Now This Is Our Final December Who: Lily and Max What: Lily confronts her brother about his odd hours. Where: Apartment 605 When: Late evening.
Upon walking into their apartment, Lily could hear the sound of one of Max’s games. She let out a little sigh of relief and tossed her strawberry blonde curls over her shoulders as she pushed her way past the door with grocery bags of fruits and vegetables. Sitting the bags on the counter, she considered whether she should put them away or go straight to Max’s room.
His room won out.
Running a hand through her hair, Lily tossed her shoes into her room before pausing outside of Max’s door. For the first time in her life, she felt a certain nervousness about approaching him. They had always had such an open relationship. Things had been easy. But...maybe that was the issue. They had been easy for so many years and no one was that lucky with their loved ones. Surely they had to come to a point where they seemed to be going down different paths and that moment seemed to be now.
Swallowing, Lily looked over the door and lifted her hand to the doorknob then paused. Licking her lips, Lily wondered if Max would be willing to talk to her and hoped they hadn’t become that distant that he wouldn’t share with her. Turning the knob, she opened the door enough to stick her head into his room. “Max? Could we...can we talk?”
It seemed rare now when he had a chance or desire to play his games. It was unnecessary, a childish pursuit that whiled away the hours - Max remembered that, once upon a time, he had grand ideas of being the best at these mimicries of life, but now he had much more important things to worry about. He’d missed a handful of classes, his grades were becoming dismal, and sleep was in short supply. Even though he still felt wide awake during the night, running around only to have the crap beaten out of him every so often was taking its toll.
Long sleeves, sweatshirts and jeans all hid the bruises and scars from Lily, but she had begun to take notice of longer hours spent in the bathroom (in his attempt to patch himself up) along with disappearances during dinner and when he’d be late coming home in the morning. But he’d managed to wave it all away with excuses: visiting friends, doing homework at cafes, attending gaming and comic book events. Never before in his life had he such a hectic social schedule, but it was something he thought Lily would appreciate. At least, moreso than him as a super hero. It was better this way, for her to know less - safer, especially. He hadn’t told anyone, because who could he trust?
Hitting the pause button, Max stayed in his beanbag chair staring at the screen, a hand rising up to prod tentatively at the black eye forming on his face. There would be no explanation for that, but he could try. Part of him wanted to pretend that he hadn’t heard her, or was too tired. But that would have been cruel. His head turned, the side without the bruise, glancing toward his sister.
“Uh, sure. What’s up?” Hopefully she would stay on the right side of the room, and he would be able to hide the bruise just by never turning his head.
His response made Lily frown. She felt her stomach drop as she walked into his room and nervously brushed back her hair. She must have done something wrong during the past few months for Max to so suddenly be pushing her away. Taking the seat closest to Max she looked at her hands for a moment before gathering the courage to continue. “I just wanted to talk to you...I...I don’t know what’s going on between us but I feel like you’re pulling away. We used to be much closer than this and now we barely talk and you’re hardly around. Are you dating someone and you don’t want to tell me? Or...or did I do something wrong? Are you angry with me?”
She didn’t look at him but kept her eyes staring at her hands. She wasn’t quite ready to see the truth in his face, to see that they had indeed slipped apart or that he was mad at her. They would squabble every now and then, typical little arguments, but they had never been like this with one another. They were close, or had been, and Lily was already finding herself to be wracked with guilt over something she wasn’t sure she might have done.
Max blinked; he couldn’t remember a time when he’d seen his sister in such a way. Meek and mild was not Lily’s personality; she was, for lack of a better term, bright, cheerful, and always prepared to take care of any situation. If she thought he had done something, usually she would come right out with it. To see her timid like this was almost...unnerving. His mouth gaped for a moment, hands tightening around his games’ controller.
“Why....why would you think I’m mad at you?” He put the controller down without looking away from her, rising to his feet, the bruise forming on his face forgotten at the moment. Rising to his feet, he moved toward Lily, a concerned expression coloring his features. “Of course I’m not mad at you, I’ve just....I’ve just been really busy.”
Lily frowned, not looking at her brother for a moment as she processed what he had said and gathered back her control. Ever since they moved into the apartment complex Lily felt like she was losing her grasp on herself. With the sight of their father and the odd things that happened between Max and herself...it was just becoming too much and Lily felt herself faltering more and more. But Max wasn’t one to lie and she trusted what he said.
Looking up, Lily’s lips parted as she began to speak but her jaw quickly dropped. “Max? What happened to your eye?” She got to her feet quickly, standing in front of her brother and lightly touching the skin near the bruise. “I have to get some teabags on that. What the hell has been going on, Max?” Her golden eyebrows nearly met as her expression of worry switched to annoyance. “You’ve been busy? With what, Max? I thought that maybe you had a girlfriend and you were keeping it from me...but what’s with this? And don’t tell me you’ve tripped into a door knob or something.”
She stepped back and put her hands onto her hip, jutting one hip out as she waited for him to speak and preferably tell her the entire truth.
“Hah, uh...” Well, there went his first idea at an excuse. Lying was not his forte - no, that seemed to lie in turning invisible, like that one time when Lily had shone as brightly as the sun, while he had faded away, literally. But while she was content to ignore what had happened, Max had relished his new found skill, using it to the best advantage possible. Yet he knew that his sister would very much dislike his newfound hobbies.
“Just...you know. Games. I was at The Secret Headquarters,” he babbled, naming an often visited comic book store as a point of proof, “the other night for the midnight launch of the new Innistrad deck Magic was putting out. I’ve been playing a lot of games. And homework... Look, I’m sorry, I’ll make it up to you, all right? Dinner, on me. Whatever you want.” He glossed over the explanation of how he’d managed to garner the black eye, hoping that Lily would zero in more on his explanations and accept them without further question. A ghost of a smile wavered on his face, trying to adapt normality to what had become a bizarre life. If only he were more like Bruce Wayne, but then again, certainly confidence came with wealth and power; until then, explaining away bruises without the bat cave would have to be a trait Max would develop over time.
“You didn’t answer me, Maximillian,” Lily replied sternly, moving her hands from her hips and crossing her arms over her breasts. “How did you get the black eye? This is why I was worried something was wrong! You’ve been coming and going all hours of the night. I know you haven’t been here while I’ve been asleep, I keep waking up from nightmares and you aren’t even here. You’ve been acting weird ever since...” Her voice cut off and she stared at her brother with her mouth open. She had been avoiding the topic of what happened between them a few weeks ago but now it seemed necessary. Shifting uncomfortably on her feet and one hand reaching to tuck her hair behind an ear, she struggled to get the words out before finally blurting it all. “Ever since I glowed and you went invisible.”
“Nightmares?” The admission caught Max off guard, again side-stepping the issue of his injury. Surely if he avoided it for long enough, Lily would let it go. Or so he hoped. “What kind of nightmares? I’m sorry, I....” I’ve been busy fighting crime, though more often than not getting my ass handed to me, he mentally finished, half remembering the strange events of Halloween. He still had no idea what those creatures were that had attacked him and Alex, but the injuries he had sustained made them real enough and not some figment of his overactive imagination.
Lily’s frown became fixed on her face and she looked over Max. She knew what he was doing, he had done it when he was little and was trying to hide the fact that he ate too much candy (despite her warnings he would get sick) on Easter. Still, he asked; leadership by example caused Lily to answer honestly and hope he would do the same. “Nightmares...about wolves and big dogs. Sometimes I think I see our father in my dreams. I think it’s just been stress...and it hasn’t helped that when I wake up from these nightmares and get up to get a drink you aren’t even home.”
She kept her eyes on her brother, waiting for him to admit whatever it was he was keeping to himself. She had hoped so badly that he was sneaking off to see a girl (or a guy, if that was his deal, Lily had never really discussed that type of thing with her brother) but the longer he held off with the conversation, the more she felt it was something different.
He couldn’t readily remember the last time he’d had a dream, or a nightmare for that matter - running around protecting who he assumed to be innocents left him far too tired for his mind to conjure up any images while he was fast asleep. It had been weeks since they’d received that odd tape, let alone seen their father: for most instances, things were exceedingly normal, with the small exception of his Halloween adventure and the fact that he could turn invisible.
Max noted her mention of that particular evening, where they’d discovered what they could do, but as far as he knew, Lily hadn’t delved any further into the subject. He knew she liked having control over things, knowing what was going on, and how to combat it. Things like being able to glow and turn invisible were outside the spectrum of ‘usual’ and opened a door to too many alternate possibilities for things. It also simply fell into the huge pile of things he hadn’t told Lily and, since it had gotten this far, never planned to. It was just better that way.
“Lil, I’m sorry, I just...look, you always wanted me to grow up, right? I think I’m doing that. I’m just trying to be an adult.” He pressed a hand to his chest, his hands then falling flat to his sides. How else was he supposed to explain this?
Lily pressed her lips together in a thin line, her form becoming unmoving as she studied her brother and tried to determine what he was keeping from her. “You aren’t doing anything illegal, right? You aren’t in some kind of trouble?” She asked wearily. She wanted to believe that he was doing just what he said: growing up, doing school work, having a social life. It was true that she wanted him to grow up and yet she was finding herself feeling almost a little...let down. Had they reached the point where Max didn’t need her any longer?
Shoulders slumping slightly she reached out and touched Max’s cheek gently, still worrying over the bruise on his face. “You’d tell me if you were in trouble, right? You know I’d help you, Max.”
An awkward smile graced his features, trying to assure his sister that he had it all under control. Because he really did. Didn’t he?
“I would, don’t worry.” For some reason, the lie came easily, perhaps more so than it should have. But to keep his sister whole and sane, he’d shield her from the things that had become all too apparent to his eyes. Whatever he had to do to protect the damsel in distress, he knew he’d do without pause, even if it meant putting himself in danger. “I might have some English homework you could help with, actually,” he quickly continued, moving his sister’s hand from his face and dragging her over to the bed. Once he was there, he picked up his backpack and flung it onto the bed, pulling out school books that he hadn’t touched in some time. Inside was a book titled The Poetic Edda. “I’ve got to do a study of one of these poems, but none of them make sense to me.” He took a seat on the bed, looking up at his sister as though he were a young boy again.
Lily watched her brother again much as before and seemed to visually give up the battle. She relaxed, her face becoming less worried, and she took the seat beside her brother on his bed. “Let me see,” her voice was quiet as she reached for the book and flipped open the cover. “I’d love to help you,” she said with a smile, her eyes meeting Max’s after a moment. “But dinner is still on you and I still need to get something on that black eye. Come to the kitchen, I’ll get you set up and we can pick a poem together.” She reached for his hair, ruffling it with her hand, and her smile grew. She felt as if a weight had been temporarily lifted from her shoulders. Lily was still sure that Max was hiding something but for now she would happily accept what he offered: a sense of normalcy.