A/N Hey y'all, I just noticed that this is my fifth oneshot. Sorry guys, I have heaps of stuff typed up on my computer, I'm just too lazy to get it together. And for people who were there for Two Bucks, well, 'cause I dislike it so much I'm going to turn it into a....oneshot.

Shock-er.

But that's how it was originally going to be, just Max and Fang sharing a moment unaware as the flock looked on. Instead, it turned into a soap opera. Oops ;)

Anyway, here's Fang's Crappy Day. I was just thinking one day (a dangerous habit) what would happen if Fang lost his gracefulness and everything just went wrong. I hope you like, and Fangles, don't worry, I didn't kill you ;D

Shoot, I should have put the flagpole incident in. Maybe another fic.

Disclaimer: For those who have the ability to sue, I don't own Maximum Ride or any of its characters. That would be JimmyPatz. But I do own a mini cactus garden ;)

Fang's Crappy Day

Max POV

The flock were out somewhere. Don't ask me where, exactly, 'cause all I'll tell you is America. This would be strange if we were in France. Or Turkey. Even Australia. You get the picture.

Anyway, it had been a long day. Yes, I know that rhymed. I told you I had a long day. Jeezums.

Fang caught my attention and nodded his head towards the ground. I saw he was looking at a perfect clearing for six sleepy bird-kids to spend the night. I smiled inwardly. How he'd known I was tired was beyond me. But it was great. I secretly liked having someone look out for me. But don't tell him that.

"Okay guys, down at five o'clock!"

We landed softly and made camp. I scouted around with Fang to check the area while Iggy got some food happening. The younger kids were knackered, so after collecting some firewood I let them flop about. Lemme tell you, no one can flop like the Gasman. Only Nudge came close.

I let a small grin out as I watched. Fang came up beside me, making sure I knew he was there. After he was kidnapped a few months ago (or would that be birdkidnapped?) I tried to keep at least a full eye on him the whole time. I don't know what happened while he was at the School, but I could tell he didn't want to talk about it, so I contented myself in the fact at least he stopped sneaking up on me.

"Food's up!" Iggy yelled from his position beside the fire. He handed out bags of food to everyone, as well as a stick to roast it on. I was so used to cooking and eating this way, I reckon I'll still be doing it at ninety. If, of course, the sadistic spawns of Satan let me live that long. We can always hope.

Anyway, el dinner-on-a-stick passed fairly quickly. We eat fast, what can I say? Although, if you can help it, don't watch Gazzy. That kid has issues.

After I recovered from the gross-Gazzy-moment, we all found a nice comfy bit of ground to sleep on. And, as usual, I readied for first watch. Except I couldn't do that for long, could I? The Fangster had to come over, didn't he?

"I'll take first watch, Max."

I narrowed my eyes. "I can handle it," I said sharply.

He gave me a look. "Uh-huh. When get captured later 'cause you were asleep, can I blame you?"

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever, birdboy. If you want first watch, you can have it." I didn't mean to give in so soon, but I was afraid of sleeping on the job.

He nodded, acknowledging my caving. Then he pointed to a spot on the ground.

"Soft there."

"'Kay."

As I settled in the spot Fang picked for me, I had no idea what a day I'd have tomorrow. Or, rather, what a day Fang would have.

I woke up with gentle sunlight playing on my eyelids. I felt really good, until I realised Fang must have taken my watch as well. Iggy was on watch now. I decided to put on my scowl, but I couldn't bring myself to hold it up for long.

You wanna know why? Well, it's hard to keep a straight face, let alone keep up a scowl when Total was giving Fang a good-morning kiss. I instantly doubled over in laughter as Fang shot awake, furiously glaring around, before zeroing in on Total. Total, as you might expect, was rolling around on the ground, laughing his guts up.

Fang, contrary to my expectations, did not in fact kill Total. He instead rubbed his eyes, and just seemed to shrug it off. Well done, I thought silently. Angel would have been impossible to deal with if you killed her dog. Hang on; you were the one who let her have the damn dog in the first place. No pity from me.

He seemed to realise this as a flash of recollection passed through his eyes. But then it was gone. And so Fang moved on.

But today was not Fang's day, oh no way.

As soon as he took a step away from the tree he had leapt to when he woke up, he tripped on a root. If I was laughing before, you should've seen me now. I was practically dying.

Fang gingerly picked himself up off the ground, and shook out his legs. And turned around to glare at me. The glare said, Look, as you can obviously tell, my day is already ruined. If you don't shut up soon, I will ruin yours. I took the hint, and kicked the others awake. How they slept through my loud guffawing, I will never know. But bully for Fang.

Or not, apparently. The others had actually woken up earlier, and had been alive and alert of the whole Total-kiss incident. And the root-tripping upping. But this is the part I don't get. How on earth did they manage to hold in their laughter for so long? Course, they let it all out now.

Later on, after we were all packed up and in the air, I witnessed a further instalment in which was turning out to be a very bad day for a certain flock member. He started to moult.

Now, moulting was not unusual, or funny. It happened about once a year, and over about three weeks all our feathers fell out and regrew. It was normal, so obviously not unusual, but it was unfunny because it was so, so itchy. And you left embarrassing feathers everywhere.

Well, it was only unfunny if you were the one moulting. If it was anyone else, it's, well, a very different matter.

Can I laugh loudly while both leadering and flying? What a silly question. Of course I can.

As can the rest of the flock. Considering Fang's earlier events, we laughed even harder.

But I understood why he'd been a bit sleepy-looking. And grumpy. And clumsy. Moulting can kind of be compared to 'that time of the month', in that hormones and whatever get stirred up. Add that to the unbearably annoying itch, and, well, you're stuffed.

I caught some of his midnight black feathers that were spiralling down. Now that I thought about it, they were looking a bit ratty. 'Bout time he moulted. I smirked up at him. He scowled. Nope, not in a happy mood. Even as I watched he turned around and scratched his wing. I did feel sorry for him, though. Growing pin-feathers are nasty.

Little did I know that this was only the start of his problems.

It started to rain. Not pleasant, but not really a problem when you weren't moulting. The water ran straight off the wings.

But if you were moulting, they got soaked. Makes life all around harder.

As he struggled to keep up with us, his heavy wet wings slowing him down, I decided it was time for a break.

"Seeing as a certain someone is having issues at the moment, I think we should land until the rain stops."

The others nodded agreement. Fang shot me a non-offensive look. He might've sent a grateful look under normal circumstances, but today was not normal. It was just bad.

We found a cave, pretty smelly, but dry. We landed inside one-by-one, Fang the last. Everyone landed gracefully. Excluding Fang. Something to do with moulting just cramped his style. Literally. He went all clumsy. His mojo was messed up. His karma was crap. Fate was fooled with, his groove removed.

Anyway, he stumbled, but caught himself. And he would've been fine if Total hadn't chosen that moment to get under his already unstable feet.

It was like slow motion.

Down went Fang. Total yelped in fear, jumping out of the way as Fang fell. 'Cause he was in the process of landing, he wings were still out, so they got crushed. Sadly for Fang, he managed to land on the muddy edge of the cave. And then he slipped. And fell some more.

Since his wings were fairly useless from being crushed, and it would have been too much effort to sort them out in time for the valley floor, Fang just wrapped his arms around his head and braced himself for what would end up being his real landing.

If this story was in a cartoon, you would now expect Fang to land in cacti and prickles.

Funny how life seems to follow a cartoon.

I, while watching in a sort of dazed shock, started diving for Fang as soon as he left the edge of the cave. And 'cause this was a cartoon people, I didn't get anywhere near him in time. But I was close enough to hear his small grunt of pain as he crashed into the burr-and-cactus-infested ground.

Landing as fast as I could, I rushed over to him, dodging a tall cactus and several prickle-bushes.

"Oh God, Fang, are you alright?"

Sort of suspended by some awfully sharp 'n' spiky cacti, he replied.

"Max, I've never heard such a stupid noise come out of your mouth. Don't do it again."

Feeling slightly hysterical, I started giggling. And laughing. And eventually totally cracking up. The only reason I didn't roll around on the ground was because it was covered in burrs.

As was Fang.

Speaking of Fang, he was sending me the most lethal death glare I have ever seen. Even worse than my own.

"Are you just going to stand there and laugh, or are you going to help me out?"

"I'm- I'm g-going to j-just stand here!" I choked out, hardly able to get my words out.

By now the rest of the flock had arrived, and, having gotten over their shock, started laughing along with me. Angel beamed an image of Fang all stuck up into Iggy's head, so he roared with laughter too.

I was no longer the sole recipient of Fang's lethal death glare.

He snapped angrily back to his problem at hand. Realising this was going to be beyond any pain he's suffered before, Fang shut his eyes and quickly rolled off the cacti.

Landing all fours, he instantly stood up. I wondered why until I saw his hands.

"A pincushion would be jealous!" Gazzy announced proudly.

"It looks like he got in a fight with a cactus and lost! Oh, hang on, he did!" Nudge added helpfully.

"Fang, there's better ways to go about acupuncture. I mean, really," Iggy said, shaking his head.

Fang just scowled, glared, glowered, and basically shot icicles and daggers and lasers and whatever else out of his eyes. And pulled out this eensy weensy pair of tweezers out of his pocket, and grimly set to work.

Finally pulling myself together, I pulled out my own pair of tweezers, and started to help.

By the time we got the prickles out, the rain had passed, so after shaking out his wings, checking for damages, etc, Fang took off.

And promptly fell down again. He looked alarmed until he noticed there wasn't much air moving down in the bottom of the valley, thus requiring a take off point above the ground.

He set his face in a resolute scowl, and climbed the cliff face.

Fang should've known better. He should've realised that this obviously wasn't his day, and he should only stick to fail-safe activities. But noooo, off he went, determined to humiliate himself again.

Of the many bad ways this could have turned out, it ended up being the classic grab-the-skinny-little-tree-and-pull-accidently-out-of-the-cliff-wall-and-crash-to-ground one.

But against all expectations, Fang's luck seemed to have turned. He managed to get in the air before coming even close to the ground and he soared happily far above us.

We stared, dumbstruck, until Nudge, well, nudged us into action. We immediately joined Fang on his joyful flight.

I passed Total to Fang, and he gave him a little lick.

"Don't lick me, dog. All of this is your fault." Fang said in a deadly tone.

"Whatever. BTW, the 'dog' has a name. Hey, 'Fang' sounds like a good dog name, don't ya think?" Total said, equally coldly.

I swear I saw bloodlust rise up in Fang's eyes, but Angel soon saw to that. She calmed him down, until he just ignored Total. I was so proud of her.

After a few hours of straight autopilot, we gently spiralled to the ground. We set up camp, and made sure Fang was properly free of burrs.

And then he got stuck on a tree. Only I saw, 'cause he was quietly leaning against it on the other side of the little grove we were camping in, but he didn't even seem to notice me.

"Stupid shirt, what's with the urge to get stuck, hmm? And what the hell is with the stupid trees, Total, and basically the stupid day conspiring against me? And, jeez, did I have to moult? Did it need to rain? And what's with the freaking 'Valley of Sharp Plants'? Damn it, evil tree. Why'd ya have to catch just there? Why not, like, not even on me. Surely you and the other trees realised I don't need any more of this crap, huh? Or are you freaking oblivious. Probably. Be just my luck," he mumbled angrily, tugging roughly at the stuck shirt.

Poor Fang. I didn't realise how annoying his day must have been. For someone so calm and collected, must be bad when everything went wrong, or, well, 'wronger' than usual.

Oh forget it, what the heck do I care? He's talking to a freaking tree! How can I not laugh?!

Fang stiffened, and slowly turned around. "Hello, Max."

"You're talking to freaking trees!" I laughed out.

He turned to look at the offending tree, still holding his shirt. "Yup," he said casually. "Nothing else to do. May as well round off my absolutely crap day properly," he finished bitterly.

I laughed, and finally, as his shirt finally came away, Fang laughed too.

We were practically mush on the ground, actually.

And then, "God! It freaking itches!"

R&R? Pretty please?

Oh yeah, Robbie's new album is awesome. If you like his music, then it's a good buy. If not, just ignore this ad.