Home ||~~Elax/Elmax~~||

The morning after

"Max" she heard someone whisper. She was so warm and comfortable she decided to ignore it. "Max!" she heard again, this time the word had a lot more urgency about it so she grudgingly opened her eyes. Blinking a few times to bring the world into focus, she found herself looking at Nancy's concerned face.

"Nancy? What are you doing here?" she croaked, her mouth dry from sleeping.

"I just got back from college and crept into my room expecting to find you asleep in my bed, when you weren't there it didn't take much detective work to guess where you were" she said, with a knowing grin on her face.

Max looked at her, confused for a second, then realized where she was and that she had an arm wrapped around her from behind. She froze and felt her face turn red.

"It's ok, I don't care what you two get up to together, you're both old enough." Max closed her eyes and blushed even more. "But I'm pretty sure mom would flip her shit if she found you two in bed together...especially as you don't appear to be wearing any pjs" she said with a wink before standing up and leaving the room, shutting the door silently so as not to draw attention to El's room.

Max lay stunned for a few seconds before lifting the covers slightly to confirm that, yes, neither she nor El were wearing any clothes. Thinking back to last night, and again earlier this morning, she blushed again. If my face gets any hotter I'm gonna start a fire.

She turned over, "El" she said softly. When she got no response, she leaned close to her ear and repeated it a little louder.

Max smiled when she heard El groan "whaaaaaaaat?"

"I have to get up."

"Nooooooo, whyyyy?" El moaned, snaking her arm around Max and pulling her close. She nuzzled into her neck, peppering her with soft kisses. It really didn't seem so important to Max that she should go back to Nancy's room.

KNOCK KNOCK

"Shit" they both whisper yelled, sitting up and covering themselves as best they could, the guilt already evident on both their faces.

"Are you awake, El?" Karen said through the door.

El took a second to reply, managing a weak "yeah, just getting dressed."

"Ok, I'll just go wake up Max then" Karen replied.

El and Max just looked at each other in panic.

"Mom!" they heard Nancy say.

"Nancy! When did you get home?" Karen asked, her voice sounding delighted.

"About an hour ago, I snuck in so I wouldn't disturb anyone" Nancy replied, "shall we go downstairs, Max is still sleeping" she added loudly.

El and Max held their breath while waiting for Karen to answer.

"Ok, I guess it wouldn't hurt to let her sleep in for once" Karen agreed.

They listened while she and Nancy clearly made their way downstairs, Nancy being sure to stomp a little louder than usual to let them know the coast was clear.

"Fuck" said Max, sighing in relief.

"No, that's what almost got us into trouble" El couldn't help but reply. They looked at each other seriously for a second before bursting out laughing.

"Damn, remind me to thank Nancy later" Max was finally able to say. "I'd better get moving before anyone comes back upstairs." They managed to get dressed without getting too distracting, and as Max was about to leave the room El grabbed her hand, making her turn around.

"I love you, Max" she said with a smile.

"Love you too, idiot" Max replied, before snatching her hand away and running out of the room before El could get revenge.

"Ugh, what's all the damned noise for" a very dishevelled looking Mike said, emerging from his room.

"Oh, uh, Max was just messing about, playing a trick on me" El replied, giggling at Mike's hair sticking up in all directions. "Anyway, Nancy's downstairs, she came back earlier" she informed him.

"Awesome" he replied deadpan, turning and going back into his room.

"Teenage boys" Max stated, leaning on her shoulder having snuck up behind her.

"Nah, he was out late with Will, some sci-fi flick they went to see" El said.

"Like I said, teenage boys" Max repeated.

El thought for a second and shrugged, "yeah, guess so." They stood there for a few seconds in silent thought, El thinking of how to get Max for her 'idiot' comment, Max thinking how she was going to get away from El when the time came. They both started moving at the same time, Max just about escaping El's grasp and running downstairs, with El in close pursuit.

"Woah, woah, woah" Ted yelled, almost bowled over by them both.

"Sorry Ted, didn't see you there" Max yelled over her shoulder as they reached the lounge. As she did so El managed to tackle her onto the couch.

"Take it back" she told Max.

"Never!"

"Take. It. Back."

"Or what?"

Max watched as the half-empty cup of cold coffee left by Ted's Lay-Z-boy floated over and hovered above her head.

"You wouldn't" she half-stated, half-questioned.

El just raised her eyebrow.

"Ok, ok, I take it back" Max gave in. As El let her go and grabbed the cup, putting back in place for Ted to be moaned at about later, Max grumbled "that's cheating."

"I know...sorry...do you hate me?" El asked, slightly worried.

Max turned and grabbed El's wrists, pushing her back onto the sofa, "never" she said seriously, "idiot or not, I'll always love you."

Cough cough

They both sat up very straight, very suddenly and looked towards the direction of the cough. Sighing in relief they saw Nancy stood in the doorway smirking.

El jumped up and hugged her tight, "I'm so happy to see you" she stated.

"Me too, El, but it's only been like a month or so since you came back" she said smiling.

"I know, but I wasn't out of hospital when you went back to college."

"Oh and Nancy" Max interrupted, "thanks for earlier, upstairs, you know..." she said awkwardly.

"That's ok" she replied grinning, "but you guys need to be a bit more sneaky in future, you know mom can break through any lock."

"Wait, what?" El said, confused.

"Oh, um, Nancy kind of saw us in bed this morning, when she found me not sleeping in her bed..."

El's face immediately went red, making Nancy smirk before she walked off.

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