Banner Artist: Me
Author: Chad
Disclaimer: Roswell does not belong to me. No infringement is intended.
Rating/Category: Adult/Max POVish CC/AU without aliens
Summary: Max Evans goes on a road trip for no apparent reason. Other things ensue around him. That is his opinion on the matter.
Warnings: Abusive use of dry, sarcastic, juvenile, and crack humor. Creating of made up words. Random randomness. And swearing.
AN: I was terribly bored. This is what happened.
Hope you N+Joy.Chapter One
(Prelude to an Abomination of an Adventure)
Max Evans makes it a point not to do things he does not want to do. Trust. His skills at not doing unwantedtodothings are unequaled. By way of excuses, denial, flat out rejections, or in certain cases, the always effective ‘hells no’, you will never come upon a Max doing something said Max does not want to do. (Prelude to an Abomination of an Adventure)
So why is he doing this?
Please tell him, as he has spent several critical (or critiquel) seconds of his life trying to figure it out. This amounting to, sitting in his car outside of the apartment complex (complex apartment?) of one Elizabeth Parker. This also equaling, waiting for Elizabeth Parker—who shall henceforth be known simply as Liz (or perhaps another name given fitting circumstances)—to make a non spectacular appearance in a non spectacular fashion, so that they may embark upon what is likely to be contrarily an overly spectacular journey.
“We should go on a road trip.”
That was the sentence from which this abomination of an adventure was spawned. Or at least the current events: the prelude to an abomination of an adventure. Whispered in his ear several weeks ago at an hour at which any perfectly capable person is quite perfectly incapable of remembering. And if at one point Max had been capable of remembering it, he has surely forgotten by now.
A road trip? Perhaps there is a misunderstanding. Has he not explained clearly that such things fall under the category of unwantedtodo? He is sure that he has. And even so, being that several weeks ago is where it all originated—the “it” in that statement being this idea for a damn road trip—if he actually thinks about it, Max can remember the origin quite clearly.
Oh look. Apparently he is still perfectly capable.
It was a normal morning (most oppositely unlike this morning). Or perhaps it is better to say that it was as normal a morning as he is used to. Well…normal aside from the fact that there was a woman lying on top of him, her weight slight enough to be inconsequential, but not so slight that it was inconsequentially unnoticeable. And really, the woman wasn’t quite normal, so perhaps the morning was not as particularly normal as his memory wanted him to think it was, nor as normal as normal can normally be explained. After all, it was not every day—not of his monotonous life anyway—that he woke up with a naked woman sprawled out on top of him.
Oh, had he not mentioned that she was naked?
Yes, she was naked. A detail he supposes is worth more than glossing over.
And don’t you judge him. What did you expect? Any red blooded testosterone driven man of his mid to late…any age, would not dare gloss over the noticing of a naked woman lying on top of him. But that’s beside the point (as oppose to behind or in front of it). She was naked. He noticed. End of story.
At the time, in Max’s vivid memory of the event—and you should know his vivacity for vividness is quite vast—the naked woman had been sleeping soundly, like she hadn’t a care in the world. This he would say showed no particularly uncharacteristic amount of boldness for a person who would dare to sleep naked atop another person. Alas, he supposed he was in no position to judge the character of a naked sleeping woman, when consequently, he found himself sharing a common bond with her (heads out of the gutter people!). For while he was neither sleeping, nor particularly a woman, he was quite similarly naked.
Probability and logistics being what they are, by now one may have come to the calculation that some nefarious deeds had taken place in this bed either the previous night, or perhaps some other time in the not so distant past. And if one has indeed come to this particular conclusion, one might not be wrong. And if you are not yet one who has made this deduction, here’s a fun math equation for you. Surely you can take a few moments of your time to solve it.
One naked man + One naked woman + One comfy queen sized Serta Perfect Sleeper = …?
And there you have it.
Well, nefariousness aside, Max really had no intentions of waking her (the naked woman), as he found he liked the sensation of the sleep naked skin against his own wake naked skin. And in his professional opinion—which was as professional of an opinion as one could have of a person having had another person sleep naked on top of them while being naked themselves—this particular naked woman was much easier to deal with when she was unconscious.
But then, so are most women. (badabump che)
As stated before, she (again, the naked woman) had been lying on top of him (and naked!!) when the events leading to the current events had been realized. Despite Max’s resolve to keep her in her state of unconsciousness, fate, or misfortune—whichever name you wished to call it by—dictated that this be the time she awaken.
So the naked woman woke up, and like most misleading things, she was beautiful and bright eyed, showing not a hint of the treachery lurking in the spectacular dreadfulness of whatever wheels had spun round enough in her head to come up with the horrid idea that would soon spew forth from her sweetly treacherous lips (read that whatever way you may). And so looking into those bright, brown, beautiful, alliteration worthy eyes, whilst being mesmerized by the sweetness of those sweetened lips, Max was quite foolishly ensnared into her trap—the nakedness probably hadn’t hurt either. Thus more nefarious deeds took place, and all was right with the world.
Until now.
By now you can see that none of this is Max’s fault. It is gravely important that you understand this. Clearly he has been tricked. Such things—spectacular journeys and the embarking upon of them, which shall hereby be referred to as “Road Tripping” (not of the tripping over roads variety) alongside spectacularly naked women with spectacularly horrid ideas—are not Max’s idea of fun. He has been bullied into this. The spectacular Liz is the true culprit. For if you have not yet realized, she is undeniably the afore mentioned naked woman. (Curse her and her cursed nakedness!) Max’s non spectacular self would never have come up with something as spectacular as a trip across a road (many roads). Therefore, from now on he shall vest all the blame upon her adequately blamevestable shoulders.
There. All blame put aside in its proper place; here Max sits, waiting in his car at some unspecifically specified hour, and still unable to decide if turning around and driving back home would make for a wiser—albeit less spectacular—journey. In case you can’t tell, he’s leaning towards making a run for it…drive for it…getting the hell out of Doge City.
Too late. Marshall Dillon is already coming his way.
Liz is exiting her building (fully clothed, thanks for the favor) and heading towards his car, dragging behind her a duffel bag that is large enough to fit a dead body, thus putting a sad end to Max’s plans of turning taillights. But at least, should he mournfully perish during the spontaneity that is this fantastic voyage of theirs, he may take comfort in the knowledge that his traveling companion is outfitted with the proper equipment for lugging his deceased carcass back home. Or better still, perhaps to an undisclosed location, where he may spend his afterlife in peace and quiet, as he was unable to spend his beforedeath.
He will get back to you on that one. He is still undecided.
As she approaches his car looking annoyingly pleased with herself, Max feels annoyingly unpleased with herself. (Liz) Not referring to himself as herself. Max is annoyingly unpleased with Liz. His annoyance increases as she draws closer and closer to him.
Annoyance, meet annoyed.
With more ease than you would think coming from a person of her minuscule size, Annoyance—or Liz, if you prefer—slings her bag into the backseat of Max’s jeep, (optimal vehicle for road tripping) and climbs in beside him, both of them still annoyingly (un)pleased, respectfully. She smiles sweetly at up at him, and Max recognizes it as a smile he has been tricked by before. He tries to smile back at her, but is almost positive the look that is drawn across his face is most definitely not a smile. It doesn’t seem to have much of an effect on her.
“Stop smiling,” Max grouses in his most grousing voice. It is his way of showing how unhappy the current events have made him.
Liz ignores his grousieness. “Let’s go,” she says in a voice that sounds too excited for this remarkably unexcitable occasion, and much too cheerful for this early in the morning. And it is early in the morning (optimal hour for road tripping). What hour did you expect it would be?
Max glares down at her. Another declaration of his unhappiness. “I’m unhappy.” And yet another.
She rolls her eyes at him.
He hopes they roll right out of her head.
They remain firmly placed in their sockets.
Disappointment ensues.
“You’re never happy, Max,” Liz says in that la-di-da singsong of hers Max hates, largely because this particular voice is so easily able to brush off things that should be especially unbrushoffable.
“Finally picked up on that, have you?” It was about time she noticed. They have known each other for forever (assuming forever starts at the third grade), and yet sometimes the things she does—suggesting they go on road trips together—expecting him to be happy about stuff—attempting to engage in conversations with him at any hour earlier than seven o’clock in the morning—why you would think she didn’t know him at all.
“Just drive.”
Max’s left eyebrow (specifically the left one) twitches as he watches Liz toss an empty paper cup (was coffee from three days ago) out of his cup holder and onto the side of the road, replacing it with a new cup (is coffee from three minutes ago). “Where are we going?” he asks her, trying not to think about the dreaded future of the now discarded coffee cup, or more aptly, the creatures that will be drawn to investigate its contents. (And just where the hell is his coffee?)
“Wherever the road takes us?” Liz answers in a proposition that is actually a question masquerading as a suggestion, as it is clear neither of them have actually planned this thing out the way things such as spectacular jour… road trips ought to always be planned out.
This answer deserves more grousing. Max indulges.
“Stop grumbling.”
He’s not. He’s grousing, thank you very much! Trust. There is a difference. You’ll know it when you see it. And as things currently stand, there will definitely be many times to see it before this trip is over. But in the meantime, Max starts his car and pulls away from Liz’s building. All the while wondering if it is okay if the road takes him back to his own place.
“Swing by Maria’s first,” Liz tells him.
Max watches her silently for a moment, wondering how this request does not fall under the category of an answer to the question, ‘where are we going?’?
More unhappy grousing precedes.
More ignoring of the grousing follows.
More driving.
They reach Maria’s house in record time. No, Max was not speeding. He resents that you would ask. He never speeds. All laws of traffic were adhered to during the duration of the drive to Maria’s house. Thankyouforyourunnecessaryconcern.
Max also mostly never lies.
Maria’s house is a small brick confection with large (not brick) trees in front of it. Drooping leaves hang low in front of the house, shading it from the sun. Max pulls up to the sidewalk in front of the house. He looks to Liz, patiently impatient to get a move on. If one is forcing another to do something said other does not want to do, one should at least have the courtesy to get it done swiftly, so as to politely put the other out of their misery. If one has to do something one is not keen on doing, one should at least have the intelligence to get it done swiftly.
What’s that?
How is Max being forced into this?
Who said he was? Clearly you are reading between the lines. But if you do happen to read those lines, Max’s answer is: He just is. You will never get him to admit to otherwise.
But no one said he was being forced into this. There was also no mention of him being put out of his misery.
“What are we doing here, again?” he asks the woman *point*—person who is forcing him into this—*end point* sitting beside him. (No you did not just read that.)
Liz gives him a fake bright smile. It is almost brighter than the sun that is unable to illuminate Maria’s house through the throng of shade giving trees. “Supplies,” is her bright response. “Plus, I invited Michael and Maria to come along with us.”
Well this is news to him. And just when the hell was she going to let him in on this little tidbit of info? Although, surprised is probably the last thing Max should be. He knows she does things like this. It is only wishful thinking (read sheer stupidly) that he carries any hope that she will grow out of such randomly sporadic behavior. Sometimes he really does wonder why he puts up with her.
In a move that is clearly blessedly oblivious to Max’s current thoughts, Liz hops out of the jeep and gives him another one of those dreaded smiles of hers, before turning around and heading towards Maria’s front porch, purposely allowing her tight frayed, almost too short jean skirt to ride up the back of her not too short thighs, giving Max a slight peek of the lacey purple (lavender: someone somewhere would say it was lavender) underwear curving around her ass cheeks. Max watches her flirty skirty as it—along with the rest of her—makes its way to Maria’s doorstep. Ahh yes, that is why he puts up with her.
All the sex.
“Maria!” Liz shouts at the house. How convenient is it that the house is named for the person who lives in it? But really, must be confusing, that.
As Max watches Liz standing outside of Maria’s door, shouting loudly at the house like she’s some goddamn escape mental patient, he takes a moment to quietly ponder the shrill manner that is the 180ness of the Liz Parker of the last ten seconds. From seconds one through five she was the hot girl who was purposely flashing her panties at him from the curbside, while in seconds six through ten she was the loud bitch screaming outside of a house in a residential neighborhood at earlier than seven o’clock in the morning. Although, upon further consideration, Max supposes it’s not really all that shocking that one girl would take part in both of these scenarios.
He gets out of the car and joins Liz on Maria’s doorstep. No particular reason why. But if he had to give one it would probably be that he is sick of sitting in the car by himself, and particularly sick of waiting outside of buildings for women. And besides, Liz will eventually need to be muzzled, and it is always good that he be near for these sorts of things.
Max places his hand over Liz’s mouth, stopping her from shouting Maria’s name at the house again (how did you think he was going to stop her?), which simply results in her banging like the po-pos on the poor defenseless door instead. After several minutes of banging, plus a few inquiring ganders from the suspicious curtains of neighboring houses…neighboring curtains of suspicious houses? Well…either way, Maria—the person, not the house, as it is her name, not the house’s, regardless of what Liz-Parker-the po-po-knocker seems to think—opens the door and steps outside onto the front porch.
The telltale signs of sleep still linger on her person. As stated before, it is so much vera vera early, and Max is so not the only person who thinks vera vera much so, as made apparent the fact that Maria is still in her two sizes too big cannabis leaf t-shirt, Betty Boop pajama bottoms, shoelessly socked feet, and sporting a one of a kind I-was-sleeping-not-more-than-five-minutes-ago-what-the-fuck-are-you-doing-at-my-door-this-early-in-the-morning aura.
Charming.
“What do you want, you fuckers?”
Charminger.
Liz pushes her way past Maria and enters the house all bold like. Max follows. As stated earlier, he is tired of waiting on women today, or something to that effect.
“I need to get some food for our trip,” Liz announces, her voice fading as she makes her way through Maria’s house back into her kitchen.
“This isn’t a super market,” Maria answers as she and Max follow behind groggily. Maria is groggily, Max is not as groggily, but only slightly less sleepy. “What trip?” she asks.
Max frowns at this. Quite a surprising question from someone who was supposedly invited to tag along. His suspic-o-meter gage is filling quite rapidly. He turns to Liz, looking to her for answers, however the damn girl (oh you clever, clever girl) knows better than to meet his gage gaze.
Inside the kitchen Liz is already making her way to Maria’s fridge. She opens it and starts rummaging through without so much as a ‘mama may I’. “Max and I are going on a road trip, remember? I asked you last night if you and Michael wanted to come with. You said yeah.”
“Really?” Maria asks, in a tone that says she has no recollection of this conversation having ever taken place.
Max is now of the opinion that this conversation never took place, but at the moment he lacks any solid evidence to prove his claim.
“Figures,” Maria says rubbing her sleepy eyes like a sleepy person does after waking up from being sleep. “I was so baked last night, I probably would have agreed to just about anything.”
Sounds fun. Lovely little Lizzy had better thank the hemp Gods for Maria’s poor lack of memory.
“When are you guys leaving?”
“Right now.” She (Liz, that scavenging freeloader slash lying liar) takes out a plate of brownies wrapped up in plastic wrap (plasticwrap ha ha ha) and sits it on the kitchen counter. “Brownies?” she arches a curious brow in Maria’s general direction.
“Happy brownies,” Maria confirms.
Liz delves deeper into the refrigerator for more hidden treasures. “Cookies?” she asks in a repeat performance of her brownie excavation.
“Happy cookies,” Maria repeats.
“Can I has?”
Maria shrugs. “Help yourself. Michael made them last night.”
Ah, thank Jeebus for Michael Guerin. Maria’s live-in, not quite living-in boyfriend. Maker of happy brownies, happy cookies, and all around master of the universe. Meanwhile, Max (the not as master of the universe) watches the exchange between Liz and Maria silently. Not because he has nothing to say, but because he is conveniently mute at the moment, rendering it impossible for him to speak on his, or anyone else’s behalf. Therefore you will get no excuses or explanations from him. So. Stop. Asking.
“So where are we going?” Maria is asking Liz when we tune back in to the conversation going on outside of Max’s head.
Liz climbs up onto Maria’s countertop and unwraps the plate of brownies. “Haven’t figured that part out yet,” she says, plopping a piece of one into her mouth. “Got milk?”
Maria shakes her head.
“You suck greatly,” Liz declares.
Maria smiles at her. “Michael agrees.” She rounds the counter over to the fridge side with Liz, scratching her messy bed head confuzzledly as she hops up onto the counter beside her. “Shouldn’t you like, I don’t know, go to the store or something?”
“There’s a wild thought,” Max quips. You may all now breathe a sigh of relief. It seems he has finally overcome his temporary muteness.
“Your place was closer,” Liz answers.
And cheaper, Max thinks. He doesn’t say it. He should though.
“You have to go to the store. There’s no food here anyway,” Maria tells them, taking a brownie from the plate.
Max rolls his eyes. No food here folks, just “happy meals”.
“What kind of stoners don’t have food?” Liz questions the now not as sleepy as she was when she opened the door Maria.
Good question.
Maria shrugs as she takes a bite of her brownie. “I like to think that we don’t have food because we’re stoners.”
Good answer.
“Can we go now?” Max is beginning to think the lingering effects of this stupid conversation might be killing his brain cells…among other things. And if Maria’s place is known for anything, it would have to be that it is a great source of brain cell destruction.
Liz slides down off the counter. “Yeah, I guess we need to hit up a store for some real food.” She leans into Maria and takes a big whiff of the other girl. (Sexy) “And you need a shower.” (Not so sexy)
“Fuck you, sweetheart.” Maria shoves Liz away from her.
“Where’s Michael?” Max asks before this goes any further. Hate to interrupt this loving exchange, darlings.
“Upstairs sleeping,” Maria nudges her head towards the ceiling. “Where I should be.”
Max couldn’t have agreed more. Not that Maria should be sleeping, but that sleeping in general is what most people this side of the world should be doing right now.
All together now, let’s all go back to bed!
“Wake him up,” the petulant child—or Liz—demands. “It’s fun time.”
Max doesn’t know if he would call this fun. No, he knows he wouldn’t.
“Wake him up?” Maria repeats. “And anger the beast? No thanks.”
Yes, Michael was not exactly what you would call a morning person. After having roomed with him for two years back in wheneverago, Max knows this for a fact. (how else did you think he knew?) Waking him up from the middle of his sleep was akin to poking an angry bear with a stick…while you were covered in honey.
That is what bears liked to eat right?
Honey?
Well, A. A. Milne seemed to think so, and that was good enough for Max. Though upon further reflection, this comparison seems a tad inaccurate, as Max is not actually trying to imply that being woken from his sleep gave Michael the desire to eat people. At least not as far as he knew. What Michael and Maria did in the privacy of their own bedroom was none of his damn business, and that’s how he very much liked to keep it.
Back in the real world, Max notices the two women are both now staring at him expectantly. He’s seen those looks before. He’s not a fan of those looks. “Don’t even think about it,” he tells them before they can give words to their obvious thoughts. He’s no one’s scapegoat, spank-you-berry-much!
“Please Max,” Liz says, batting her eyelashes at him like some vixenish cartoon character. “We have to get a move on if we’re going to bla bla bla yada yada yada…”
Max has stopped listening. He will not be coerced. His foot is down…
~~~~~~~~~~~~
TBC
TBC
