A life less ordinary ||~~Elax/Elmax~~||

The brother

"Do you have nightmares often?" asked Max at breakfast.

"Night-mares?"

"Oh, um, bad dreams" explained Max.

"When I first came back, sometimes, but recently..." El trailed off.

"El? You can trust me, no secrets, ok?"

"...recently, every night" El confessed, meeting Max's eyes with a look of sadness.

"Does anyone else know?" Max pressed, to which El shook her head no. Max sighed, "you can't carry on like this, you can't go through this alone."

Again, El shook her head, "they've already done so much for me...I can't ask for more..."

"What? Do you seriously believe that?" Max said, slightly horrified, "they're your family...families help each other, support each other" she tried to explain.

El put her Eggo down and put her hands in her lap, looking down, not meeting Max's eyes. "El, I'm not telling you off" said Max softly, realising she'd made her feel bad, "but they took you in, you're a part of their family, and families are there for you during good times and bad. There should be no limit to how much they're willing to support you, ok?"

El nodded slightly.

"And...and if they don't help then you've always got me" she said tentatively, "you can talk to me any time...in fact, please do, whenever you feel bad or have a bad dream just tell me about it."

"Will it help?" asked El quietly.

Max thought for a moment, "I hope so...I mean, it won't make it worse, and you'll have someone who knows exactly how you're feeling and why" she reason, "but, you know, only if you trust me..." she trailed off.

El's head whipped up to look at her, "yes."

"What?"

"I trust you...I think more than anyone" said El, looking Max in the eyes. Max blushed but held her gaze. It should have been uncomfortable, but it wasn't. They were broken from their gaze by a bang on the door and a shout.

"Max, open the door, hands are full" they heard Max's mom say.

Max jumped off her seat and opened the door to find her mom holding a large box, "hey mom, need some help?"

"Yes" she said, shimmying through the door, "I don't know why I've got the heavy one, it's Billy's stuff...BILLY!" she shouted.

A tall, conventionally handsome guy came through the door. Max had met him a few times but this was El's first encounter with him, "hey Max, good to see you" he said insincerely, but convincingly enough for Max's mom.

"H-hi Billy" she stuttered. El looked at her questioningly, she'd never seen Max this nervous about someone before and didn't like it, she narrowed her eyes at Billy's back while he grabbed his heavy box of stuff and took it upstairs.

"El, hi, I didn't see you" said Max's mom in a friendly tone, "how was the sleepover?"

El couldn't help but smile, "good...we watched a scary film" to which Max's mom raised her eyebrow and looked pointedly at Max, something which wasn't lost on El as her emotional acuity seemed to be unusually well-tuned that morning, "but I didn't find it scary, so we talked instead, right Max?"

"Yeah, yes, we talked instead, it wasn't really scary at all" she garbled, silently thanking El for digging them out of the hole she created.

As they chatted Billy came back downstairs and stood awkwardly in the kitchen with them all. "Oh Billy, this is El, Max's friend" her mom said.

Billy raised one eyebrow and looked El up and down surreptitiously as he approached her and held out his hand for her to shake. She felt obliged to take it, "El? Pretty name" he stated, still shaking her hand gently up and down, "nice to meet you" he added smirking.

"Er, yes, you too..." she managed, before pulling her hand away. She didn't like him, she didn't trust him, and she was immediately worried about Max having to live with him.

"Billy's dad will join us tomorrow, he's just finalising things with their old house" Max's mom said, El saw as Billy's face hardened.

"I'm going out" he stated.

"Oh, could you drop El home?" asked Max's mom, "I'm meant to take her but I really should start unpacking."

Billy turned back to El, "absolutely, it would be my pleasure" he replied, with a lecherous look on his face, a look that El didn't understand but instinct told her wasn't good.

She didn't know what to do and looked at Max worriedly, "it's ok, we'll walk through the woods, it'll only take an hour there and back, and Billy can unpack his room" Max said.

Billy glared at her while her mom replied "great idea, back by lunch ok?"

"Sure" said Max, grabbing El's hand and taking her upstairs to get her bag.

*~~~~~~~~~~~~*

As they walked through the woods back to the Wheeler's house, El suddenly said "do you remember what you said, you'd tell me if anything bad happened?"

Max frowned slightly, "yeah?"

"I meant it, you promised..."

"Yeah, I promised" agreed Max, smiling slightly.

"Ok...good" stated El, seemingly satisfied with Max's acknowledgement.

*~~~~~~~~~~~~*