked the plea in her voice, trying instead to be calm, comforting, and overall: persuasive. If he hung up on her, she'd go to his apartment and circle out from there. She'd call Noir and he could get Coriander and Strive and maybe she could get a favor out of Takeo--her mind whirled with backup plans.

He better tell her where he was.

Well, so far so good. Max was too out of it to tell whether that tone from Vel was genuine calm or her trying to be brave. It's not like it mattered much either way at the moment.

“Fine.” Max gave best effort to describe the side street, hoping very much that he remembered the street names correctly because he couldn't very well double-check right now. The explanation was stilted as he strained for thought and to maintain that semblance of strength in his voice.

“Think you’ve got it? I- I'm not exactly in a position to text you the location.” Max was surprised he had the wherewithal not to say ‘I can't fucking type’, “Call me again if you get lost- and no calling anyone else. It's not a big deal.”

"Okay, okay. I know where to go. Can you stay on the phone with me?" It scared her that he wanted to hang up. It scared her how weak he sounded. That he came off as confused, and that he was struggling so hard. "I won't call anyone else"

She would, if she had to. Lying was easy.

Velina ran.

“I was just playing this stupid game, like, you know, one of those survival things. I’m so bad at it, so you’re doing me a favor by calling me out.” She pulled at anything she could to try and keep him focused, her voice wavering as she hit the payment. At least her daily life included intensive amounts of cardio to keep her from being winded.

“I mean, I set the whole camp on fire. Night three. It even warned me, but I, like, didn’t pay enough attention.” She didn't have time to worry about if someone was going to jump out at her around the corner. She didn't flinch when an aggressive catcaller asked her where she was going in less-polite words. She just had to get to Max.

“Almost there, honey. Stay on with me, okay?”

A lot of Vel's talk about games went over Max's head, but he understood the concept of survival games well enough. They were straightforward enough, which made Vel's smalltalk relatively easy to follow. He knew it was just smalltalk, too. Just something to fill the empty air so that she wouldn't necessarily have to do this alone. That was fine. He felt absolutely drained and wanted nothing more than to sleep until she got to him. However, the better part of him knew how risky that would be. So he stayed awake and he listened.

He must have been quiet too long, however, judging from the way Vel pleaded with him to stay on the phone.

“I'm here.” Maxilith struggled to his feet, though leaning on the wall heavily. If Vel really was Well on her way, a stupid part of him wanted to show that he could do this much. As if being able to stand prove that despite everything, he was somehow fine. It still frustrated him that it took so much effort, though.

“Sounds like the game might have a problem if everything is so flammable,” Max tried to make a joke to show he'd been listening, and to sidestep any sounds of effort he hadn't hid well enough while standing.

"I think, like, later in the game there's lightning strikes that can light your camp on fire, so they made it like that? For some reason?" Vel's head felt fuzzy, hyper-focused on finding him, but she was very good at talking about nothing.

"It's probably just to make things harder, I--Oh, I think I see you!" Her voice cracked slightly with the sheer weight of relief to see him standing. Somehow, she ran faster. She didn't even bother hanging up as she got to him, shoving the phone into her pocket so she could reach out.

"Oh, Max, honey, what happened?" She asked stupidly. He never told her. It didn't matter. God, fuck, he was covered in horrible scratches and he looked miserably feverish. "Come on, lean on me, okay? We'll get you to that Vendy."

That was fast; had she run all the way here? Max also considered briefly whether his sense of time was just messed up along with everything else. Despite everything being too blurry to see Vel's face clearly, he could hear the concern in her tone. It was comforting and unnerving all at once. Guilt and apprehension twisted in his gut there is no punishment for needing help here, calm down.

“Got match against a sneaky bastard… think there was poison on the thorns or something,” Maxilith attempted to shift his weight away from the wall so that he could lean on Velina just enough for aid but not enough to knock her over. He wasn't sure she could hold him.

Regardless, Max had to admit that finally making some progress towards fixing this was a huge relief. That relief outweighed any concerns about his potentially having frightened poor Vel, at least for now.

“Lead the way,”

Velina could feel a little Vibe buzzing hungrily under her skin from all that running, but concern could do wonders to dampen its effect on her. She wrapped an arm around his waist and grabbed a hand around her shoulder, anchoring him there. She could do this. She got them moving in the right direction.

"Maybe you're allergic to whatever it was. Like, poison ivy. Can you, uh, can you breathe okay?" It wasn't something Vel could fix, nor was it something the Vendy would miss and need to be informed of. But she needed him to keep conscious if they were going to make it.

"...Did you win? Against the sneaky bastard?"

“I can breathe.” Max clarified, clearly putting in a fair bit of effort to move naturally even with Vel supporting him. He did not voice his concern about whether his difficultly functioning could also affect internal organs and eventually still things like his breath or his heartbeat. He supposed that since he could still breathe, that was unlikely to be the case.

“Think… If I were allergic… I wouldn't have made it this far…” He tried to chat normally, even though it was obvious that moving made stringing together long sentences difficult. “But yeah. I won.”

"Well, there's, um, there's milder allergies. Not all of them are going to...knock you down immediately." Vel didn't really know what she was saying, basically stumbling through conjecture to keep talking. The way his talking was so stilted worried her.

"Good! I'm, ahh--!" her foot nearly went off the edge of the curb, but she corrected before they actually stumbled. Fuck. Pay attention. "I'm glad there's that. Sorry. We'll be there soon."

Hold on. Please.

“I wouldn't call this mild,” Max grumbled before Vel's misstep.

Despite himself, Maxilith tried to hold Vel steady. Not that it amounted to much when he could barely keep himself upright at this point, but he couldn't help but try. Left him feeling a little silly, but that quickly gave way to a little guilt. She was rushing for his sake, after all.

“Vel, I'm gonna be fine.” Max gave the hand that held his over her shoulder a weak squeeze. “You're here now… just one foot in front of the other.”

"Of course you're gonna be fine." Hearing him say it made her want to cry, and she refused to fall apart in this moment. Max would never let her help again if she got weepy over some thorn scratches and a little bit of poisoning. "Do, do you think you're allowed to not be okay?"

One more block to the Vendy. They could do this. Like he said, one foot in front of the other.

"You'll be in so much trouble if you're not okay. I'll tell Noir. And Felicia. And...ground you from fighting." Maybe Max would laugh. "You'd end up having to dance at the Luxe with me when you're not at the Cat Cafe."

Despite knowing it was a joke, Maxilith grew silent as Vel commented on whether he was allowed to not be okay. There was a part of him, lingering from his old life, that still very much believed that. He tried to put his focus into moving rather than dwell on those thoughts that wanted to take her humor as validation of their ruthlessness.

“Even if I wanted to… And I don't… I don't think… Noir would put up with me,” Maxilith forced a quip, knowing if he remained silent Vel would get scared again. Still, there was no heart in it.

One foot in front of the other. Hold the hand on your shoulder. She cares. Things aren't like they used to be.