#htlh

[explosionshark]

15 + how to live here: if it's unlikely that you guys will return to it (which is totally understandable!), can I ask what the ending you guys had planned for it was?

yeah! i think i can get away with that. i'm going off what i remember, because i don't wanna take the time to reference our old notes doc but essentially:

chloe and rachel stayed in a fight for a while. during that time, max kept spending more time with them individually, getting very close to both of them outside of a group dynamic. but eventually, the weird tension kind of makes max snap. she tells them to work things out.

max goes back to seattle for christmas break, leaving chloe and rachel truly alone for the first time since they started fighting. they go to the same party - some dude picks a fight with chloe, trying to rile her up, which rachel immediately makes worse by intervening in - shouting at the guy, shoving him, getting in his face. he reacts by pushing her out of the way and chloe snaps, decks him, gets her clock cleaned for it. there, on the porch, under the glow of christmas lights, rachel helps clean chloe up and they admit how much they miss each other and - fight over. they're gonna try again. as friends. JUST friends. rachel was hoping for more, but when chloe cuts her off with the just friends business before she gets a chance to say anything about her feelings, she swallows it down and agrees. they're just happy to be back in each other's lives.

when max gets back, she's relieved to see they made up. but now she has the weird problem of having BIG crushes on both of them, which is extra complicated by the time she walked in on them hooking up and rachel (jokingly? meanly?) invited her for a threesome. kind of a tough thing to shake. but she does an admirable job of it! they all three keep hanging out, as a group and in duos, and get closer.

then, valentine's day. chloe finally, finally gets up the courage to make a move on max. max is thrilled, but still feels a little weird about crushing so hard on rachel. later that night, she tells rachel about what happened between her and chloe - and rachel kisses her.

chloe is prepared to be furious when rachel tells her all this later. but then rachel kisses her, too. chloe is receptive and then guilty and then prepared to be furious all over again before rachel asks - well. why does anyone have to choose?

the wrap-up is everyone figuring out how this works. chloe's anxious about rachel and max graduating at the end of the year and leaving her behind. max is nervous about her lack of experience. rachel is worried she'll fuck things up or that chloe and max will decide they don't actually want her in the middle of their perfect childhood friend romance. but they stick together and they work it out.

those are the key points i remember! @holdsteady can add on here if there's more that i'm missing and she'd like to add

fanfic asks

[holdsteady]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Title: How to Live Here

Fandom: Life is Strange (Max Caulfield/Chloe Price/Rachel Amber)

Summary: Chloe’s slipping and Max doesn’t know what to hold onto.

well, you know, at this point @explosionshark and I have been consistently late so much that there’s maybe no “schedule” for this fic. but this train is still chugging so all aboard or whatever! please pay for fuel costs with reblogs and comments.

trigger warning this chapter for past suicidal ideation, self-harm, and non-graphic discussion of injuries.

[explosionshark]

Max 17, 24, 55

htlh future fic comin at ya

17. Your bed after traveling

Max is the kind of leaden-boned, fully body tired she’s come to associate only with a full day of traveling. It feels like her head is floating miles above the ground while her body is lodged halfway through the concrete of the sidewalk when her father’s car finally pulls up to her curb.

She doesn’t have much luggage but he insists on carrying it up to the empty apartment for her. He brings it all the way into the bedroom, which is thankfully less of a disaster than she expected after being gone for two weeks, and sets it down where she directs. She catches him trying to snoop as subtly as a guileless old carpenter can.

He doesn’t really get it, she knows, but he and her mom have never been anything other than staunchly supportive to her face and after seeing how Rachel’s parents and David reacted, she’s grateful for that much. He leaves her with a kiss on the forehead and an invitation to dinner on the weekend.

The moment her father’s out of the apartment Max gathers her willpower to trudge back across the apartment, kicking her shoes and pants off as she makes her way to the bed. She trips out of her socks and into the mattress and barely manages to haul herself up to the pillows before she starts to nod off.

It’s a heavy, blissful kind of sleep, deep and dark for hours, before it morphs into something gentle, half-aware. There’s the sweet smell of Rachel’s perfume, faded after a long day, there’s the sharper bite of Chloe’s body wash, and more distantly, there’s garlic and onions drifting through the crack in the door.

It’s sound she registers next. Music from the kitchen, lower than it usually is when Chloe’s cooking. There’s the gentle rumble of traffic through their open window, punctuated by the bright thunk of a basketball against pavement, the occasional shout from the park across the street. There’s soft breath and a gentle hum in tune with the song from the stereo, and Max knows it, but she can’t quite place…

She feels sunk into the bed, like she’s melted straight into the mattress. Her body still weighs a ton, but it’s a pleasant sort of heaviness, full of relaxation, the knowledge that for the first time in weeks she doesn’t have to move an inch until she’s ready. There’s a gentle pressure around her midsection, a warmth at her back, the soft rush of air into the crook of her neck.

“You waking up?” Rachel asks, voice soft. She presses a kiss against Max’s skin at the end of the question, strokes slender fingers along Max’s bare stomach under her shirt in a slow, soothing circle.

“Mmm-mmm,” Max grunts with a sleepy head shake, burrowing back into Rachel’s arms.

“Chloe’s making dinner,” Rachel says, and the kiss she leaves this time is on the ticklish spot just behind Max’s ear. “You’ve got to be hungry.”

Max resists the temptation to slip back into sleep long enough to shrug. Distantly, her stomach aches from emptiness, but it’s dulled by the haze of sleep and Max has never shied away from leftovers reheated in the middle of the night.

Rachel laughs, a sound like the sun’s first rays peeking through the slats in their window blinds, and pulls Max back tighter against her. “Jetlag’s got you so fucked. Okay, baby, go back to sleep. We’re both off tomorrow so you can wake us up when you’re bouncing off the walls at four in the morning.”

Max hums happily, fumbles to grip Rachel’s hand over her stomach weakly and squeeze once before slipping back into her dreams.

[explosionshark]

hi! i was just wondering, are you guys still planning to update/complete "how to live here"? if not, that's totally understandable! thank you for everything y'all have already written, it's been a treat to read ^-^

yeah! i think about it all the time. @holdsteady and i have big plans for the next chapter, we’re  hoping it won’t take too long to get out to you guys. thanks so much for your patience and continued support in the interim, i know it’s been ages since the last update but messages like this that show people still care and want more are really encouraging. thank you!!!

[explosionshark]

Hi, will you be updating HTLH soon too? Thanks, It’s great

hi! @holdsteady is writing the next part! send her some encouragement! 

[holdsteady]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Title: How to Live Here

Fandom: Life is Strange (Max Caulfield/Chloe Price/Rachel Amber)

Summary: One week later, Max deals with the fallout.

so we took forever again! maybe it’ll just be like that, but more likely we’ll be more consistent from here--some of the planning tripped us up this chapter but that’s ironed out now, so with any luck! nonetheless, here’s some Max POV for y’all complete with actual real Kate Marsh content.

as always @explosionshark and i are hungry for feedback so please leave us your thoughts! they truly mean the world

[explosionshark]

Ahhhhhhh, I really love How to Live Here! Can't wait for the next chapter! Really hope the three start patching things up soon!

SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG TO REPLY!!! i can make 2 promises to all htlh readers 1) it’ll get finished 2) they’ll be so happy it’ll all be extremely worth it

[holdsteady]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Title: How to Live Here

Fandom: Life is Strange (Max Caulfield/Chloe Price/Rachel Amber)

Summary: Rachel does her best; she and Chloe hit rock bottom anyway.

hey! sorry that it’s been four months, give or take a million years! but we’re back at it again with more sad shit for you to read. @explosionshark and i both had to stop to take a breather at something the other one wrote this chapter, so you know it’s gonna be a time! (the mood should rise after this, i promise. we’re as eager as anyone to get these kids back to happy.)

PLEASE leave us some comments! they really keep us going in these trying winter months, real-life stressors and delays aside!