A/N. One word: Random.
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Harper asks Max for some advice.
Juliet: "Hey Max maybe you can help me with something. How do you get your brother to say what's on his mind?"
Max: "That's easy... randomness." Juliet: "What?" Max: "You know you say something random until someone says what's on their mind. Do you wonder why pineapples don't where bathrobes?" Juliet: "What? Why would you even say that? I was just saying that Justin doesn't want to go on vacation with me and how much that makes me upset because I might be in love with him. Wow that random stuff really works!"
Max: "What random stuff? I haven't even done it yet."
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"Hey Max, I need your advice." Harper played with her purse in her hand shaped like a gopher- and where was Alex when someone needed her?
"You just say something totally random and people will tell you what they're thinking... it's like magic." Busy at the kitchen counter making a sandwich he didn't pay too much attention to her, or her question. That was his standard advice. He should start mass marketing it on fortune cookies!
"Ha. Magic." Harper snorted a laugh from her own uncomfortableness. How was she still finding amusement in that? The wizard thing was normal by now wasn't it? She lived with it.
"Yeah, because it begins with an 'M' - that is pretty funny" he began laughing as well only to stop short a moment later, "why are we laughing again?"
"Because you're wizards and you just said the word - uh, it doesn't matter. So was your advice is just to say things spontaneous?"
"Now you're thinking! Wait- my advice? What advice do you need?" A nice spreading of blood red over the slices of bread - perfect... and Max hadn't even noticed that he had given any advice.
Harper stopped, trying to figure out what he could possibly mean. "Wait. Is your advice to be spontaneous or just confusing?"
"Now you're just confusing me." Max fell on the couch with the sandwich he'd been fixing. Yes. Finally. Ketchup on the outside AND the inside of a sandwich. It was genius. He didn't know why he hadn't tried it before.
Harper fell on the couch beside him looking glum, "that makes two of us." She turned her head to him taking him in for a moment. "Wait, you've got a bit of ketchup."
"Where?"
"Well," she hesitated but there wasn't a little bit that she could just wipe off herself, "everywhere really."
"Great! Can never get enough of this stuff!" He proceeded to rub the bread already stained with ketchup over his face in a poor attempt to soak up the ketchup he'd already gotten there and then beamed at her with a big ketchupy grin...
...and instead of being repulsed all Harper could think of was that she'd always liked the color red - red like cherries - or apples - or the face of the brother you've never wanted before. Weird. That's all it was. One weird afternoon. Now instead of getting advice on Justin she was going to go and make something red! That ought to cheer her up. Max may not have known the right things to say but he knew how to do something. Red, hmmm... yeah, she could do something with red.
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One More to Come- for now!
