Cut Yourself Free

Great Escape

What do you mean you can't stay?

Sorry, honey. It's for your own good. 

But what am I gonna do without you? I'm scared...

...

.....

Mom?

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Max could hear someone mumbling quietly as she awoke from her dream. Ignoring it, she tried falling back to sleep, only for the mumbling to turn into shouting. She rubbed her eyes with a grumble, realizing that at some point she had fallen asleep at her desk. Slowly, she looked around for the source of the commotion. She saw Josh throw down his beanie and hesitate to punch his desk. She immediately shot up and grabbed her laptop, scooting over to him in her swivel chair.

"Hey, whoa, what's wrong?!" she asked, surprised at how angry he was. He couldn't even make out a word or form a sentence. He just pointed at the screen before inhaling deeply so he could calm down enough to say something.

"That stupid 'shadowz_' guy hacked into the base again! H-He's making a fool out of me! He's gonna break into the base and I can't stop it! T-this stupid code of his is unbreakable!" Max observed the code on the screen and the dragon sprite taunting them in the corner. Feeling just as angered as Josh, she hooked her laptop up to his computer and began uploading a program to block Pete's virus out.

"What are you doing?! I already tried doing that!"

"Just don't worry. Give me a second." She typed as fast as she could against the 10 seconds she had to upload the block. Constantly, she could hear the mischievous laugh of Pete's dragon, who kept displaying a message "He's going first!". Maybe it was because she hated Pete's existence or her desire to help Josh that made her finish in time. With a hard click of the enter button, Pete's virus was wiped from the system, and a new and stronger block was temporarily set in place of the old one. 

Max sighed deeply as she looked at Josh, who was mad at himself for not being able to block out the virus. His whole thing was keeping the Hackerspace protected from invaders, after all. She picked up his grey beanie and sat it on the desk. "Come here, Josh." she said, taking his hand and petting his head. Josh had squeezed onto her hand tightly, a little hesitant to let her touch him, but sort of went into a trance when she petted him. It was incredibly relaxing, like she just took her stress away from him in an instant.

"I really hate seeing you humiliated like that. I can't even begin to describe how furious it makes me. Don't beat yourself up on this, okay?"

"Mm." he mumbled with a slow nod of his head.

"I'm gonna go find out where he hacked us from, and I'll bring you back his code. We'll use his own program against him." She placed his beanie back on his head and pulled up his hood with a smile. The way she stood up for him reminded him of what he wished people would've done when he was bullied. He really appreciated it. He really appreciated her.

Max pushed herself back to her desk before picking up her satchel, putting it over her shoulder and heading out. 

"I'll be back in a bit, okay?" she said, giving him a thumbs up. He nodded, giving her a hesitant thumbs up as well, making her giggle. Right as she turned to leave, he held his hand out to stop her.

"W-wait, before you go... Do you... Do you think you can pet my head again?" Max blinked, taking a moment to register what he asked. "I really liked it." he confessed with a straight face. Max blushed, not expecting him to make a request like that.