I've wanted to write this for a while. This is what was going on with Max and Iggy, when Fang and Fi were doing their thing, and it helps explain a bit that'll happen in the next few chapters. I'll make it a little side story to go along with Ex. 1668369.
Disclaimer: If you've found this on fanfiction, chances are I don't own Max and the flock. Aww, sadness.
The Knife
Chapter One
Iggy was healed. The flock was fine. Another day in a house belonging to a mutant. These days I just watched time pass. I didn't do anything. I felt nothing, my eyes saw nothing. My whole body was on autopilot.
People walked in the door, out the door. Giggles, hugs, laughing, talking. I just went along with it. Iggy was the only one who treated me strangely. The only one who noticed.
The way, that when everyone was out of the room, I would pull out one of the knives and twirl it. Watching the sharp edge glimmer. I would try. Oh, yes, I would try.
I would put that point up to my arm and see how far in I would push it this time. I never got far. Iggy always found me. He smiled as usual, but he would always sit down with me and pull out his own knife.
He would skim his finger down the edge and slit his wrist. Only a little at first. I was scared for him. He kept cutting deeper. Not deep enough for death, but deep enough for blood.
Deep enough. I didn't like watching the blood leak out. So I never stuck the knife in too far. Iggy was the only serious one. I think he really wanted to die. I didn't know why. He just did.
I knew why I kept twirling that knife. I loved Fang. I loved him more than anything else in the world. But I hadn't told him that. I never even let it show.
I should have, though. If I wanted Fang, I should have said so. I knew he liked me, but not how far he would go for me. He didn't go far. He thought I didn't like him. So he moved on.
On to the mutant girl. Fi, she calls herself. She was asleep for almost two weeks and I actually missed her. I was happy when she was back.
Until she and Fang got together. Hugging, laughing, kissing, right in front of me.
The way he looked at her. The way they looked together.
They were right. They were supposed to get together. But I had always wanted Fang to look at me, hug me, kiss me. I wanted to kiss him.
Instead I settled for the knife. My best friend. He would help me, taking away the pain, if only until I stopped bleeding.
Best Friends Forever.
I cut myself. Deeper and deeper. I watched as the blood leaked, slithering its way down my arm.
No matter what the flock was doing, laughing, eating, sleeping, I would go with it, sliding my finger down the knife in private.
Fake smiles. I gave them away like balloons at a fair. Fake, fake, fake. I sat and twirled the knife. I watched it glitter.
The light shone off it, rippling like an ocean. Blood slip-sliding its way down the blade.
We just pulled our sleeves down. Covering the cuts up. Like we needed to keep them a secret. A secret Angel already knew.
She knew how we drank in the pain, letting it cover us when we cut deeper. She asked me to stop. I ignored her. She finally talked sense into Iggy, making him drop the knife and stop cutting.
I didn't stop. The pain, the knife, were my best friends. The best a girl could have.
Iggy asked me to stop. He threw the knife. He pushed me. He showed me his scars from the cuts, showed me my own, bigger, longer, scars. He cried. I cried. But I didn't stop.
I cut myself, again, and again, with that shining knife. The knife dropped from my hand and I sobbed, collapsing on the stairway. Iggy, my knight in shining armor, ran to me and held me, he held me as I sobbed, blood seeping from my wrist and tears coming from my eyes.
But I still felt nothing. Nothing but a little happiness when I felt Iggy next to me when I woke, then a dull pain in my wrist.
I couldn't get her to stop. No matter what I did, I couldn't get Max to stop cutting. She kept picking that knife back up, cutting deeper. She was getting too close. Too close to death.
I had run away from it. Thank God Angel was there to talk to me. Max was beyond talking to.
So I held her, close as I could without hurting her wrist. It hurt to see her, crying and bleeding. I wished she would stop.
Fi was here, she could probably help, but I didn't want her to know. I didn't want her to know about me, I didn't want her to know about Max.
Because if she knew, she'd know how I felt about Max. I loved her, even as she loved Fang. At first, I thought, Fang and my sister, me and Max. Well, Max never got around to thinking I liked her. I liked her more than like, and more than she would ever know.
I knew why she cut herself. It must have hurt her too much to see Fang and my sister, hear them laugh together.
But I guess she couldn't feel that I was crying, holding her close, wishing I could tell her. I took the knife, pushed her away from it. I didn't want to hurt her, but I didn't want her to hurt herself.
She didn't hear what I whispered in her ear while she slept.
I love you
I heard. I heard every word. But I wasn't ready. I didn't know when I would be. For now I dropped the knife, letting it clatter to the floor next to Iggy's feet. I hugged him, and left him on the stairs, staring at my bloodstained knife. I sat on Angel's bed and hugged her, squeezing her tight. She understood, hugging me back and crying.
I told her not to tell anyone and she looked at me, tears in her eyes, and said she wouldn't dream of it.
An hour later, you would have found me and Angel, squeezed together, doing a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle.
Max was back! Jigsaw puzzles, tag, games, she was back! I knew her thoughts, but I ignored the leftover thoughts from the knife. The one that she had called her best friend.
After we cried, Max and I did a jigsaw puzzle, one with kitties. Halfway before we were done, though, Iggy came in. He walked in the door, asking for Max.
His voice was sad, but happy at the same time. He held a knife, blood dripping off the tip. Max got a worried look on her face, and got up. She walked to Iggy and took the hand holding the knife. She took the knife and threw it to the floor, the knife embedding itself in the floor at an angle.
I looked at the knife, shaking for a moment, and back to Max. She was holding Iggy's hand and he opened it, blood shining in his palm. There was blood, dripping down his arm, snaking around it, and falling to the floor.
Max started crying again and Iggy held her, walking towards the bathroom. I followed and helped get bandages. Max was crying too much and Iggy was bleeding too much, so I helped bandage his hand.
I left them, crying again, and flopped down in the middle of the hallway, staring at the ceiling.
I cried. I admit it. I cried when I saw the M Iggy had carved into his hand. It was straight, perfect, and so deep that the scar would never totally disappear. It bled like crazy.
Crazy blood, dripping until I couldn't stand it anymore and turned my face into Iggy's shirt.
He had gone back to wearing short sleeved shirts when he stopped cutting. He didn't need to hide the cuts he didn't make anymore, and the scars were almost gone.
It scared me when he had stumbled into Angel's room, nearly passed out from blood loss. I was too stunned to do anything but cry as Angel and Iggy wrapped it, cleaning up the blood.
Iggy was passed out on the edge of the bathtub, his arm with the bad hand around me. I cried and cried until his shirt was soaked. He came to, a few hours later, his arm tightening protectively around me.
"I-Iggy?"
He moaned, his hand curling into a fist and straightening back out. "Max…"
I pushed him into a sitting position and got up to turn on the sink. His good hand shot out and grabbed my leg. His face turned towards me, and if he wasn't blind, it would have shown a pleading look on his face.
"Don't…leave me…"
I sat back down, holding Iggy. His arms slid around me, hugging me tightly. I shook my head. I wasn't sure where Iggy and I were going, but I wasn't going to leave him.
"I'm not going to leave you, Iggy. Never."
I knew, then, when the words popped out of my mouth. I wasn't going to leave him. No matter how much I wanted death, I would stay. I would stay, at least until Iggy left. Then I was free for death, life, whichever I chose. And for the first time in weeks, I hoped that choice didn't come soon.
I stopped faking everything. I was back, and Angel needed me. Angel needed me, Iggy wanted me to be here. I wanted to be here, and I was going to stay.
I realized that in the whole time I had been busy cutting myself the world had continued, leaving me in its dust, still trying to catch up. Fang and the mutant girl were closer than ever, I was semifriendish to her, from having minimal reactions to things she had said, she obviously came to the conclusion we were friends. I was willing to give it a try, as long as she and Fang didn't get too kissy kissy in front of me.
It was unavoidable and I still felt a pang of pain come through me when I saw him look at her. It just didn't hurt as much. The knife had hurt more.