Disclaimer/Notes:

//Just to be clear, this contains SLASH. That means guy on guy. No like? Not my problem. Just don't read it.

//Look. Fang and Iggy are the same they'd always been. This isn't deliberate OCC. It's just them, except they're gay. (Or finding out they are. Whatever you see fit.)

//I highly recommend not reading this if you're uncomfortable with mature/sensual subjects. It's not full blown pornography, but it's not totally innocent either.

//This is sorta based on a poem I read in class. (See below.)

//This takes place before the fourth book; just sometime after the third. (There is no Fax in this FF, though, okay?)

//I do not own Maximum Ride.

Thanks for the time.

- Paige

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

-Fire and Ice, by Robert Frost.

Frozen on an edge

Iggy would never have seen the world's true hate if he hadn't been brought up in the school. He never would have to of gone threw true trauma. He never would have been claustrophobic... he never would have been truly stabbed or hurt in any way.

He couldn't have seen the once inhumane malice in a person's eyes.

But lying there, next to the sleeping flock, felt nice. He couldn't exactly see them, but he heard them. He felt them close. And along with the acute wind's whisper, the grass and tree's sway, his calming thoughts roamed. Yes. He would give anything for them, even if it meant an actual human life. He didn't know exactly how, but he loved them all dearly.

He truly did.

"Yo, Ig," He heard a voice and a firm hand shaking his shoulder.

"What is it?" Iggy turned and faced Fang, not feeling the tad bit annoyed. He wasn't going to get any sleep, anyway.

"It's time to go," Fang answered. He got up from his crouch and started waking the others.

Iggy used to feel scared in the sky. Because he was blind, he didn't really know where he was going; he just felt the wind's direction on his shoulders. He followed on edge—the hairs on the back of his neck standing profusely. Never ending Goosebumps was a part of flying. But now, when he could hear the flock's wings, he felt comforted beyond doubt.

After years of observation and pursuing, Iggy had grown accustomed of the flock's flying styles. Like a scent, each of them had their own beat, their own method to stay aloft. Max, for example, could have the same timing for hours. But once and a while it changes erratically. Iggy, who had thought of this for sometime, had guessed it was her deep thinking. Max was known to overreact to her own squeamish thoughts. It might not have showed on her face, but it sure showed threw her flying cycle.

Unlike Max, Nudge's wings were always erratic. Come to think of it, so were Gazzy's. Iggy noticed the younger kid's had a more inexperienced, immature approach in flying. Much like their thinking. This usually applied for every child, unless that child was Angel. Her thinking could be quite immature, but her flying was surely not. Her small wing's sorta swayed in the air, marking the true grace she had been gifted with, along with her mind reading ability.

But none of the flock's aptitude could match Fang's. He wasn't graceful in the slightest, but nor did his wings tremble or waver. He made slow, brawny, swishes with his wings. Iggy could practically feel Fang's muscles against his own; it had made him tremble. Iggy had always found that strange. Was it Fang's strength that made him shiver? The sheer power of someone stronger than himself? He did not know. He just knew he felt, as he wasn't before, protected. That's what Fang provided him with. Protection.

He remembered the day he escaped the school. He and Fang had been separated from the others, and were running side by side. Back then, Iggy was shorter than Fang, and was quieter than ever before. He didn't know if that was the school's effect on him, or it was just because he was pretty young. But Iggy certainly knew Fang wasn't shy.

They had stopped running, right in the middle of the forest. It scared Iggy. He had been used to the cold feeling of the stone in the school; the metal gurney he was strapped to daily. Those walls seemed like comfort compared to the unfamiliar sounds and texture.

It was all quite blurred, but he had remembered Fang put his hand on his. The tendons surged threw his own body, making that now familiar shiver. How he longed for that soothing touch again.