I tried with as much force as one can brushing through my hair, giving up halfway through. Screw it if it was knotty, I need a trim anyway. If only we were back in New York again, I sighed. No, we were anywhere but in a city populated by millions. We were back in Utah. For some of you non-feathery folks just entering in, you might be confused. I'm not talking about just chiming in on the delightful nightmare that we call our existence, but on what has happened in the past couple of years.
We've kind of left all of that stuff out. All of that fluffy shit with Dylan, Antarctica, my Flock- more specifically Fang and Angel, and Doomsday, didn't actually happen. Sorry, guys. After I allegedly killed Ari and was told that my fourteen-year-old self already responsible for five kids and a talking dog was destined to save the world, we basically wrote it all off as bullshit and dropped off the face of the Earth.
Kind of.
We still have the run-ins with Erasers and others that want our blood, but nothing out of the usual. We don't go out of our way to pick a fight. Our location changes every now and then, but for the most part we've resided up in the mountains, far away from civilization. Did you see a bird that looks like a child flying out our window? Nope.
Currently, though I won't tell you faithful readers where, we are taking refuse in an abandoned vacation, presumably ski, home. It's been years since anybody had pulled into the driveway, let alone entered the house. The most current news paper was from 2001. For anybody that is blanking on what year it is, it's 2013. So yeah, its been awhile since the house has been occupied, just the way that we winged freaks like it.
This house is actually nicer than all five of our old ones combined. Yes, five. You guys missed out on the other four that Gazzy and the Igster blew up. To sum things up, it went boom and then there were flames. Destruction comes as naturally as breathing to them.
The people that had previously occupied the structure had to have been completely paranoid, because there wasn't a visible entrance in sight. You had to know exactly how to access the road through a series of tunnels or there was no way to the front door. Unless you happen to fly. That generally tends to work.
In any regard, we like paranoid control freaks. The house was concealed from any and all aerial attention and was extremely hard to access from any point. It was my own personal Barbie dream house.
The interior was even more decked out. These folks stocked the house with guns, to which I confiscated, no children or Iggys running around with guns under my not-recognized-by-legal-authorties roof. They also had alarms that went off when anything over forty pounds set foot within a mile of the property. Though the cherry on top was without a doubt the escape hatches that led you down an underground tunnel to a hidden clearing with two getaway cars. Or in our case, a perfect take-off ground. In case you haven't made the conclusion yourself, none of us are so hot at driving.
Whoever and wherever these people were, they earned my respect. And my deep apologies for breaking into their house.
Even leaving out the Pentagon-worthy security system, the house would top the market. It was camouflaged into the face of the mountain, basically adding on to the natural architecture. There were three open floors, each accompanied by giant windows and wide balconies.
The first floor held Iggy's dream kitchen, a living room with a television as big as Fang's ego, some kind of game room with old pinball machines and arcade games that we are still figuring out how to turn on, a bar (with locked up alcohol that nobody will be breaking into under my watch), a fancy dining room, a laundry room, and a library stacked with old books that nobody in their right mind wants to read.
The second floor overlooks the first, hiding four respectably-size bedrooms and two bathrooms. Nudge and Angel, and consequently Total, claimed the two joint ones to the far back, leaving out the information regarding the balcony it accessed. Iggy and Gazzy were more than happy to select their own private rooms, only burdened with sharing a bathroom big enough to park a school bus. At the end of the hall there was another lounge-type area stacked with beanbags and various movies, enough to entertain all of us, including the ever-so-picky furry one, for a very long time. If only one of us could remember how to work a VCR.
The top floor was breathtaking by any standards. There were two master-like bedrooms, each with private bathrooms and balconies. They were obviously mine and Fang's. I was more than pleased to find my room previously occupied and stacked with a few sweatshirts and jeans, and better yet, money. And lots of it. Maybe we should leave a thank-you note if and when we ever have to leave.
I stepped out onto the balcony, taking in the gorgeous landscape surrounding me. We had finally found the perfect place to call home. A place that was becoming even more perfect by the minute.
"Max!" Nudge and Angel squealed, waving at me from below. "There's a hot tub down here! We turned it on, it still works!" They exclaimed.
"That's because they have a generator." I explained, pointing to the giant motor many feet away from them. I made a mental note to make sure there was plenty of propane, though already pretty confident that it had been taken care of.
"Boo." Fang yelled, appearing from thin air, literally. I jumped, as I always do, which gives him an immense feeling of satisfaction. I rolled my eyes and silently cursed him, pushing him against the iron railing.
"Don't make me throw you off." I threatened playfully, pecking him on the lips.
Plot twist, we're together.
Not like, together together, but together. As in we kiss occasionally and make fun of each other's morning breath. We are officially unofficial, if that makes any sense whatsoever. With all of the running and hiding and scavenging fast food restaurant's dumpsters in order to get by, our relationship has sort of floated under the radar. We haven't really had time for it.
I'm not even sure if the Flock knows. Except for Angel, of course. That little pest knows everything. She hasn't really dropped any hints of her knowledge, which doesn't really reassure me, but whatever she does and doesn't know she's keeping it quiet. Besides, there isn't much to tell.
"Max!" Iggy hollered from two stories down, his tone indicating that he was not in the mood to be patient.
"Coming!" I answered, releasing Fang and dive-bombing to the kitchen door. He rolled his eyes and followed my lead, entering into the kitchen behind me.
"We need food. This stuff is dated back to the 90's." He complained, holding up a foul-smelling can to prove his point. Thankfully the fridge and freezer had already been cleaned out. These crazy folks were ready for the zombie apocalypse.
"Here," I replied, slapping at least a grand worth of fifty-dollar bills on the counter. He did his weird touch mechanism, feeling the grooves and ink patterns of the bills.
"Fifties?" He questioned, with piercing accuracy that made me skeptical of whether his blindness was actually some prolonged hoax. "Where the hell have you been hiding these babies?" He asked, holding them to his face for a desperate dramatic effect.
"Nowhere. I found them in my room. Check all of your drawers, these guys were stacked. There was forty times this amount in mine." I answered.
"Jackpot!" Gazzy screamed, appearing from the doorway.
"Fang and I will go food shopping. He'll... drive, or at least try to. Nudge is in charge while we're gone. No bombs!" I instructed exiting the kitchen and fiddling with the garage button outside the laundry room until the door started to open.
"It's because I'm blind, isn't it?" Iggy complained from the other room.
"No– it's because Nudge has a clean track record when it comes to mass destruction of property." I stated, not willing to hear any more of his nonsense. He huffed in the background, re-organizing the entire kitchen to tailor to his personal culinary needs. Prick.
"Bring me donuts!" Gazzy shouted, individually examining the kitchen knives from the set in a way that would worry most people greatly.
"Ooh! And cheese balls!" Angel added on from outside the huge window.
"Got it!" I hollered, tossing Fang a set of car keys that I found conveniently lined up on the wall. He pressed the 'unlock' button, walking over to the car that glowed in response. We both climbed in, hoping that the car would start and give us enough gas to make it somewhere near civilization. If not, there were three more to try.
As soon as the key was turned in the ignition, the dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree. And what do you know, a full gas tank. Of course.
"Careful." I instructed, watching Fang's every breath as he slowly backed out of the long driveway. We exited out of the third tunnel to the left first, then the far right one, something that I'd have to memorize if we wanted to be able to drive back to the house. After the two narrow tunnels there was a sandy mountain road that winded around various rock formations and canyons. It might have been the longest road I've ever been down.
"Easy!" I hollered at Fang every time the car went over a bump. For those of you city folk that have never driven on a dirt path, that's about every thirty seconds, give or take a few. Fang shook his head each time, no doubt making all sorts of mental jokes about my over-protectiveness. It literally took forty minutes just to get onto an actual paved road. Do you know how many snide remarks he could've made in that time?
It was smooth sailing from there. A super market came into picture right off the first exit, looking promising. Fang pulled into the parking lot, finding the first space available and parking the car decently enough to avoid getting ticketed. We walked to the front automatic doors, each grabbing the biggest shopping cart available.
Food shopping for the Flock was always a blast.
Fang covered all of the aisles to the left, which were breads, pastas, snacks, candy, and all other sugars and carbs known to man, leaving me to be the bad cop buying the healthy food. You'd think that after years on the run the Flock wouldn't be picky.
Wrong.
Nudge and Iggy only like green grapes, while Gazzy and Angel won't touch them unless they are red. Apples? Granny Smith or nothing. Pears have to be fatter than your fist to be deemed worthy enough to consume. Oranges? What's an orange? You mean Clementines?
Don't even get me started on vegetables.
Regardless, I grabbed pounds of everything, not caring if they wanted to eat it or not. Somebody would. I went down the dairy section next, buying enough milk to last normal people months and enough cheese to double that. I grabbed Iggy about ten dozen eggs, hoping that it would last him longer than a week.
I snatched some yogurts, selecting the ones with the rabbits on them for Angel and the ones with the cookie crumbs for Gazzy. I shoveled in a few more cups for the rest of us.
I passed by the hygiene aisle before the checkout counter, piling in soaps and shampoos until the cart started to overflow. Pushing my growing stash further, I picked up some toothbrushes and toothpaste, hoping that nobody had cavities. Laughing gas and I don't get along too well.
Finally making it to checkout, my eyes bugged out as soon as I saw Fang's full cart being emptied onto the conveyer belt. Cookies and candies and chips, oh my! It looked like he was feeding twenty obese children.
The cashiers gave the both of us confused glares, scanning all of our items as the total started to rise. Fang had his own cash that he was starting to pull from his back pocket, avoiding eye contact with me to 1) avoid being associated with me to dodge even more looks and 2) to avoid the death glares of my own.
The kids were going to love him.
His purchase was complete, and he handed the cashier many hundred dollar bills, receiving his change and a receipt twice as tall as he is. He pushed his cart into the parking lot, unloading the packages into the back and waiting discretely in the car for me. I followed five minutes later, packing in my own findings and climbing into the passenger seat.
We drove home on the same scenic route as the one we descended from, turning into the correct tunnels and finally pulling into the garage.
"If you want to eat you better help us!" I shouted, opening the trunk and taking in four packages per hand at a time. The Flock piled through the door, peeking inside the bags before picking them up.
"You bought m&m's!" Nudge squealed, racing inside to hide them where nobody could find. It took an hour before everything was emptied and stocked away, and the kid's gazes never once left all of the goodies and treats awaiting their stomachs.
I was going to have five sick mutants tonight. Six, if you count Total.
The rest of the evening entailed television and soaking feet in the hot tub; nobody had swimsuits. Nudge would inevitably beg me to go shopping tomorrow, to which I would be defeated by her Bambi eyes. It wasn't really such a bad idea anyway.
Iggy whooped up a feast of pasta, bread, chicken, and, what's a bird-kid meal without it, bacon. We all sat down, reteaching ourselves how to eat with utensils. It was the first home-cooked family dinner we've had in years, one that excluded desert rat and other wild animals.
Everybody went to bed early, satisfied with their stuffed bellies. Leaving me and Fang alone to take care of clean-up. Whoop-dee-doo.
We were pretty silent for the most part, Fang washing off the dish and handing it to me to load into the dishwasher. We made small talk with how pretty the mountains were and how fortunate we were to find a home, yada yada yada. Nothing worth mentioning.
I closed the machine, pressing the button that started the bubbles. I'd make one of the kids unload it in the morning. Fang escorted me to my room, inviting his self to sit down on the king-sized bed.
"I've missed you." He admitted, scooting closer to me.
"What do you mean? We haven't been apart for over two years!" I puzzled, looking him in the eye.
"I mean, I've missed you. I've missed being alone with you and seeing you as Max, not Mommy. It's the first time in seven months that we've had a semi-permanent residence to let our guards down in." He explained, cupping my chin.
He kissed me softly, letting his lips take the lead. His hand trailed gently down my spine, stopping just below my waist and absently crawling back up. My fingers lightly circled the nape of his neck, pulling him in even closer. Our position stayed constant for a handful of minutes, never varying or forcing anything new. It was just a sweet, passionate kiss.
And nothing more.
Don't get me wrong, I deeply care about Fang. I deeply care about everybody in the Flock. I thoroughly enjoy kissing him and making all sorts of innocent gestures, but nothing that I wouldn't do in front of a priest. Intimacy is a whole new topic that I'm ready to confront. He drops hints that he is ready, but he knows better than to push me out of my comfort zone. It's called "comfort" for a reason. I don't like stepping out of it.
I sensed that his kiss had other intentions, so I pulled away before he tried anything that would result in his feelings being hurt.
"I'm exhausted." I stated, making up an excuse to avoid embarrassing conversations.
"Do you want me to lay with you until you fall asleep? I can take first watch." He asked, lifting the covers for me to climb under.
"Thanks," I said, slipping under the plush warmth. He spread out next to me, wrapping his arm around my midsection. It turned out that my lie wasn't as false as I thought it was, and I drifted off into a state of unconsciousness in under five minutes.
I can always confront my issues tomorrow.