HFFN: This is the first fanfic Emily and I have co-written, so I hope it's good!
RW: We don't own MR, for yo' information! :)
FULL SUMMARY:
Max and Fang have been best friends since they were five when Fang moved into town. They've been fine in each others presence until new emotions start rising on both their parts and things become awkward. Max is sure that she's going to take the chance when...perfect, amazing, beautiful Brigid comes along and steals everything she's ever loved away from her. She's nothing like Brigid, but could Max possibly, just possibly, be good enough?
"Maxine, can you come down here for a moment?" Dr. Martinez called from the kitchen. The five-year-old Max Martinez ran down from the back bedroom where she'd been playing with her dolls into the kitchen. Her mother was just taking out a batch of cookies from the oven when she entered. Max's brown eyes lit up when she saw the chocolate chip cookies.
"The Walker's just moved into the neighborhood a couple of weeks ago. They have two boys about your age, twins, I heard. Why don't we go over and welcome them to the neighborhood?" Max nodded eagerly and Dr. Martinez chuckled at her enthusiasm. "Okay, just let me wrap up these cookies and you go get ready, okay, sweetie?"
Max skipped back to her bedroom to change out of her jeans and t-shirt.
Dr. Martinez was just about to press the doorbell, when little Max all of the sudden yelled, "WAIT! I wanna ring it!" and started jumping up and down. "Please, Mommy?" She gave her mother puppy dog eyes, and her mother smiled, letting her.
After a moment, she saw a black-haired boy peek through the window and then disappear. A second later, he opened the door for them. Max, all of the sudden shy, hid slightly behind her mother's legs, blushing.
Dr. Martinez smiled at him. "Um, hello. Is your mom home?" He nodded not looking at either of them. "MOM!" he yelled, running out of their line of sight and apparently to get his mother.
A woman with equally as dark hair walked in from the living room with him in tow.
"Hi, you must be Mrs. Walker," Dr. M greeted, smiling genuinely at the woman. The woman smiled back, nodded, and they shook hands. "I'm Valencia Martinez," she said, taking hold of Max's hand instead of just putting it back to her side. "This is my daughter, Maxine." She pulled Max from behind her long enough so that Max could smile shyly and blush again.
"Hi, Valencia, I'm Jane and this is my son, Nicholas," and Nicholas in turn smiled slightly at them, but didn't step forward or say anything. Jane gave her son's hand a gentle squeeze, and though it wasn't much, it was enough to make him relax some.
"Well," Dr. M started, "we just came to welcome you all to the neighborhood." Ended with another genuine smile. She held out the container of chocolate chip cookies for her to take and Jane did, smiling thankfully at her. "Oh, why, thank you, but you really didn't need to do that."
Dr. M waved it off with a flick of her hand. "Oh, it was no problem at all."
Jane ushered them into the house and led them in to the living room. "My other son, James—he's Nick's twin—is at the store with my husband Thomas. They should be home pretty soon."
The two mothers talked up a storm while Max and Nick stood in uncomfortable silence, neither sure what to say. After a moment, the adults finally realized how the kids weren't saying anything.
"Nicholas," Jane said, "why don't you and Maxine go play somewhere, hmm?" He looked up at her like, "Do I have to?"
"You can show her the tree house…" she told him in a singsong voice, trying to persuade him. He nodded mutely and gestured for Max to follow him.
She did so after a moment, staring at him through a thick, auburn curtain of hair. She followed him out through the patio door and to the backyard.
The backyard wasn't big but it was big enough, kind of like the house. Trees lined the very back, and there was a fairly large one where the dark wood tree house was built in. A ladder went up to the opening in the middle of the floor of the house. There were two windows; one facing the house and the other was on the opposite side. A door came up on something that looked like a wrap-around porch and Max wondered why that would be needed.
Nicholas climbed up the ladder and into the tree house while Max remained staring at it. "Have you ever been in a tree house?" he asked her, looking down at her awed expression from the opening, just sitting on the top step. She shook her head, brown curls bouncing around her shoulders. "Nah, but I know a girl who has one and she talks about it all of the time," she answered, starting up the ladder.
Nick nodded at her, retreating up further into the house. Once she was up, Max saw that the inside was filled with books, boxes full of crayons and other assortments, a table with four chairs, and some board games. Nick went and sat at the table. Max sat across from him. "When we still lived in California, we had a tree house just like this one, so my dad built this for me as soon as we got here." He smiled slightly at her and she beamed back, two holes where her front teeth should've been.
"Was the one at your old home gooder than this one?" she asked, fiddling with a red crayon that sat on the table in front of her. He thought for a moment, biting his lip. "Yeah it was but I like this one a lot anyway." He smiled again. "Do you want to play a game?" She nodded eagerly at him, happy to do something really fun.
They climbed out of the tree house and she shouted, "TAG! YOU'RE IT!" suddenly, poking Nick on the shoulder. She ran away giggling while he chased after her, laughing along with Max. Though Max was pretty fast, she got tired from laughing so hard while still trying to get away from him. She glanced behind her to see he was right there and yelped as he poked at her back. "YOU'RE IT!"
This went on for a while before a car pulled up into the driveway. They were both very tired but kept on playing, completely ignoring the car. They didn't stop giggling until Jane slid the patio door open and told them, "Dinner's ready!" Immediately, they both bolted into the house and into the dining room. "Don't forget to wash your hands!" Dr. M reminded them and they both groaned, going to the sink.
A boy with strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes that couldn't be any younger than them walked into the dining room, a man with blue eyes and brown hair walking behind him. "Oh, Val, this is my husband Thomas and my other son, James," Jane introduced, waving to them in turn even though Dr. M could've been able to tell without it. She smiled at them and Jane said, directed at her husband, "This is Valencia Martinez and her daughter, Maxine. They live two houses down and wanted to welcome us to the neighborhood." Thomas smiled at Dr. M and glanced at Nick and Max who where just finishing washing their hands. "Who's that?" Max whispered to Nick. He whispered back, "my daddy and my brother James." Max was about to say something when—
BRRRIINNNNG!
"Alright, class, time is up. Make sure to turn in your work when you leave," the teacher, Ms. Elburn, called, dismissing us for the next class. I sighed in disappointed. I hadn't finished my assignment!
I picked up my messenger bag, slung it over my shoulder, and examined my work. It wasn't complete and was really just a rough draft. If I had maybe a day or two more to work on it, it could be so much better and then maybe I could actually finish it. I sighed again and just scribbled a little note at the bottom, saying, sorry that it isn't done. Ms. Elburn was my favorite teacher by far and she never expected me to finish the writing assignments she gives to us for just one class, but I still apologized nonetheless. I was probably the only one who didn't finish the "just for class" assignments because when it comes to writing, I couldn't just make it short. There always had to be a reason. Most teenagers didn't care about the assignments, but I always put my all into writing. I wasn't sure why. Maybe because it's really the only thing I excel in?
I felt someone behind me and I didn't even have to look to know whom it was. Only one person could be so quiet as to where I'd need to feel them. "Oh, hey, Fang," I greeted, frowning slightly at the paper and erasing an h that looked like an n, then replacing it with a more comprehendible h. He was wearing his usual attire: all black. And before you go on thinking that he was emo, he wasn't. He just wore black a lot. "Let me guess—you didn't finish," Fang said, coming to look at it. I ignored his comment but focused on the fact he was trying to read my paper. "Oh, no you don't. I'm not showing this to you until I'm done with it," I told him, hiding the paper behind my back and walking towards the door. I quickly slipped it onto the teacher's desk while walking past and Ms. Elburn gave me a knowing look. I smiled back at her. "Bye, Ms. Elburn," I said, halfway out the door. "Bye, Max, Nick," she called back.
That assignment was to write one of your favorite memories. (I know that's a weird writing prompt to do, but Ms. Elburn is a pretty cool teacher.) And yes, little Nicholas was Fang, and little Maxine was I when we were five years old. And James was Iggy, Fang's twin, as you already know. That was the day that I first met Fang, who was my best friend. We had been since that day and we always would be.
"Hey, Maxi!" A hand waved in front of my face, bringing me back out of my thoughts. I snapped my head to look at Fang, who was walking on my right. "What?"
He shrugged. "What were you thinking about?"
I grinned at him. "Nosy, much?" I teased, but answered anyway. "Just what I did for the writing prompt." Now it was his turn to grin at me. "And what did you write about?"
I felt my cheeks heat up even though they had no good reason to. "Oh…nothing."
We arrived at my locker and I pulled everything I would need for Math out of the clutter, stuffing everything else in. Fang closed the locker door for me and thankfully his locker was only seven down from mine. The bad part was that he had Science next instead of Math. "Oh," I said, "and don't call me Maxi."
After Math was lunch (thank God!). Naturally, I sat with my friends Nudge, Ella, Iggy, and Fang. Yes, I do realize we have very strange nicknames. Nudge's real name is Monique, and you know Iggy's and Fang's. Iggy and Fang are fraternal twins while Ella was adopted into Nudge's family when they were three.
"So, what up, my peeps?" I greeted, sliding into the chair between Fang and Ella. Fang half-smiled at me while Ella beamed. And if you're confused, Ella beaming at me was a rare occasion. "Someone had a good day," I muttered, giving Ella a weird look but then smiling in return. "Oh, I'm just happy," she told me, shoveling some macaroni into her mouth. I gave Fang a questioning look but he just shrugged and smirked.
"Oh my gosh Max I love your outfit today I mean you look so great I don't understand why you don't wear things like that more often I mean you look super fantastical and you could have any guy in the school if you dressed up a little more! It's just that you're already pretty but no one can see it if you hide your natural beauty in baggy clothes and stuff! You have really pretty hair though gosh I wish I had your hair color it's just such a pretty brown and there's a little bit of very dark red highlights in it and I'm really glad that Ella and I decided to put those in your hair when we gave you that makeover a while ago and—" Nudge was cut off, though, by Ella slapping her hand over her mouth, which always stopped her, and saying, "Nudge, I swear, if you don't shut up I will duct tape your mouth shout for a whole day." That got her to stop, all right. I smiled at their banter and shoved a French fry into my mouth. We called her the Nudge Channel: All Nudge, All the Time. That girl can start and go on and on for hours!
Fang and I started chatting, oblivious to everyone else like normal. He said something about a new kid, pointing to a boy with brown hair and brown eyes sitting a couple of tables away from us. While I was distracted, he snuck a French fry off of my plate.
"Hey!" I protested, hitting him upside the head. He just snickered and continued eating. I glared at him, something that would make any sane person cringe, but his expressionless mask didn't even waver. "You have your own French fries," I pointed out. "Why take mine?"
He rolled his eyes at me, biting into his food. "Because I'll run out that way." I shook my head at him and pretended to be mad, fake pouting and turning away. I saw him grin out of the corner of my eye.
"Hey, Max?" he asked and I spun back around in my chair to face him.
"Hey, Fang?" I answered, copying him. He opened his mouth to say something, but, of course, Nudge started talking.
"Ooooh! The dance is coming up you two should go together it would be soooo cute you two are adorable I wanted to go with Sam but he'll never ask me and Ella and Iggy should go together hey why am I the only unpaired one—" but Iggy saved the day by slapping a hand over her mouth while his cheeks bloomed a scarlet red. He pulled his hand away though, probably afraid that she'd lick it.
"Maybe no one's asked you because you talk too much," A high voice said. I looked above Nudge's head to spot Lissa, the red-haired, green-eyed beauty that everyone seemed to like so much.
I'm not going to lie to you and say that Lissa was ugly and completely fake and acted like she was beautiful even when she wasn't. Because, truth be told, she was pretty. Extremely pretty, actually. And she had the thousands of boyfriends and modeling job to prove it. I bet she would've looked fantastic without the makeup and skimpy clothes and crap like that. Maybe that's why everyone in the school liked her so much. Or maybe it was because she "had the voice of an angel" like everyone always said.
Oh, but don't let that fool you. She was most certainly not an angel off the stage.
I wasn't quite sure why everyone wanted to be her friend. She was a witch and backstabbed every single one of her friends, never even apologizing, but rather, just thinking things could go back to normal simple because she was she, and everyone loved her, right?
Wrong.
All of that beauty of hers had gone to her head. The thing is: we used to be friends, when we were little. But then…there came guys. And that was the end of the nice, actually dependable Lissa, gone in a flash, and was replaced with…that. I started hating her somewhere around then.
Now that I'm done ranting about Lissa, I'll get on with the story.
She started doing that weird thing where girls will twirl their hair around their finger in an attempt to flirt, staring straight at Fang. "Hi, Fang," she said flirtatiously. (When did she not do anything flirtatious around Fang?)
Fang, being…Fang, only glanced at her, still as emotionless as ever, and just nodded. This seemed to satisfy her though, and she smirked. I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms. She looked at me smugly and I raised an eyebrow at her in question. "Why are you still here? Leave," I told her, make a gesture to say, "shoo, shoo!"
She gaped at me for a second, and then flipped her red-ish-brown ponytail over her shoulder. "Whatever. I didn't even want to stay here near you anyway. I might catch something." I scoffed, rolled my eyes again, and Lissa walked off holding her head high and sticking her nose in the air. "Priss," I muttered under my breath. I saw Iggy smirk.
The weirdest thing about Iggy—and trust me, there was a lot—was that he could hear a penny drop from a mile away. It was actually kind of creepy at times…
Nudge looked down at her tray sadly. "I talk too much, huh?" she asked.
"Well… sort of…" I said. Ella continued what I left hanging. "And we don't care that you do, because if you didn't talk so much, you wouldn't be Nudge." Would an "aww!" be in order? Yes. Yes it would.
"So, Max. As I was saying," Fang gave a glance at Nudge that said, yes you, "Wanna come to my house after school to shoot some hoops?"
I nodded, smiled, and then looked at him like he was crazy. "I live two doors down from you, Fangles. And I come over almost every day." He shrugged anyways. I rolled my eyes playfully at him and he grinned like only he could, bumping his shoulder lightly against mine. I bumped his shoulder back, which snowballed into a mini-war.
Once we were done and I caught my breath, I asked, "Why can't you just say 'come over after school to play some basketball'?" He shrugged again.
Iggy answered me instead. "Because it sounds more manly." I gave him a look. "You," I said, pointing at him, "are crazy. It does not sound manly—it's just pointless." Thus starting the argument between all of us on whether or not it sounds manly. (Ella, Nudge, and I were on the same side, just in case you were wondering. Oh, and we totally won.)
After lunch, I had Science while Fang had Math. Yes, it aggravated us to death that if we had just had that switched around then we would've had one more period of slightly less torturous learning.
Lissa pranced up to Fang and put on a smile (another flirtatious one. Ugh), batting her eyelashes at him in an attempt to…I didn't even know, honestly.
She then looked like she had just then noticed I was standing right next to Fang, glaring at me. She took a step toward me as if to challenge me to something, stomping her white high heels against the tile floor, inches away from my foot. I raised an eyebrow at her once more, just like in the cafeteria, and slammed my locker door closed with a lot more force then needed.
"So… Fang," she started, back to that stupid method of twirling her hair around her finger. "About the dance, the Halloween Dance? You wanna… go with me?" she asked, taking one glance at me, then bringing her eyes back to Fang.
"Nah, I think I'm going with friends," he said. Go Fang! I grinned smugly, tucking some hair behind my ear. Fang glanced at me and nudged my foot with his, catching my attention. Lissa glared at me, but all of her true colors were gone the moment she turned back to our dearest emo boy over here. "Well, call me if you ever decide you want to go with someone who's actually attractive for once." I knew that the last part about not being pretty was directed at me, but I just waved it off, not thinking anything about it. Why should I ever listen to Lissa? Everything that came out of her mouth was just gossip, threats, or lies. Unless, of course, we were in class, which is where she always liked to show off that she got straight A's and knew the answer to everything.
Fang nodded, still using that mask. It made me even more smug, thinking that I don't have to look at that side of impassive Fang all the time like everyone else did, and that he only took it down for me and select others. "I'll…um…take you up on that," he answered her, taking my hand and quickly dragging me in the general directions of our classes.
When we got off the bus, I just hopped off with him instead of getting off at my house. The bus driver, Mr. Al knew that I stayed at his place a lot and he liked us surprisingly, unlike most teachers. He was one of the cool staff members at our school, along with Ms. Elburn, the nurse Mrs. Amy, and Mr. Marten, my History teacher.
"Have a good weekend, Max, Nick," he told us as we made our ways down the steps. "You too," we called back in unison. We didn't bother going inside because Mrs. Walker stayed home all day anyways, and she'd have looked out the window around right now to see if he/we had gotten home. I wasn't sure where Iggy scampered off to, or why he wasn't on the bus, but he probably just went to one of his other friend's houses.
We sat out in the front yard, sprawled out on the grass, all of our homework splayed out around us. Though doing homework is usually torturous, many, many snarky and sarcastic comments and joking conversation between the two of us helped me get through it. But just barely.
"So…about that dance," Fang started, setting his pencil down on his open Science textbook, looking unsure of himself. "What about it?" I answered back, taking down my messed up ponytail and throwing it back into another one, obviously neater than the last. I took a swig of my water bottle and he scribbled something off of his paper furiously.
I glanced over at him and saw that he looked nervous for a moment, but then put that away so it wasn't visible to most people…except Iggy and me. To everyone but us, he'd just be completely impassive, but we'd known him long enough to be able to tell what he was really feeling. "Everyone's been making a pretty big deal out of it," he stated and I nodded, wondering where the heck this was going to go.
"Do you think you'd want to…" he paused for a moment and I took another sip of water. "Want to…?" I offered, trying to get him to just spit it out already. "Want to go with me?"
I blinked twice, surprise clear in my expression and voice. "To the dance?"
He nodded, and it was obvious now that he was nervous, to anyone. "To the dance," he confirmed.
"Of course I will!" He looked kind of shocked at my answer. "You will?" I nodded, giving him a look resembling the one I gave him earlier, except this one intended to say, you're such an idiot sometimes. "Why wouldn't I?" The corners of his lip came up slightly, in a half-smile, making my heart thud oddly in my chest, but then I blinked and it was gone. I then found myself wishing he hadn't stopped for some strange reason, actually liking that weird reaction that I had whenever he did something along those lines. "You're my best friend, Fangles, I'm not just going to say no," I finished, smiling at him.
Then that stupid mask went back on, making me frown and my eyebrows furrow.
"Oh, um, yeah," he said lamely. I stared at my binder, not looking at his eyes.
I glanced at his binder that had doodles covering it and saw one of a group of people with wings. For some reason, that's something that he always liked to draw. There was a girl and two boys who looked to be around our age (fourteen). They seemed to be based off of…you know, us.
The fourteen-year-old girl looked sort of like…well, me, except she seemed to have this aura that she was extremely pretty, if that makes any sense at all. She looked stronger and faster and…just flat-out better than what I actually am, like she wasn't human. I guess she wasn't human since she had dark wings spreading from her back. The other two boys looked like Iggy and Fang, oddly enough, but like the Max II, better. Fang II's wings were even dark than mine and Iggy II's were simply just not colored in at all, meaning his were probably supposed to be pure white.
"I suspect Iggy and Ella will be going together, don't you?" I tried in an attempt to change the subject. He nodded slightly. "Yeah, I guess they will."
"Isn't it annoying how it's so obvious to everyone but them that they like each other?" I said. "And they're just way too stubborn to admit it—well, actually, I think Ella has admitted it, but…I'm not so sure about Iggy."
He opened his mouth to reply, but then his mother poked her head out of the door, said, "Dinner's ready, come on in and get washed up," and disappeared back into the house. We stuffed our homework and things back into our backpacks. We weren't completely done with everything, but it would be dark by the time that everyone had finished dinner, so we decided to finish it in his room. After all, it was already six and the sun went down at seven since it was October. I sort of lost track of time while we were talking earlier, before everything got all awkward and crap. But I guess the saying is true: time flies when you're having fun.
It struck me that we never actually did play basketball, but I didn't worry about. I wasn't the best at basketball anyways and Fang would whoop my butt, even if I would never admit it. (Tell him I said that and die.)
Angel and Gazzy, Fang's siblings, were already at the dinner table along with Mr. and Mrs. Walker, probably waiting on us. Fang went to the hallway bathroom to wash his hands while I just used the sink.
"Hi, Max!" Angel's bubbly voice said and I glanced at her before smiling. Angel looked like, well, an angel. She had the blonde hair in little ringlets around her face, sparkling blue eyes, and the cutest little face I'd ever seen, especially since she was only six. Gazzy was two years older than her, eight, and they looked exactly alike. Personality wise, they weren't very similar, though. They were both sweet, don't get me wrong or anything, but Angel could be sort of devious and controlling when she wanted. Gazzy was mischievous and basically just a miniature Iggy. I mean, come on, he even had the spiked up hair and everything! Oh, and, yes, there was a reason we called him Gazzy, which was short for the Gasman. Pray you never live to experience it.
"Hi, Angie girl, hi Gasman," I greeted, turning of the sink faucet and shaking my hands around before grabbing a paper towel and drying them off with that. And enter Fang.
Once Fang and I settled down in two chairs next to each other, we all prayed before digging in. Fang's parents were super religious, where as my mother wasn't really, but I'd gotten used to it, since going to his house every other night for nine years does that to you.
Dinner was fairly average, just having a pretty normal chatter going on. I could tell Fang was still…upset about something but I couldn't figure out what.
Dinner was over quicker than I thought it would be, and by six thirty-ish everyone was finished and we went to his room to get all of our dreaded homework done. He still wasn't saying anything and he'd had that stupid, infuriating mask on that I hated so freaking much. Finally, I couldn't stand the constant silence and uncomfortable atmosphere. I sighed. We were best friends and it was hardly ever like this, so why now? We should've been completely comfortable in each other's presence! Why weren't we?
"Fang," I started, seating my pencil down on my open notebook and putting my hand on top of his pencil, making him stop that annoying tapping. I was vividly aware how my skin felt all tingly where I touched his hand, but I tried to ignore it, focusing on his face instead. "What's the matter?" He looked down from me again, freeing his hand from underneath mine and scribbling something again on his sheet and then shifting slightly on his bed. I was sitting with my bare feet tucked underneath me, facing him, while he sat cross-legged. "It's nothing," I heard him mutter almost inaudibly, and that seemed to annoy me more than ever. "Seriously, what's wrong?"
He didn't answer and just went right back to tapping.
Okay, fine. I didn't want it to have to go to this, but he left me no choice.
"Nicholas Anthony Walker," I said suddenly, slapping my hand against his to stop that maddening tapping noise. My expression and tone was stern and I felt like I was his mom, strangely enough. He stopped what he was doing and stared at me, looking very taken aback. I never said anything like that unless I was extremely unhappy with him. And yes, I know that that last statement made it sound even more like I was his mother. "You need to tell me what's wrong right now," I demanded, standing on my knees so that my arms were keeping me balanced, and leaning forward so I was closer to his face. I kept my eyes on his while I tried to just concentrate on the matter at hand, not our proximity or the fact that he had really pretty dark eyes.
He looked kind of frightened before putting that away like he did earlier, but not far away enough to where I couldn't see it. "I swear, Max, it's nothing significant."
My expression softened for a moment. He really wasn't going to tell me, was he? Usually he told me right away whenever I did that, but apparently not this time. Something was seriously wrong with my best friend, and I couldn't figure out what.
I tried a different tactic. I sat back on my heels and kept eye contact with him. He looked kind of like he regretted something, but that was all gone the moment he realized that I had noticed. I did the best Bambi eyes I could, the way that Nudge, Ella, and Angel do to people to get said people to do stuff for them. I wasn't sure they were working, though, since he still stayed quite. Or maybe I just completely failed at doing them. Either way it wasn't working out very well for me.
"Fang," I pleaded, my voice sounding broken now. Yes, the Maximum Ride, pleaded. Because stupid Fang wouldn't freaking tell me what was bothering him. "Come on, we're best friends. It's in the besties' rule book that we have to tell each other everything," I stated, still giving him the Bambi eyes. He didn't answer me, not looking me in the eyes. I didn't say anything for a moment and obviously, neither did he. "Please?" I tried once more, on the verge of begging. "You can trust me and you know that. You've known that for a while. If you didn't, we wouldn't be friends, right?" I attempted at a small smile and he gave a weak one back and he spoke up after a moment. "Can we just…not talk about this right now?" he asked, finally freaking looking at me. I sighed in disappointment, but I obliged anyway. I fell back on my feet instead of my heels, but for the most part I stayed where I was, playing with the shark tooth necklace that hung around his neck. His dad had gotten that for him when he was seven and I knew that it meant the world to him. He was usually not attached to inanimate objects, but this was different somehow. I fingered it in my hand, turning it over and over again. I saw him looking at me and when I met his eyes, he raised an eyebrow at me. I shrugged and continued to fiddle with it, having not taken his hint for me to stop. He smirked and grabbed my hands, making me stop and have to drop the tooth back onto his chest. "Can't you stop being annoying for one moment?" he breathed in my ear. I involuntarily shivered and saw him smirk again. "I am not annoying," I grumbled, defending myself, still trying not to think about…well, him. Or, at least, the amazingly hot side of him.
…
WAIT! HOLD UP THERE! DID I JUST CALL FANG HOT? EVEN IN MY OWN MIND? WHAT THE CRAP! HE'S LIKE MY FRIGGING BROTHER THAT I NEVER HAD! WHERE THE HECK DID THAT COME FROM?
Once I'd stopped having a miniature spazz attack in my head, I noticed that he was still holding my hands and he entwined our fingers. My cheeks turned a light shade of pink without my permission at this but I didn't do anything about it, except hope that he didn't notice. If he did, he didn't show it, because when he looked at me, all he did was grin and went back to writing down answers, switching so that he was holding my hand with his left hand instead. I just sat there for a moment, not really doing anything. I peeked over at what he was scribbling down. To anyone but his friends, family, and the teachers, the words he scrawled down weren't even words, but I had read enough of his writing to know what he meant. And yes, Fang was a writing geek as well, and I'm proud to say that I got him started on that when we were nine or ten. He wasn't as obsessed as me, but he was still pretty fantastic. He could write short things and it was fine which I was always jealous of him for, since it meant that I never finished a writing prompt for school.
Anyways, he was jotting down something that I noted didn't seem to be homework, but rather, a story. "What's this?" I asked him curiously. He grinned. "Curiosity killed the Max," he taunted, but I ignored him and picked up the sheet when he lifted his hand from the paper. "Seriously, what is it?" I questioned again. All I got to read was, You'd think that by now I would be used to it happening over and over again, but I can't seem to quite—before he yanked it out of my hand and stuffed it in his binder. He hastily threw his binder in his black bag. I pouted, crossing my arms, since he had let go of my hand when he took the sheet from me. "Why'd you do that?" I whined, sounding like a little kid.
He smirked. "Because you aren't allowed to see it until it's done," he answered me. I glared at him. "Jerk," I muttered.
He shrugged, not offended in the slightest. "You're doing the same to me. It's payback."
I rolled my eyes. "Fine. But at least tell me what it's about," I demanded, shifting my position once more so that I was lying on my stomach, but could still see Fang. I propped my elbows up and put my chin in my hands. "No, you wouldn't tell me what yours was about, I'm not telling you about mine," he stated. My face fell and I groaned. "You're being so unfair!" I complained, rolling onto my back and onto some paper and pencils, hurting me, but I didn't do anything about it.
We kept doing homework for another ten or so minutes before I abruptly declared, "This is boring. We're watching a movie now." He raised an eyebrow at me. "What movie?"
I shrugged. "I don't know. You pick."
He got up from the bed, going over to that small cabinet thing that the TV was perched on top of. Yes, Fang had a TV in his room and we always slept in his room when it was just he and I (NOT LIKE THAT, YOU PERVERTED READERS) since his room was pretty cool and he had a king sized bed. It would've been awkward if we weren't best friends. Another reason I loved being his best friend.
I heard him rustling through all of the DVDS, but I couldn't see him because of the angle I was lying at and I really didn't want to move. He closed the cabinet-thing door, having apparently found a good movie for us to watch that we haven't seen a bazillion times already.
"What'd ya pick?" I asked, staying where I was, but craning my neck some so that I could just see him. He shook his head at me and answered, "It's a surprise."
I scooted up so that my head was dangling off the edge of the bed and I could see the TV, but did have to move a lot, and he came to sit next to me. I fiddled with my hands for a moment while we watched the previews. I couldn't tell from the previews what movie it was, so I just didn't watch.
Once the actual thing came on, I stared at Fang. "No. Way." If you think I said that out of disbelief, you are correct. If you think I mean that in a good way, you are mistaken.
"Nuh uh. We are not watching this movie," I said sternly. He grinned at me. "How come?"
"It's terrible!"
He shrugged.
"…Okay, so maybe it isn't terrible, movie wise, but book wise? No! It's like they just made their own characters and plot line and gave it the same name!"
Another shrug.
"…Percy isn't, actually. He's pretty attractive, therefore it's okay. Grover is awesome in this movie, even if that's not how Grover is supposed to act, but Annabeth? No way! And it's not even just her hair that bothers me!"
If you haven't noticed yet, we were watching Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. I read the whole series and was excited when the movie came out. Iggy, Nudge, Fang, and I had all read it, actually, so I dragged them with me to the movie. It was really rather disappointing when we saw it and it was almost completely changed. Ella had just started the first book when it came out, so she couldn't go.
"I refuse to watch this."
"No, you don't."
"Yes, I do."
"No."
"Can't we just watch Harry Potter or something?"
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
"I'll be your best friend!"
"You already are."
"Come on, please?"
"Not a chance."
"You suck."
"I know."
"If you don't, I tell Iggy what happened last summer…"
He paused for a second, looking at me skeptically. "You wouldn't."
"Oh, but you know I would."
"…Fine—"
"Yay!"
"—But then I can tell Ella what you did after that…"
I glared at him. "…Okay, you win. I'll watch the stupid movie. Last time I let you pick what we watch…"
Sometime in-between the movie, we realized that we didn't make popcorn, so Fang had to pause it and then go and make some. I offered to do it, but he said that I might burn the house down if I tried, so I decided to just not bother with trying. Besides, less moving for me!
It's ten o'clock by the time the movie ends and we still aren't tired, so we put on another one, but this time I choose it. Instead of watching it, though, we just talk through the whole thing, just using the TV as background music. Fang seemed to have completely forgotten about whatever it was that was bothering him, which I was thankful for, and he was chuckling right on with me. And no, Fang never laughed. He chuckled, while I laughed. But that's just Fang for you.
He seemed to have noticed that I was getting kind of tired, because he plopped a pillow on his lap and patted it. I laid my head there, staring at the TV, and it was sort of hard to understand what was going on because it was sideways. I didn't mind, though, since I was comfortable.
I'm pretty sure I fell asleep that way.
So...yeah! This is the first chapter of "Good Enough" (which will probably changed later) and I hope that wasn't TOO out of character. :) Review, my minions, review!
xXHigh-Fives For NothingXx and *Ravenclaw-Wings*