Max's spell lasted until Monday night, just after closing time, giving Justin and Alex two whole, luxurious days to laze around, make love, and just enjoy one another freely in the privacy of her room. Every few hours, food would magically appear on Alex's desk like clockwork, much to their surprise, reinforcing Justin's belief that Max was on their side. Funnily enough, though, the only drinks he sent up with the subs were bottles and bottles of Gatorade, as though he were worried that dehydration might become an issue.
If anything, the opposite proved to be true: going to the bathroom was initially a bit of a puzzler, since they couldn't simply walk down the hall, proving that Max hadn't thought of absolutely everything. At first Alex was determined to fashion a rudimentary funnel out of sandwich wrap and make use of their scores of empty Gatorade bottles, before a scandalized Justin forced her to reluctantly venture through the door and find a bush by the side of the highway. Fortunately, the blindfold and handcuffs weren't the only surprises hiding in Alex's nightstand: it also contained a bottle of warming lube that doubled as hand sanitizer.
"It kind of goes hand in hand with the anal beads," she explained bashfully, and admitted to having spent some time shopping online with their mom's credit card in anticipation of their big weekend together, which is how she'd wound up being grounded in the first place. "You'd be amazed what you can find on Amazon."
And then Justin asked her how they worked, and they didn't talk for awhile. Well, not in complete sentences, anyway.
It was kind of a bittersweet moment when the "Great Faces, Great Places" sign started to shimmer like a desert mirage in her doorway, gradually fading from view to reveal the upstairs hallway. Though sad to have to return to the real world, at the same time they were sore, spent and beyond sated. And the idea of actually being able to take a shower after two days of near-constant sticky sweatiness was heavenly. They raced each other down the hall to be first, then tumbled in together, and brazenly made love one last time, slowly and quietly, under the rush of the faucet. Then they toweled one another off, retreated to their separate bedrooms to get dressed, and met each other at the top of the stairs to creep down together, unsure of what awaited them.
Max sat alone in the living room, slumped on the couch, feet up on the coffee table, chin propped on his hand as he stared glumly at the dark TV screen. He barely looked up as his siblings sat down on either side of him.
"Oh, hey guys," he sighed.
Justin and Alex exchanged a look of concern over the top of his head before she spoke up. "Everything OK, Maxie?"
"Yeah, I guess," he shrugged. "Except I just finished the game, and the ending? It sucked sweaty donkey sac. It's not even an ending really. I mean, you don't even find out the secret behind the midget's mask! The whole thing's just a long, boring commercial for the next movie!"
He heaved a heavy sigh of disappointment, and tossed aside the hint book that was lying open in his lap. "Man, it's gonna be such a waste of time and money when I can finally buy it in three years."
Frowning, Justin opened his mouth to point out that he didn't have to buy it if he didn't want to, but Alex waved him off and pointedly jerked her head at Max, reminding him that there were more important things to discuss at the moment. Justin nodded at her, and awkwardly cleared his throat.
"Max, we, uh...we wanted to talk to you before Mom and Dad got home," he said, "about everything that happened this weekend."
Max blinked up at him. "Why, what happened? We worked ourselves to half to death at the Sub Station, you guys did your whole weird slap-slap-kiss routine the whole time, and I wasted two days doing something stupid that most people would probably think was completely insane. Sounds like your average weekend on Waverly Place to me."
He shrugged, then, and turned back to face the TV with a characteristically blank expression on his face. And for a second—just a second—they almost bought it, just like always. But, for once, they didn't roll their eyes or shake their heads at his practiced obliviousness, or facepalm over his apparent stupidity. Instead, they scrutinized him as they never had before, looking at their younger brother through narrowed eyes as though really seeing him for the first time.
"It wasn't stupid or insane, Maxie," Alex quietly grinned, her voice thick with emotion as she held her arms out and drew him into a hug. "In fact, it's just about the sweetest, most thoughtful thing anyone's ever done for either of us. Thank you."
"Yeah buddy, thanks," Justin added, awkwardly laying a hand on Max's shoulder. "We really appreciate it. Seriously."
"Uh...OK?" Max said uncertainly over Alex's shoulder, as he glanced from her to Justin and back. "Listen, if it means this much to you to avoid crummy movie tie-ins, then you'll want to stay the hell away from the Avatar game, too. Because, man, that thing? Big steaming pile of crap."
"Wait, what?" Frowning, Alex pulled away and held him at arm's length, one eyebrow raised. "What are you talking about?"
"Video games, duh," Max replied. "What are you talking about?"
Alex blinked at this, then looked past him to shoot a look of confusion at Justin.
"Max, it's OK," Justin chuckled. "We know that you know."
"Oh, right on," Max said, grinning over his shoulder at him. "Uh, am I supposed to know that I know what you know that I know, though? Because, honestly? I don't know that I do..."
Justin's eyebrows knit themselves together in confusion, and his lips actually started moving silently as he tried to work this out for himself. Alex rolled her eyes and grunted in frustration. Reaching out to cup Max's chin in her hand, she turned his face back towards her.
"Max, seriously," she said. "We talked about it, and we're totally cool with you knowing. We trust you, more than anybody. You don't have to play dumb, for once."
"Hello!" Jerry's voice called suddenly from downstairs, causing all three Russo children to freeze in their seats. "Anybody home?"
"Hey, somebody's gotta do it, right?" Max said quietly, with a wink. He reached out to give her hand a quick squeeze before he leaned over the back of the couch towards the stairs. "We're all up here, Dad!" he called.
"Ungh!" Jerry grunted, red-faced and out of breath as he struggled to navigate up the spiral staircase into the living room, while dragging the first of his wife's bags behind him. "I still don't understand what your mother needed all this stuff for. And why the hell do we have so many twisty stairs in this place, anyway?"
Justin, being who he was, leapt up off the couch immediately and hurried over to help. Alex waited until he was already halfway there before she stood up herself, as though she'd wanted to help, but Justin had beaten her to it. Max didn't even take his feet off the coffee table.
"Thanks, son," Jerry said as Justin took the suitcase from him. "Wow, I thought for sure we'd come home and find you kids all still cleaning up the Sub Station after such a busy weekend, but it looks pretty spiffy down there. What, did you guys close up early tonight, or something?"
"Nah, usual time," Max replied smoothly, even as both Justin and Alex turned to look at him. "Alex helped me bus today, so it went a lot faster than usual."
"She did?" Jerry asked, staring at Alex in disbelief. "But she doesn't even clean up after herself..."
"That's nothing, Daddy," Alex beamed. "Max waited tables all weekend. And he was awesome at it! You should have seen him!"
Jerry blinked. "He...what?"
"It's true, Dad," Justin said, nodding sagely. Then, off his father's look of skepticism: "No, really. There are witnesses, I swear."
Jerry looked blankly at each of his kids in turn, incredulous. "Wait, so Alex was bussing, and Max was competently waiting tables... so, is this Bizarro World I've come back to, or something? Because I'm almost afraid to ask whether Bizarro!Justin remembered to make the deposit, or not."
Justin's face fell, as all the color drained from it. "Uh..."
"Dad, c'mon," Max scoffed, a little more loudly than was absolutely necessary. "It's Justin. Of course he made the deposit. Duhr."
"I did?" Justin blinked. Then, off Alex's look of exasperation: "Uh, I mean, I did! But only because Max...um...made me."
"Made you," Jerry repeated, looking at Max in surprise. "Really."
"Oh, totally," Alex broke in quickly, before Justin had an aneurism, or something. "Max really came through for us in a big, bad way, Daddy. In fact, I think it's fair to say we probably wouldn't have done it this weekend, without his help."
"Heh," Max and Justin grinned, almost in unison.
Jerry frowned. "Why is that funny?"
All three Russo children glanced at each other guiltily for a second, before turning their eyes back to their father.
"Uh, it's funny," Justin stammered, reaching up to scratch the back of his neck nonchalantly as he flushed a deep shade of red, "because of the, um...inherent irony—"
"Yeah, nobody cares, egghead," Alex cut him off, chuckling as she threw her arms around Jerry and planted a kiss on his cheek. "Welcome home, Daddy. We'll go help Mom bring up the rest of the luggage, OK?"
"Wait, you're actually volunteering to help, now?" Jerry said, gaping at her. "Man, I really have come back to Bizarro World, haven't I?"
Alex rolled her eyes as she pulled away from her father, and let out a sigh. "Seriously, people, I'm almost eighteen. Is it so incredibly hard for everyone to grasp that maybe I'm actually maturing, here? Besides, if this were Bizarro World, wouldn't Justin be, like, cool and good-looking?"
"Oh, har-har," Justin said flatly, grabbing her by the wrist and tugging her towards the stairs. "You am so funny, Alex. Me am laughing hysterically. C'mon."
"Dork!" Alex giggled as they went bounding down the stairs, one after the other, without so much as a shove or an elbow to the ribs. Looking for all the world like two people who were content, even happy, to have spent the entire weekend in one another's presence. Jerry watched after them, his eyes narrowed in suspicion, then reached out and snagged the back of Max's collar as he tried to follow them.
"Hold up there a second, double-oh-seven," he said pointedly. "So what'd you find out?"
"Huh?" Max said, staring at him blankly. "Oh, you mean the—? Yeah, nothin', sorry."
"Nothing?" said Jerry. "After three whole days? Really?"
Max shrugged. "Well, nothing worthwhile, anyway. Turns out the whole thing's just a crummy tease. If you want, just read the hint book and skip playing the game altogether. In hindsight, I wish that's what I'd done."
"Hint b—? Max, what the hell are you talking about?"
"Video games, duh!" Max replied. "What are you talking about?"
"Alex and Justin!" Jerry yelled in annoyance. Then, with a quick glance over his shoulder at the stairs, he lowered his voice to a whisper. "You were supposed to find out what's up with them, this weekend! Your mission, remember?"
"Oh, that! Yeah, that turned out to be an even bigger bust than the game, actually. I dunno where you got the idea that they might be in kazoos, or whatever—"
"Cahoots, Max," Jerry said patiently, closing his eyes. "The word is 'cahoots'."
"Well, whatever you thought they might be in, you were way off," Max said.
"What, really?" Jerry asked. "There were no parties? No boys? No magic? No...shenanigans?"
"Not that I saw," Max said. "Honestly? It was pretty boring. Alex barely left her room for two days, and for all I saw him outside of the Sub Station, Justin might as well have been in another state, entirely."
"Oh," said Jerry, sounding almost disappointed. "So you're telling me that you guys opened and closed the Sub Station on time every day, Alex endured her punishment responsibly, like an adult, and there were absolutely no wacky hi-jinx of any kind to be had, magical or otherwise."
"Pretty much," Max nodded. "Like I said: boring."
"Huh," Jerry said, shaking his head. "Bizarro World. It's the only explanation."
"Or," Max said, holding up one finger, "maybe Alex is right, and we're all finally growing up and acting mature, and junk."
Jerry considered this for a moment. "Yeah, I'm really more inclined to go with my theory. Listen, can you go get Alex's wand back from wherever you hid it? I should probably give it back to her tonight, given that she inexplicably didn't break any actual rules this weekend..."
"Ohhhhhh yeah, about that," Max said with a wince. "Remember how you told me to stash it somewhere she wouldn't find it? But the lair seemed too obvious, right? So I...uh...hid it in the freezer downstairs, instead. Because, seriously, how often do we even use that door for that?"
Afraid that he knew where this was going, Jerry's shoulders slumped. "And...?"
"Yeah, I wouldn't go in there, if I were you," Max cautioned him. "Because what Alex's wand did to Grandma's tomatoes that one time? Walk in the park compared to what it's done to the imitation ham..."
"Uggggh, Max!" Jerry groaned, reaching up to cover his face with his palm. He heaved a long-suffering sigh as he shook his head and rolled his eyes at his youngest child. "So much for Bizarro World. I should have known an uneventful weekend was too much to hope for from you kids."
"You do have to admit, though," Max said, "on a scale of one to 'Uncle Kelbo is secretly Shakira', this actually ranks pretty low."
"The fact that we even need a scale like that disturbs me more than you'll ever know, but you do have a point," Jerry groused. "Fine. I'll go get Justin. You grab your wand and meet us downstairs by the freezer so we can take care of this before your mother finds out."
And just like that, Jerry was headed down the stairs, focused on fixing yet another one of his kids' magical snafus, his suspicions about Justin and Alex—whatever they might be—completely forgotten, at least for the moment. Probably longer, once he actually saw what was waiting for them.
Max grinned to himself as he watched him go. It hadn't been easy to transmute imitation ham into the feral mutant pseudo-pig creature that was currently residing in the Sub Station's freezer, particularly not while using his sister's wand. (Y'know, just in case there was any truth to that whole 'tying the signature of an illegal spell to the wand that fired it for periods of up to twenty years' thing.) In fact, it had been just about the most difficult spell he'd ever attempted on his own. But screwing up on purpose had always been Max's forte, and once he'd finally gotten it down, it was also easily the most satisfying thing he'd ever done with magic in his short life, too. (And not just because the pseudo-pig thing had turned out looking really gross and cool, either.)
No. It was because, for the first time in his life, Max Russo had a purpose, beyond making sure that everyone's expectations of him were acceptably low. Something to stand for. Fight for. Care about.
And OK, so that something? Kind of weird. And more than a little gross, if he stopped to think about it too hard. But at the same time, not so much. Because it was them, and it made them happy, and they were the two people he loved most in the entire world.
"Well, duh."
He wasn't ready to talk to them about it, yet—and he wasn't sure he ever would be, because dude, effed up!—but he could do this for them. Would do this for them, because they needed him to, even if they didn't know it yet. As much of a genius as Justin might have been, and as much of a criminal mastermind as Alex was, neither of them had anything on Max when it came to knowing how to hide in plain sight, or distract people from seeing the truth. After nearly sixteen years, it had more or less become his super power.
And after all, like their Dad had always said: with great power, came great responsibility.
—30—
