AN: Oh my...
This is one of my stranger pairings, I think. I mean...it's pedophilia. Not as much pedophilia as say...Jeb/Angel, but still. I think it's cute. The pairing, I mean. Not the oneshot. I'm going to let you decide about the oneshot for yourself. I don't even like this song all that much. It's just damn catchy. My friend wanted me to write Fangel and I was listening to this, so I thought...why not?
This is so...fluffy...
Disclaimer: I don't own Maximum Ride nor the song Seventeen Forever by Metro Station.
"You are young and so am I. And this is wrong, but who am I to judge?"
"I know you're there, Fang," Angel said, landing down on the warehouse roof gracefully. Her wing length had extended from when she was seven—the last time Fang saw her. He looked at her from behind a stack of crates, eyeing her warily. She looked a lot different, and Fang had never imagined that the little girl he had once known would turn into a woman one day.
So he stood in the shadows—scared of what he would encounter if he stopped hiding.
Angel looked around some more, and Fang could tell she was searching for nearby minds. She honed in on Fang's hiding place and walked over with a determined stride, her head held high and her arms at her sides. Her battered sneakers made no noise on the cement of the roof.
Before she could get to him first, he pulled himself up so that he was no longer hiding. "Angel," he said curtly, nodding in her direction. Even though he was 25 now, not much had changed. He had grown even taller, perhaps, but his general appearance was the same. His hair was still shaggy and hung into his brown eyes, and he had his hands stuffed into a black hoodie. He saw Angel run her eyes down the length of his body, assessing his appearance.
When she verified that it was Fang and that he hadn't changed as much as she had secretly feared, she ran toward him, tackling him into a hug. Fang stiffened in shock. Angel had never showed any signs of affection when she had been talking with him through his mind before. Noticing his lack of response, she punched him in the back lightly. "You're supposed to hug me back," she hissed.
He did so, his arms wrapping around her tentatively. He felt her warm body against his and realized how small she really was. While he had grown taller, Angel was only slightly above average for a woman. No, girl.
The sad thing was that he had to correct himself.
Angel pulled away after a few minutes. "I haven't seen you in years. Don't you think I'm entitled to a hug from my big brother?"
"Angel, we just talked this morning," Fang pointed out. He began pacing instinctively. He blamed it on his bird genes, always making him stay on watch. He looked to the sky, expecting an adversary to drop from it at any moment.
"But that wasn't face-to-face." Angel crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Fang, making him look at her. He was reminded of the times when they were both younger, when Angel had talked Fang into doing things he would rather not do under different circumstances. But now it was even worse, because as he stared into her blue eyes, he could hardly remember how to say "no" at all.
When Fang had left the flock, Angel had looked for him. She, unlike the other flock members, had an advantage. She could read minds. From there, it was a relatively simple matter to locate where Fang was at, based on various clues he had unconsciously given her. He had been less careful around her than he had been around the rest of the flock, and Angel could deduce that he was hiding out in Europe.
Under the guise of wanting to talk at a convention of the CSM in Europe, Angel had convinced the rest of the flock to go. There, she had found Fang walking around aimlessly, wondering what his next move should be. Angel had accosted him and told him that she wanted to stay in contact with him, through their minds. There would be no other contact for them except for that—all Fang had to do was stay in close enough proximity for her to hear his thoughts and to project her thoughts into his mind.
At the beginning, Fang had questioned why she wanted this. He assumed it was for control—if Angel couldn't control the flock, she at least wanted to control a small portion of Fang's life, by telling him what she thought he should do. Fang had complied with doubts, but over time, hearing Angel's voice in his head became a regular thing for him. He felt naked without her voice talking to him, getting him through hard times, and making him want to smile.
He was nothing without her.
Fang blocked his thoughts quickly, but it was too late. Angel had already heard this, as he was thinking it with so much emotion that it was like he had been yelling it across an empty room where it could echo.
"You're nothing without me?" Angel asked with a smirk. Angel turned away quickly, to show Fang that she really wasn't expecting an answer. She knew that he had trouble talking about his feelings, even now. And he was even supposed to be mature.
"Max hard to get away from?" Fang asked, changing the subject quickly. Angel had told him that Max was being more lenient about the members of the flock leaving temporarily, after all, it had been ten years since Fang had left. She was still overly paranoid about any of her flock members leaving her, though. Especially Dylan, whom she had only become closer and closer toward ever since Fang had left.
"Yeah." There was an awkward pause. "How are things going on the anti-global warming front?"
Fang nodded. Now they were back to something he could understand—and these things were so much easier to understand than the emotions he had felt when he had seen Angel for the first time in ten years. "It's going fine..." He then began to launch into a long-winded speech about how many people he was getting to support him, but Angel cut him off before he could go on for too long.
"Shut up, Fang. We haven't seen each other for ten years and this is all you can talk about?"
"But you asked."
Angel rolled her eyes. "I was just trying to change the subject, Fang."
Fang knew that. He just wanted to jump at the chance to talk about something where he could have control of the conversation.
Awkwardness was not his forte.
"Aren't you the least bit curious why I wanted you to come see me?" Angel asked. He could feel her familiar touch probing his mind, seeing if he had any theories why. He blocked her out. Ten years of having a former flock member search your innermost secrets would make you learn tricks that would give you the upper hand. Angel pouted, disappointed. "You're good at that."
Fang didn't respond. Instead, he just lifted his eyebrows in an unspoken question.
Angel sighed. "I wanted to see you because Max found out."
That was not what he had expected.
"She...what?" On the outside he seemed perfectly calm, but he was wondering what the hell had happened. He and Angel had remained in secrecy for so long that he was shocked when something like this messed up his perfectly structured world.
"I was sending her a message through my thoughts one day, and sometimes when I do that, other thoughts get stuck with them and get sent too. Thoughts I don't want her to find out." Angel winced, as if reliving some memory. "She wants me to tell you to return to the flock. Seemed she'd be really mad at me if I couldn't get you to do it."
Fang was shocked. If Angel had told him this five years ago, he would have gone back without a second glance. But now, now that he had some time away from all of it, did he really want to go back? Back to where all of his days were consumed with Max? Where the flock was secretly annoyed with him for neglecting them?
Probably not.
"You don't have to come back," Angel said quietly. "I'm just passing along Max's message."
"But if I don't come back, she'll bemad at you." He sighed. "And maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to go back anyway."
Angel looked far from distressed. "She'll be mad, but I can deal with her. She's just a baby in an adult's body."
"You once thought of her as an older sister. And a mother." Fang remembered this time period. It seemed like such a happy time, before all the drama happened.
"I was young and stupid back then. But this time, I know how to take over the flock." She smiled, and Fang knew that if she wanted something, she would get it.
"And you're not young and stupid now?" It was then that Fang realized how close he and Angel were. Her chest was near enough to his that if she leaned over even by a fraction of an inch, they would be touching. He felt his heart speed up a little and inadvertently stepped back a bit to avoid any confused emotions.
Angel looked indignant. "Of course not!"
"Angel, you're only seventeen," Fang said gently. "You shouldn't be trying to take over the flock again."
"Max is a horrible leader!" Angel yelled. "She can't lead a pack of flying pigs, much less us. You know that! You left!"
Fang placed a hand on Angel's shoulder to calm her down. "Angel, think rationally," he whispered.
She let out a deep breath. "Well, I guess there is another choice," she said reluctantly. "If I decide that I don't want to be the leader of the flock after all."
"What?"
"Take me with you."
The words were clear and precise, and there was no way he could misinterpret them, but Fang felt himself getting confused anyway. Did she really mean—
"You're avoiding the flock pretty well. I want to get away from them too. This is the perfect solution." Angel clapped her hands together like a little girl and a light shone in her eyes.
"I don't know," Fang said.
"Why not?"
There were a myriad of things that were wrong with this. Fang liked being on his own. Angel may hold him back. The flock would miss two of its members. Fang's developing...emotions—he refused to call them feelings—were at the heart of the problem, of course.
"Angel, you know why." He let her read all of his doubts except for the last one. That, he would keep to himself.
"Those are stupid reasons." Angel waved them off carelessly.
Fang considered for a minute. To tell the truth, having Angel along wouldn't be bad, he was really just making excuses. He liked having her along, liked being able to see her and not just hear her voice in his head. She made him happy. It was so wrong, but it was so right.
Fang satisfied his conscience by telling it that this way, at least Angel wouldn't make the mistake of trying to take control of the flock again.
Fang relented. "Fine."
Angel grinned.
Before he knew it, she had planted a peck on his lips.
It was a spur of the moment thing, he told himself.
Fang blushed. He looked away from her, ignoring what had just occurred between them. She was so bold, so reckless...
So much damn different than Max.
Angel cocked her head to the side when she saw that Fang refused to acknowledge what had just occurred. "Aren't we going to talk about that?"
Max would have tried to run. Angel faced the problem head-on. He liked that about her.
"No," Fang decided. He didn't want to talk about it, because talking could lead to so much more. Fang wasn't as bold as Angel, not even close. He didn't want to face something that could blow up in his face like one of Iggy's bombs.
He saw the disappointed and hurt look on her face and decided that he was an idiot for letting something like this slip past his fingers. But he would let it slip away anyway. He knew what was right. He wasn't going to take advantage of someone eight years younger than he was. He pushed a strand of hair away from her face. "This is wrong," he said to her gently. He tried to walk away from all this, but she grabbed his hand. He was stronger that she was, but there was something in her gaze that made him want to stay.
"You run away too much," she said bluntly.
He stuttered, searching for the answer to that astute observation. His mind...
Telling him to run...
Get out of there. Make excuses before he could get too involved.
"I want to start something new today," Angel declared. Fang decided not to point out her uncanny resemblance to a High School Musical song, but Angel caught the thought in his head and glared at him anyway. "You know what I mean," she said irritably. Fang's mind was in a whirlwind. He was painfully aware that he was 25 and that she was a mere 17. Nobody would approve, much less the flock.
"Angel, we're eight years apart." Even to Fang's ears, the protest sounded weak. He was so close to giving in, just letting his body take over. Angel was like Max in some ways, but she was different in all the ways that mattered.
She was what Max wasn't.
She embodied the girl he wanted.
But she was younger. So much younger.
"Just one night," Angel said, taking Fang's hand. "Just forget ourselves for one night."
"One," Fang repeated, already feeling pent-up emotion building up inside of him.
Forget?
Was there really such a thing?
Forget that this is against the law?
Forget that she was something Fang had once viewed as a little sister?
Forget that he was supposed to be in love with Max?
Forget himself?
He traced his fingers over her facial features hesitantly, as if he was afraid that he would hurt her. Unlike Max, who used to shy away at this sign of affection, Angel only leaned into Fang more so that their bodies were only a breadth apart.
"Are you sure?" he asked huskily. All Angel could do was nod. Fang was frozen in place, wondering what kind of move he should make...wondering...deliberating...
Angel pulled his face down and kissed him before he could waste any more of their time.
Just one night.
They only hoped it would be enough.
"You won't be seventeen forever, and we can get away with this tonight."
AN: Yeah.
Review?