Introduction:
Perhaps I should have put "FAX INSIDE" in the summary to hook more people into this, but hey, fuck that. You're here because you clicked the link, and I already warned you about language/innuendo.
Aheheh.
So, in essence, give me about a cup and a half of teenager and her hormones, three-fourths of a cup of the blind leading the blind (better known as fandom), and a dash of characters who won't shut up. Mix together. Bake for an hour or until golden-brown in the middle. Season to taste and serve with one can of whoop-ass.
Warning: There are bad words, and as you see, I dropped an eff-bomb in the first paragraph. Also innuendo. Let me spell that out for you – if it can be taken to sound like it involves sex/drugs/rock and roll, it will be.
Oh, and the Most Hated Characters are given sympathetic roles. Which is to say that Jeb isn't the devil and crossover-character Muraki isn't either.
With thanks/apologies to my friends for the bit about who could top Muraki, to fandom for being totally batshit, and to my characters, for not knowing when to shut up. Also Muraki in particular. You magnificent bastard.
Enjoy… and remember to flame after you read.
"What the hell is a consaquince?" he asked.
"Oh, I dunno," he answered, leaning over his shoulder. "I'd guess that it's like a permapersimmon. Or maybe someone misspelled consequence."
She came into the room sighing and trying to put her hair up in a ponytail. "Ugh. Where'd you hide the tea? It's not funny. Well, maybe it sort of was the first time, but it's not funny when I have a fanfic hangover."
"Aaw, poor baby," said the man in the chair. "Second cabinet to the left of the oven. Then up one. We're almost out of that herbal stuff Anna likes, though, so you better go with Earl Grey or she'll kill you."
"Herbal tea?" she said. "Yeeuch. Thanks anyway."
She left the room, and the man in the chair went back to scrolling down the page.
"Consaquince," he said. "Hmm, I kind of like it. What do you think a consaquince tastes like?"
The man hanging over his shoulder (figuratively) socked him in the shoulder. "Oh, I dunno… flesh?"
"That wasn't funny the first time, and it's not funny now."
"Fine, fine! Jesus, at least you have an obvious reason to be cooped up in the house." He nudged the pair of crutches leaning against the wall with his foot. "I don't even get a good excuse. Something about how I'm too obvious in public, and then she stomped out of the room."
"Yeah," said the other man. "I mean, come on. If there's anyone I know who needs a tan, it's you."
"You first. I don't tan. I've tried. I just turn lobster-colored and peel." He tilted his head to one side, thinking. "Kind of fun, actually. This one time I peeled some skin off my back that was this big, I swear. Tacked it to my bulletin board."
"And just when I thought maybe you were kind of normal…" he sighed.
"Oh, admit it – I'll bet you've done that too."
"No," he said with as straight a face as he could manage. "Never. Not once."
The doorbell rang.
"Shit!" ejaculated the man in the chair.
"Yeah, Stephen King had it on the head when he said that speech modifiers should stay just 'said'," said the other man. "I'll get it."
He went off down the passage to the front door, leaving the other man fuming because he never had gotten the hang of this whole speech-modifier thing.
"Oh, shit and Shinola!" exclaimed the other man from down the hall. "Get over here!"
Sighing, the man in the chair minimized his open window, got out of the chair, grabbed his crutches, and made his way down the hall, trying to thump as hard as he could on the floor. He didn't much enjoy being interrupted.
However, once he caught a glimpse at what was waiting outside their front door, his jaw hung wide open and he wished that he hadn't thumped along the hall in such a petty way.
It looked like… like… he searched for some kind of clever metaphor or simile. Well, it looked like Anna or Bird had gotten into some hanky-panky and "gotten in trouble".
Six of them.
"Six?" he whispered to the other man.
"Six," he nodded.
"Oh, well, hello, I suppose," he said, turning to the kids gathered on their doorstep. "Do come in."
The youngest, a little blond girl, eyed him suspiciously before murmuring something that sounded like Klingon to the oldest girl.
Then she sprang for him like an irritated panther.
"Oof!" he shouted. She was fairly light for her size, but Jesus. He still went falling over on his ass from the impact.
Fortuitously, Muraki snagged his wrist and hauled him upright. While he wobbled like a Weeble or whatever those toys were called (except the Weebles never fell down), he also quite kindly picked up his crutches and handed them to him.
Meanwhile, the kids were staring at him like he was Judas. Well, probably Satan – they didn't look like the Bible type. And everyone hated Satan.
"First rule of knocking on doors," he intoned. "Never attack the host unless he is actively Lovecraftian."
None of them laughed. Why did he have to get stuck with the less well-read kids?
The little girl giggled.
"Well, when I said come in, I meant it," he said, and moved aside so that the kids could enter.
The little girl stared at him. The part of him that had never gotten past its Lovecraft stage piped up. Suppose she's Nyarlathotep taking a human form?
He sighed. If she were, she'd be more horrible.
She was staring at him, somewhat stricken.
"What?" he said. "What'd I say?"
Muraki shot him a glance and tilted his eyebrows. Telepath.
"Ah. Well, I'm sorry."
He heard a crowd of feet on the street outside and thought What? before the group of kids leaped inside and slammed the door, more or less as one.
"Please explain that," he begged.
"Fan. Girls." said the tall, dark one.
"My fangirls," said the tall, pale one with a note or five of horror in his voice.
"Half that crowd was mine and you know it," said the tall, dark one.
"No, like, three-fourths of them were mine. All yours are at home reading Fax."
"Wait, wait," he broke in. "Please explain what you're talking about."
Just then, a girl with rather plain hair of a shade somewhere between brown and blonde and glasses came down the stairs. She surveyed the scene and sighed.
"I knew it. I just knew it. Anna!" she shouted, turning back so she faced the upstairs. "You owe me lunch now!"
She turned back to the group of eight below. "Nathan," she said, "Fax is a pairing – Fang (the tall, dark one) and Max (the tall girl). And they're talking about the crowd of fangirls that just stormed by."
"Oh, I see," he said. Well, no, he didn't see at all. Not out of his right eye, he added hastily, in an attempt to humor the telepath girl, who he (rightly) assumed would be reading his mind. "So they're not here to kill me?"
"Ha ha no," said the girl on the stairs. "You six," she said, gesturing over the children, "go into the kitchen and I'll meet you there. Do it," she added, glaring at the eldest girl, "and I mean that, Max. Or terrible things will happen, not including me making the angles all wrong." She then turned to the little blond girl, who she only stared at. Menacingly.
"You know. Eldritch, horrible, terrible, Lovecraftian. Colours that hurt to look at, angles that twist your brain. Go on then," she finished, before again glaring at the little blond girl.
She turned to the two men at the foot of the stairs.
"Right," she said. "Well, I should have explained before. Anna!" she called, turning to look back up the stairs. "Go down to the kitchen and get some tea ready!"
She turned back to the two men. "Then again," she continued, "I've never been much for finishing what I start, as I expect you know. So I really didn't expect this to happen at all, and thus skipped the explanation entirely."
She cleared her throat. "Ahem. Ahem-hem. Anyway – so those six are a bunch of lunatics from a lot of books called Maximum Ride. The oldest girl – I think her pink highlights are about gone by now, though her timeline's a bit iffy – is Max herself – do call her Max, not Maximum, and never Miss Ride. The tall pale one is Iggy – he likes explosions. Token blind kid. Tall, dark, fangirl-attracting one is Fang – and I swear to you on God and Martin Luther that three-fourths of the fangirls want to sex him up, no lie. Little black chick is Nudge, never stops talking. Little blond boy is Gazzy, stay upwind of him. He likes to imitate voices, so watch out. Little blond telepath is Angel. She talks to fish, controls minds… generally the scary one. Don't mess with her – Nathan, keep doing as you were and talk to her and Max first. Then go to the other four. If you don't do that, you'll receive the ass-kicking from hell. Then Angel will kill you, and Max will spit on your corpses.
"Hmm." She paused. "Oh, and that bit about spitting on corpses is absolutely true – and I'm starting to think that Angel has a nose for scientists from the way she jumped you, Nathan. They all hate scientists. Roundly. (I'm considering having some geologist acquaintances over just to mess with them.)" she said parenthetically. "They've all got wings, too – which I hope at least one of you noticed, or the next time Thufir drops by he'll have your guts for garters and your hair for hats." She pressed her hand to her mouth like an old lady who's committed a Freudian slip involving genitalia in front of her priest. "Shit. Got to knock off the Redwall, then." She glanced down at them. "Well, that's all. Bye then!" She dashed back off up the stairs, having forgotten entirely that she had promised to meet the six winged kids in the kitchen for tea.
"She is rather forgetful," said Muraki dubiously.
"You-damn-betcha," replied Nathan in the affirmative. "Although half the time, you have to help me find my glasses in the morning (although we both have shit vision anyway, so it doesn't count). So I shouldn't be talking."
"Well, we can't see our glasses in the morning. She can."
And with that, the two adult men dissolved into perfectly absurd fits of laughter.
Note 1:
These are written as I write. Consider it a "How This Happened" sort of thing… except with far more lack of sanity and, if I were legal, a lot more booze. As it is, no booze, just cynicism. Or what passes for it around here.
So.
This is, in a way, a loving little fake "Dear John" letter to MR fandom. A… "fuck you" letter. "Hate you, hate Kansas, taking the dog", as the joke about Dorothy goes. Except this is a special case:
"Dear Fandom:
"Hate you, hate Max, taking the scientists.
"Love, Nathan."
Ha ha ha. Yeah, real funny, man. Real funny.
In other news, I've already got another chapter, roughly, written. Many thanks, also, for Supergirrl and Maiyri, as without you, I would shortly be running out of funny material. There's really only so much you can do before you have to resort to unrequited love and gender-switching…