Smells Like Teen Angst (M. Wheeler) REWRITTEN

Ch. 1 | MADMAX

Hey everybody! Here's the first official chapter of this rewritten story! It's long, of course, but not much longer than my usual chapters so I thought I could stuff it all into one. Anywho, please enjoy!

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"I hate this place."

Max rolled her eyes.

"We've been here for like, what? Three days? Chill," she said as Dylan helped her unpack the rest of her boxes, since she had significantly more stuff than him—but it wasn't like she had too much stuff; Dylan just had barely any possessions to his name.

He had no trophies, no posters, no weird odd trinkets—his room was quite plain Jane if you asked Max, but that was fitting for Dylan. He was a very non-demanding guy.

"Three days too many—you don't miss California?" He asked her, taking the random stuff out of the box and gently tossing it onto Max's bed. He didn't know where the girl wanted it yet.

Max gave him a look. "You already know the answer to that," she said dryly.

Dylan nodded in understanding. Even if it wasn't so blatantly obvious of an answer (because really, they all missed Cali), Dylan would've been able to sense it—just like he could sense Neil and Billy arguing from the kitchen, loud and clear, or Susan quietly humming the tune of a song as she unpacked.

Neither were loud—well, not yet at least, judging by the anger he feels, he will be—Dylan could hear them because he had the Sense.

A title of his own creation, which he used to dub the heightened senses that he and his brother had.

Yep—Billy Hargrove, the suave, womanizing, pain in the ass brother of his had it too; although to somewhat of a lesser extent than Dylan himself.

Dylan's Sense was a bit more interpretative and causal; he could sense the procession of things and events a few seconds before they happen. He could feel things—all things—in ways that nobody else could.

Meanwhile, Billy could only sense things that were in the now; he also didn't have the sixth sense and empathetic abilities that Dylan had seemed to inherit from their mother.

Yes, she had it too; the two had been born with the Sense, due to their mother having an ability of Empathy. The knowledge of this was strictly family only, which was why Susan and Max knew (even if Billy didn't approve of that notion).

Max found it wicked awesome, claiming that he had some kind of 'super powers' ; Dylan had just calmly told her to try hearing their former horny neighbours down the road from their old place have sex numerous times during the day in HD audio and see if she'd still consider it cool.

(Update: she did. Then she'd laughed at his expense because of course she did).

"I'm worried about Billy," Dylan said, cringing when he heard something break in the kitchen.

That was probably Neil's doing—Billy didn't like Susan (Max's mom) that much, but he still respected her enough not to break her fine china.

"He's been....really moody."

Max made a face.

"He's always moody," she stated, starting to pick and place the stuff Dylan unpacked.