A/N: Really, all I have to say about this is that I want you to review at the end and tell me a)if you were surprised b)how it played and c)anything you have to say.
The Flock was acting weird. Something was up.
I couldn't even talk to Fang about it because whatever it was he was in on it too. Angel was spending half of our time on the ground in my lap. Nudge kept pulling me off to talk and the rest of the flock would either disappear or gather and talk. It was like they didn't think that I noticed them sneaking off. Even Total was in on it. They had a plan.
Two days ago, Iggy and Gazzy suggested getting firewood and Fang suggested shopping. Shopping. Shopping. So, maybe Fang's run out of black shirts? Or maybe Nudge looked up some recipe and they needed ingredients. But Iggy and Gazzy doing chores?
"Sure, we'll all go. We need to stock up on food," I said, hoping I don't sound too suspicious. I've never seen my flock flip out so bad. Not when two hundred flyboys were after us. Not when we were in cages on our way to Itex. Not when I screamed over my Mickey Mouse clock.
"No!"
"Max you need to rest."
"We can watch over ourselves, we'll be fine."
"We don't all need to go."
"Actually, Max, you see, I was thinking that maybe we need some time away from each other. Maybe guys and girls. I really need some girl time. I mean, I totally hated being away from each other in Germany, but I don't want to spend every waking minute with them and there's only so many times in a day that you can use the bathroom. Why doesn't Angel go with them too? That way we can have grown-up girl time. That'd be cool, huh? No offense Angel, but your six. We can talk about guys and fashion and periods and all kinds of stuff that we can't when they're around."
See what I mean by flip out? I need rest? Did they think I couldn't trust them? Girl stuff? Time away? Are they nuts?
I stayed half standing looking at them. Nudge was taking a deep breath. Fang was watching me with a determined expression. Iggy was in get-ready-to-take-off mode. Gazzy was staring at me wide-eyed, like when he does something wrong. Angel was wearing and expression like 'Just ignore us, Max.' Red lights, red flags, sirens.
Then, in an attempt to distract us, Total said, "I want Spaghetti. Now. Iggy you should go get some. Now."
My staring turned into a silent standoff; the flock vs. me. I sighed and plopped back on the ground. I put my head in my hands and drummed my fingers on my face, glaring at them.
"One hour," I said defeated, while I prepared to deal with bombarding questions of pure girly grossness.
That's not even the strangest thing. Before that Angel had dragged Fang off into the woods, saying that she had to go to the bathroom and didn't like the woods because they freaked her out. But she wouldn't let me, it had to be Fang. Can we say messed up? And she had gone two hours before hand.
I had let it go figuring that Fang would tell me when he got back. Did he? What do you think? Bingo, if you said nada. He didn't talk to me at all, but he did tell the rest of the flock something. Every time I got close enough, Iggy would come over to me saying he needed some help with girls. We don't even know any girls!
I tried to talk to Fang by getting him alone, but he said he had to update his blog. Fifteen times a day. At the exact moments that I would ask to be alone with him.
So I went to the source of all this commotion: Angel. She was sitting in my lap all curled up on her side with her head on my shoulder as I leaned back against a tree and I had my head on hers stroking her hair. The rest of the flock were buried in their own conversations.
"Angel?" I whispered.
"Yeah, Max?" she asked in a sleepy voice. I needed to get them to bed, soon. I thought about how to word my question. This was one time I didn't want to be too blunt, but I did want to get the point across.
"Is everything all right?" I asked. She tilted her head back to see me and I saw her eyebrows all scrunched up above her drooping eyes.
"What'dya mean?" she said muffled by an on coming yawn.
"What's…going on? Are you guys okay?" So much for subtlety. Total looked up from his side with his back pressed against my thigh and his legs sprawled out away from me, his black eyes intense and alert now.
She smiled slightly and nestled her face back into my neck. "I love you, Max. We all do," She whispered. She was asleep before I could open my mouth and I almost thought about waking her up, but Total said,
"Let sleeping humans lay."
"Its lie Total."
"Exactly."
So…was she lying? Had Total gone mad? Had everyone gone mad? What the crap was going on?
Right now we're all taking a rest break, because the flock was for some reason abnormally tired and demanding. They practically dragged me down. Now they're ignoring me and are all in a huddle talking about whatever their plan is. Total is playing guard dog—probably against his will—and refuses to let me within twenty feet. Around a corner. Just out of my sight.
"Ugh!" I said and threw my arms up. "Fine!" I sat down with my legs pulled up wrapped my arms around my legs and humphed. What else could I do? I'd pick up the dog and throw him, but Angel would hear my thoughts and Total would just start barking.
"Max? We're ready for you now."
I looked up to see Fang crouched in front of me. I hadn't even heard him come up, but that was Fang for you. The rest of the flock was in the back round waiting with their hands behind their backs: the perfect image of innocence.
"This better be good," I growled.
Fang smiled—I mean really smiled, as in his whole face lit up with it—and I was temporarily blinded. Angel smiled in the back round. Fang stood up and offered me his hand. I looked at him, cocked and eyebrow and snorted, then got up by myself.
Fang didn't show it but I could tell he was exasperated.
"Max, c'mon. I've been waiting for this for, like, ever. I'm kinda surprised you didn't shoot us all in the head sooner, but you are the amazing Max. Which is why we're doing this whole thing-" The one time recently that I don't want her to stop talking, they cut her off.
"No, Iggy, let the girl talk," I said. Iggy smiled and just shook his head. Now that I looked all of them were smiling. Oh, no.
"No, Max, it's okay," Angel giggled.
There was silence for a few moments where I looked around trying to figure out what was going on and they smiled at me like…like those little munchkins from the wizard of OZ and I was Dorothy. It was beyond creepy.
"So…?" I let the question hang.
Silence for a moment.
"Yeah, so can we show her already?" Gazzy said excitedly.
"Come on," said Fang.
They shuffled around me, and that whole Dorothy sensation shot through the roof. The younger kids pushed around me giggling while Iggy pushed me forward roughly and Fang guided me pulling my arm.
This continued until our destination, which was apparently where I thought they had been talking. My jaw dropped.
Four neatly arranged boxes were placed in front of me, each and every one wrapped up with the same wrapping paper that said 'Santa's Coming!' It was exactly like the wrapping paper we had at our old house.
"How did? But you? I can't…I didn't even know it was Christmas." I said, trying to form a sentence. "How?" I asked turning to them.
Fang snickered, "Me, shopping?"
"And did you honestly think that it would take us over an hour to do chores even if we did volunteer?" said Iggy.
"And I love the guys, I wouldn't ever want to be away from them even for girl stuff. But that stuff we talked about was really helpful." Everyone's faces blanched.
I cleared my throat. "Um…yeah. Your welcome, Nudge."
"I told you we loved you Max, you didn't need to freak out," Angel said. "I heard your thoughts and we would never. We're not some wacked up Fanficiton that some random teenager thought up."
I smiled. "I love you guys too." I looked each of them in the eye still smiling. "All of you." My face fell and I turned away from them and kicked the dirt. "But I don't have anything to give you."
"You give us stuff every day Max," Gazzy whispered behind me. Then I felt his small arms wrap around me. All the sudden I was wrapped up in the middle of a bear hug. Everyone except Fang.
"Oh, no. Come here you big lug." I shimmied my way over to him with my attachments. He backed up a step, but I managed to grab his shirt and pull him into our love fest. He hit it with an 'oof' and our instability caused us to fall backwards. Thank whatever God may be there Iggy was in back.
Iggy groaned, but after we figured he was alright we just laughed and held each other.
Gazzy scrambled up and handed me a small rectangular shaped box. I sat up taking it in my hands feeling it.
"This one's mine," he said twisting his hands together. I twisted it around looking for anything out of place. It said "To: Max, From: Gazzy" written in sloppy form. I shook it and something attached to cardboard slid around inside a box.
I still couldn't believe that they had done this. Even when I saw the gifts I thought it would just be pieces of paper taped together saying that they'd do five things I wanted. I reached up as fast as I could and pulled Gazzy into my lap covering him in a bear hug.
"Will you just open it already?" said Iggy, exasperated, but he was smiling.
Still holding Gazzy I opened it in front of him. It was a little brown cardboard box that was tapped together with scotch tape. I ripped it off and pulled out a bunch of hair bands from a store called Claire's for 5.00 but they were fifty percent off.
"Hang on," said Iggy. He reached over and felt the corner where the price tag was. "Gazzy! I told you to take the price tag off!"
"Sorry," he mumbled. "I knew you needed some more, and I couldn't get you anything too heavy because then we couldn't carry them around and they were on sale and cheap and I didn't want you to get too suspicious when I ran out of money and I didn't want you to get mad at me for spending too much or for stealing so I figured that even though it's cheap and lousy it w-" I shushed him, for the sake of my ears as much as for him.
"I love it. Thank you," I said and kissed him on the head.
Angel got up and picked up another small box that looked like the wrapping paper had just been rolled around it to cover it up then plastered together on the sides.
"Here," she said shyly, holding Celeste so close to her that her knuckles were turning white. I took the present from her and she sat down beside me curling up against the cold and leaning heavily against me. It said 'To: Mommy, From: Her Angel' in a very pressed down marker.
I ripped the layered paper off as non-violently as I could incase of hitting her or Gazzy. It was a white jewelry box. I put the paper with Gazzy's and slid off the lid. It felt like the entire clearing was holding its breath.
A beautiful pair of earrings hung in the cloth. They were a pair of silver angels with long, thin wings. Angel had remembered to take off the tag.
"I figured since you went through all the pain of piercing your ears yourself that you might as well have some pretty earrings," Angel said. "And since I'm Angel it seemed to fit."
"They're beautiful," I told her and kissed the top of her head. "But just so you know, I don't need reminders of you." She smiled and snuggled closer.
Nudge took a deep breath and reached over grabbing a thin rectangular-ish…thing. It was more like a blob. She handed it to me and promptly started biting her nails.
"Nudge," I said. She froze, and then shot her hand to her side. "Chill."
"Don't tell her that, she might freeze over in this weather," Fang muttered.
This package was wrapped perfectly without one thing out of place. Across the top it read 'To: Max, From: Nudge'. I almost didn't want to take the paper off because it was so perfect looking. Almost.
Clothes. Of course. There were three shirts, a short-sleeved red one, a long-sleeved royal blue one, and a long-sleeved low-cut black one (Uh…no), and one pair of regular jeans.
"Thank you, Nudge. Now I can actually wear something without holes," I said smiling. She nodded, and shoved down her hand that she had been biting. "Nudge," I said, "I really like them. Thank you." She gave a nervous smile.
"Alright, me next," Iggy said, picking up the last present. It was a perfect cube and it said 'To: Da Boss, From: Boom Man' Iggy must have gotten Nudge to wrap it, because I didn't want to open it for fear of destroying the masterpiece. But I did anyway.
"Oh, My, God. Iggy, you…." But I didn't have words. He got me a Mickey Mouse clock. The same Mickey Mouse clock that he broke—well more like blew up. I jumped up and bowled him in a hug. "If this ends up as a bomb, I will never talk to you again," I said speaking into his chest.
He chuckled, patting my hair. "Sure, Max. Whatever you say."
"I'm not kidding," I grumbled. It even had the same wake-up tones.
I stepped back and looked around at my presents. I couldn't believe it. "Do I even want to know where you got the money for this stuff.
"Ha, um…I guess you didn't notice us nick your card every now and then did you? Ah, well. I bet we barely even made a dent in that cash pile," Iggy said.
"Uh, huh," I said, unconvinced. "Nice cover up." But I let it slide, much to some of their relief.
So now there was only one problem. There was no gift from Fang. I tried to content myself with what I got, I mean, I didn't expect anything. But at the same time I felt like, if anyone were going to get me something it would be Fang. And so the fact that everyone else got me something, except him…well, it hurt.
"You didn't really think I'd forgotten you, did you?"
I spun around. Fang was standing there with a cocky grin on his face. He pulled one hand out of his pocket holding a small navy blue box like Angel's. When I opened this one it revealed a silver angel necklace to go with Angel's and it had the most beautiful pair of wings I'd ever seen—except for real life of course. But this Angel looked just like me. My mouth fell open again.
There was a card put in the box, as well. I pulled it out and read aloud:
"'To our personal savior, mother, leader, friend, and loved one: This is for giving us freedom each and every day. To let us see the sun over and over. And to spread our wings, in every sense. –Fang'
"How did you…?" I asked, looking up at him incredulously.
"That's not the real present," he said softly.
He leaned forward and kissed me full on the mouth. I didn't have time to react, to think, to do anything. My mind short-circuited again, and my body just sort of went with it.
It was over as fast as it begun.
I took a deep breath as I was sucked back into reality.
Holy freaking crap! With minor rewording on freaking. Fang had just kissed. If that's not enough for you, he did it in front of the flock. What is wrong with the world? What was I supposed to do? I couldn't just run away because that would be completely embarrassing to Fang, but…and….
"Did you just do what I think you did?" Nudge asked, clearly having regained her voice.
No one said anything, and I just gaped like a fish.
Well, the damage was done.
I ran into him, holding him as tightly as Angel held Celeste, kissing him with all the energy a girl can have left after so much emotional shock and excitement.
You know? The flock should act weird more often.
A/N: So...Did you like it? Tell, tell, tell via magic review button.
But, no, seriously, tell me what you thought of everything, including the kiss because I wasn't sure how that would play.