Summary: Max and Fang, caught in a forbidden romance that they can't help but defy through nature. AU human.
Chapter Four: A Goth, What?
"Whatever, Jeb," I said to him, rolling my eyes rather disrespectfully, if I do say so myself. I wasn't even quite sure what I was responding to anymore.
"Maximum, you most definitely will not address me in that manner," he looked livid, but was trying very hard to keep control of his temper. It must be dreadfully apparent to you that I couldn't say the same for myself. His eyes were practically boring holes into my forehead.
Ooh, scary.
I watched his face slowly burn up with the implications of self-induced embarrassment. This was funny, I noted, this was very funny, because the only reason he was reacting in such a way is because that dumb fag—fang—whatever was here. Which was even funnier, cause who was he to us? It took me a moment.
Ah yes, brother dearest, I nearly forgot about that.
I wondered what Fang thought about this situation. Here was Jeb, bitching at me for calling him by his first name. Obviously, Fang would call him 'Jeb' too, as well, isn't that right? And technically saying that we shared one father—the gross one, you know, the one named Jeb—its nearly as if he got the easy way out just cause he wasn't raised by him. That was sorta kinda sheer bullcrap though, if you ask me—Jeb is a crap, uncompromising parent, and I had been just about ready to castrate him by the time I was four.
Fang quirked his eyebrow the slightest bit after Jeb's little statement/demand thingy, but then his face immediately returned its normal exterior that it'd held for the entirety of the dinner: cold, apathetic, uncaring, and emotionless. How boring. But me, being the Maximum Ride, with my awful temper, and even more charming personality, got pissed off at the small thing. A small eyebrow twitch it may be, it was still obviously directed at me, and pretty fucking condescending at that. Who was he to be so condescending to me?
Whoops. Bad Max. No cursing, Max, I reminded myself. I was in such a bad mood.. bejeesh, what was wrong with me?
What was wrong with that dumb kid sitting across from me? I couldn't help but hate him; cause at the moment, he was the root and source of all of my immediate problems. We were having this stupid dinner because of him. I had to sit through a dumb, prolonged hour of Jeb-face-time, because of him.
I glared at him.
Why? Cause I couldn't very well do it to Jeb.
Fang blinked uncaringly, looking up at me rather disinterestedly before going back to his plate. That made me want to snarl loudly at him. I vaguely imagined myself to sound something eerily similar to that of a hog in heat.
Everything the dumb bastard did was pissing me off. Everything both of the dumb bastards were doing was pissing me off. I guess he was spawn of Jeb. Or maybe I was just making him that way.
"What-ever," I replied eloquently to Jeb, while still glaring at Fang for no particular reason. It really annoyed me that he didn't even care some random girl he didn't know was sending him a look to murder.
"Maximum Ride, you are excused," Jeb said tightly. I blinked once, looking up at him in surprise. That meant I could leave, right? Those tv sitcoms with sit-down-dinner families used etiquette manners and words like that. I wracked my head through the anthology of bullshit knowledge I'd gained over countless years upon years of mindless, bullshit television, as I tried to remember if that was right.
Ah, yes it was, I recalled after a second of tremulous searching and shuffling around in my head. I smiled inwardly at my accomplishment, proud that my endless hours of sitting in front of the couch, watching crap television, was finally coming to some use.
"Gladly," I admonished at him quite honestly, cocking an eyebrow up. It was about time..
I got up from that dumb stiff dinner chair with my plate and fork in one hand and was about to leave immediately, much to my relief.
But you know me, I couldn't leave without leaving a sarcastic comment behind in my wake.
"Since when do we even eat dinner together anyway?" I commented loudly, as I walked away.
I could practically feel Jeb fuming at the dinner table, in front of Fang. Mission accomplished. Why was I being a bitch? I derno.
Maybe I was bored.
Who knows why we do the things we do?
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I trudged upstairs with immense relief, bringing my plate upstairs to my room.
My room was a pretty typical teenage-girl one. It had pink walls, though that wasn't really my doing.. Jeb is just sheer genius, you gotta give it to him. (Note the sheer sarcasm). Ella got it better, and had lavender walls, and her room was a lot more.. mellow, than mine, I suppose. But that might have to do something with the fact that she bothered to decorate it and all.
Jeb had conveniently scheduled the renovation one summer while we were on vacation, kindly telling neither of us what his plans were.. he thought he'd surprise us. Uh, yeah, surprise! Whoop-de-doo-what/ever.
At least it was large and spacious though, the biggest one on this floor, and the perks of being the oldest. Except for the pile of large, cushiony pillows lying against my headboard on the bed, it wasn't particularly personalized in the slightest. In fact, other than those two things, it was admittedly bland, but I was fine with it that way. I liked my bed best of all—spacious and comfy, and soft. Never under-appreciate your mattresses, darlings; I learned it firsthand the first time I went to this ridiculous sleep-away camp.
Our house was small and modest in comparison to some others, but it had five bedrooms. Mom and Jeb's were downstairs on the first floor, along with the dining room, giganto kitchen, and our moderately small living room. The second floor had Jeb's home office in the smallest room, Ella's, my own, and a guest room.. which would now be Fang's, I concluded in a quick calculation. It may sound like a lot, but it really wasn't—a tiny living room made up for the giganto kitchen, four bedrooms were evened out with only two small bathrooms and office, and that was about it.
I was satisfied though, since our bedrooms were pretty okay, and moderately sized. My eyes flashed back to Jeb and Fang and Mom still down there.
I put the plate on the mattress and then sat down against my pillows too, wondering what I had just done down there.
Yes, I had definitely wrecked Jeb's beautiful introduction of his oh so saintly son, but suddenly it struck me that I had ruined Mom's hard-working dinner as well. I frowned in deep disapproval of myself.. sometimes I did things that I looked back on and couldn't help but deem myself stupid for. Mom really didn't deserve a kid like me, sometimes, I thought dejectedly. I was sure I had gotten better.. its just that.. around Jeb, I just completely lose it all.
His attitude, his entire demeanor, everything tends to piss me off.. the way he walks like he should rule the earth, or that whole god-complex he has going on, where he thinks he knows better for everybody and everyone. He was just so freaking controlling, and condescending, and I just couldn't take it.
What can ya say? Our personalities clash. That was the final verdict.
I groaned loudly, taking a pillow that I was leaning against and smushing it against my face to muffle it. I didn't even feel like finishing the plate of food I'd brought up with me despite that it was only my fifth helping. (Oh. In case you didn't know, I eat like a pig. Great. Now you know).
After a moment of pointless groaning and dismal self-reflection, I shook my head out and pulled my laptop closer over to me on the bed. I opened it and cleanly scanned the screen with my eyes, moving back and forth. No new messages. Oh well. I wasn't exactly a huge social butterfly, and everyone was away for the summer. Only I was stuck here, with a summer job.
I opened a new instant messaging screen, and sent a message to Iggy, asking him what he was doing now. I tapped my fingers lightly on the side of the touchpad, waiting for him to respond. I waited.. and waited.. and waited a bit longer. By this time my tapping had grown superlatively more louder, and admittedly agitated. I growled in anger.. this was not helping my bad mood. I sent him another message and waited some more. And then I sent him another one—an angry one.
Frustratedly rolling my eyes, I got up angrily and stomped over to my windowpane, smacking open the curtains violently to check out if Iggy was in his room right now. Oh.. he was, except for the fact that he had insane metallic headgear on and there were sparks flying off of it.
Ig was a genius cook and all, but he was also really into mechanics and pyrotechnics. It was a sick, sick, hobby, but he did it well. Sometimes, on his spare time, he and his friends would go raid the junkyard and find things to 'mess up'. It was pretty cool though. For one of his best friend's birthdays last school year, he put together a psuedo-motorcyle for him out of the most randomnest stuff ever—like toasters and bicycle wheels and stuff. He was also an insanely good chemist, but I guess that comes with the cooking skills, although the whole bomb-making past-time he had had in 4th grade was sort of scary..
This is what I meant when I said that Iggy and I still had our own lives. Sure, Iggy and I were bestest friends ever and all, but we didn't always get to see each other all the time as we did were younger; we were alot busier now. This summer, especially, we were quite preoccupied—I had a summer job, and he was working on a project for some place in Nevada in order to spiffy up his transcript. (I really couldn't blame him, considering the record of probations and school code violations he had on his report card. Unfortunately, bringing bombs in as playthings, sorta kinda exceeds his great Chem grades).
That was probably what he was working on right now actually, I absentmindedly noticed, as I admired the flashy bright red sparks flying up from the projecting gas onto his face mask and bouncing off. Iggy was a pretty cool guy, and remarkably talented in many ways.. He was.. pretty cool.
I let go of the curtains I was holding back as I suddenly swished around, my back facing the window now. For some reason, my face felt warm all of a sudden. I closed my eyes and shook my head back and forth a few times, trying to cool it down, taking a deep, calming breath. What was wrong with me? This was Iggy.
Trying to shake those, dreadful, evil, wiccan, thoughts out of my mind, I hurriedly grabbed my plate, deciding to go downstairs to apologize to my mom.
As I stepped out of my room into the hallway, I jumped right in front of the steps as I heard rummaging from beside me. Slowly turning my head to side, I speculated the door to my right, the closest room to the stairs, from which the noise was coming from. This was strange. Ella wasn't home.
Oh yes. Fangalator. In the guest room.
I rolled my eyes and shook my head incredulously as I went ahead down the stairs, the plate still in my hand. Geesh, seriously, Fang? I seriously refused to call him that. Just cause his parents died, didn't give him an excuse to make everyone call him some stupid, dumb, naïve, self-claimed nickname to add to the effect of his fashion sense.
"What type of actual guy even has fashion sense?" I asked myself as I reached the bottom of the steps. Afterall, I mean, I was a girl, and obviously didn't care what I wore beyond what Ella bought for me. Then again, I thoughtfully ran through the guys in our grade in our small school, and decided to take that certain comment back. There actually were guys who dressed better than I did, and cared more, and looked pretty not-so-shabby as well. I found my mom sitting at the cleared dinner table, balancing her checkbook. I frowned as I stared at her, noting how late it was, and how early she had to get up in the mornings. She had taken the day off today especially for Fang's arrival.
Did that dumb kid know how much she was putting my Mom through? She honestly didn't deserve it.. she was too kind. It made me feel all the more worse for self-admittedly ruining the dinner she had worked so hard on..
I sighed and went over to her, bracing myself to attempt the most heartfelt repenting I could ever muster for her.
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Tiredly walking back up the stairs to my bedroom, after a satisfactory talk with my Mom, I nearly jumped in surprise, startled at a figure.. just standing there. It was dark, and looming, and his back was to me as he faced a door.. Ella's door, in fact.
I clutched my chest, calming myself down as I noticed it was that Fang boy. I wondered what he was doing just standing there. His pupils slid to the side to assess me for a mere moment, notified of my presence once I had jumped and gasped, but they immediately returned to their purpose shortly afterwards: staring at the door.
Lowering my eyes in stark insignificance, I wondered what he was just doing there, just staring at the door.. it was sort of creepy.. it was sort of nervewracking.. and it was sort of pissing me off, I concluded.
"What're you doing?" I asked him rudely and brusquely. He turned 90 degrees to the side to offer me his profile, but instead of answering, threw me a condescending gaze, furrowing his eyebrows skeptically, as if I should already know. Geez, I thought, he must be just like Jeb, already looking at me like he had a superiority complex.
And dude, it was my house he was in right now. Turf = mine. This was getting ridiculous.
I watched his eyes observe the pale features of my face contort into ridicule. It was suddenly then that I'd noticed that he had changed. His baggy pajama pants were plain white with thin faded blue stripes down them, he was wearing a simple, nondescript, short-sleeved black t-shirt on his chest, but still—his pants weren't dark colored. Gasp.
I suppose one can't put effort into conforming to a ridiculous stereotype trend all the time.
It was then that I'd also noticed a small towel swung over one of his forearms, and a toothbrush in his other hand. Oh.
Oh.
He just didn't know where the bathroom was.
"The bathroom is over there," I said, pointing to a door on the corner between his room and my own, opposite the one he was standing front of, "that one is Ella's room," I said, referring to the one he was standing in front of.
I saw irritation flash in his eyes for a second before he walked past me brusquely, as if that had taken me much too long to figure out and connect the dots. Well, whatever, its not like he had actually said anything.
"Thanks," I whispered snidely as he passed by me, in a ridiculously begrudged voice. Geezus, freaking christ, what was wrong with him? Can't I get a single thanks? I had even made an effort to be nice, and he hadn't said a word to me, whether in gratitude or not. I stared after him with disgust etched onto my face, his back turned to me, before it disappeared behind the shrugged close of the bathroom door.
A freak and a jerk, talk about wow.
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It was around 7 at night, and I'd just gotten back from my shift at the ice-cream yogurt shop, Yogurberry, that I worked at. (Yes, I did indeed have to wear a ridiculous uniform). (I'll spare you the details).
I was sitting on my large, spacious, bed, facing the ceiling, as Ella did my nails. She, too, was lying flat on my big bed, but instead on her stomach.
I'd been out since 9 in the morning, and had still been late for my shift—but my schedule usually changed daily, depending on the workers available. Today had been a long, rough day, cause many people had bailed to spend their nice, summer day at a street fair festival instead, I noted dejectedly. Only I was dumb enough to not know it was happening and end up having to cover the shifts of six missing employees. My eyes drooped lazily as I lounged on my bed relaxedly and let Ella paint my nails; I was so goddamned tired.
"Was dad mad yesterday?" she asked.
"About what?" I lazily asked her, already half drooping to sleep in my dazed-out, tired, state.
"Cause I had to stay at Casey's house to finish our social studies project," she reminded me.
"Oh yeah, that," I acknowledged, "Nope," I lied swiftly.
It was better not to make her worry, and besides, Jeb had been angry at me—not her. He would never get mad at her..
Ella was practically a saint next to me, though I had to say, that wasn't really a difficult thing to acknowledge, getting compared to me and my attitude towards Jeb and all.
"So, where is he?" she asked me.
"I think he's at work.." I trailed off, yawning a bit.
"No, I don't mean Dad, I mean the boy coming here to live with us," she elaborated cleanly.
"You mean his dumb, illegitimate child?" I asked her rudely, not expecting an actual answer, "Oh, I dunno," I answered disinterestedly.
"What?" she stopped painting, looking up at me surprised. I cleared my head enough to throw her a glance that asked what the big deal was.
"Mom and Dad weren't home all day today, and neither were you, and I came home at 3, but I didn't see him like, anywhere at all," she explained worriedly. I rolled my eyes. He was probably sleeping in his room or something all day, jet lagged or whatever, I told her. It was the obvious conclusion to go to.
"Oh. So whats he like so far?" she went back to my painting my nails.
"I dunno... Saw him for a second.. Dresses like he wishes he were goth or something," I answered vaguely.
"..he wishes he were?" she repeated confusedly.
"Yeah, I mean, thats just pathetic.. to actively want to assimilate into a stupid defined stereotype is just really lame," I expressed, "and also, its just so fourth grade. You're supposed to grow out of that," I quipped passionately.
"Wait, so he's got all that excessive chain stuff going on and all?" she asked, letting go of my hand to clap her own fingers together excitedly. I stared at her like she was an elephant wearing a tutu, doing a pirouette to an audience of a slab of meat.
"Does he have those hot piercings too?" she asked, getting more and more excited. (Oh, did I ever tell you? For a high school freshman, she was pretty boy-crazy). (We were pretty different people).
"Um, no," I responded slowly, looking at her strangely. She was used to the strange looks I'd send her from time to time, but she frowned at what I'd said.
"Then, what does he do?" she asked me, upset.
"I dunno. He dresses really darkly?" I responded unhelpfully but honestly, shrugging and putting my head back down on the bed.
"Max, if you haven't seen him today, and you only just saw him yesterday.. how do you know that?" she asked me slowly, still upset over the lack of piercings Fang seemed to have. I ignored her question. I really just wanted to sleep right now.. I was so tired.
I knew I was being rather closed-minded and dumb at the moment, but if you haven't yet gotten the idea, I didn't plan on liking the kid. It was better to call him off as something revolting and never bother with him again on that basis. Out of sight, out of mind.
"Um, Max?" Ella asked me, "Maybe he's wearing black because his parents just died," I sat up on the bed and blinked twice.
"Ya'know, in mourning and all?" she continued, her fingers going back to my hands and my nails.
I blinked a few times more. Great. Now I felt even more horrible.
Ella was so much like Iggy, in the whole sensible-sense. Sometimes it felt like it was just me who was incredibly unreasonable, and blind to all of it.
"You know who does have an piercing?" Ella started giggling.
"No, who?" I catered absentmindedly, still deep in thought about how dumb I was.
"Iggy.." she stated blushing. Oh yeah, speak of the devil; she had a crush on him, in case you didn't know. I smiled at her warmly. He was three years older than her.
"Thats great," I reassured her, rolling my eyes inwardly. Your little sister having a crush on your best friend was just.. amusing.
Then there was the issue of treating your new half-brother-to-be like a little freak for no actual present reason.
Jeez, what was wrong with me.. I really needed.. to stop.. being such a bitch.
"He wears black cause his parents just died.." I repeated quietly. God, I was stupid.
A/N:
Max decides not to be a bitch anymore? Hmm.. I wonder what that means.. O.O How many of you mind all the cursing I'm putting into this story? I'm sorry, I can help it, but I'm just sort of naturally a potty-mouth myself, so it comes out naturally unless I go back and edit through it all. I'll put more effort into doing that if any of you guys are significantly disturbed by it.
Why is Fang being so mean to her? I wonder..
(No kidding, I gotta write this stuff out..)
So read and review, and find out! =)
Anywho, I recieved a very funny comment the other day. It goes something like this:
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forever2yours, A new review/comment has been submitted to your story.
Story: Something Gone Wrong
Chapter: 2. Four Months, You Were Wrong
From: Danielle ()
Spend more time on your other story instead of writing this one.
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um, lol, well, i dunno, that just made me laugh.
how incredibly ironic it is, that I just decided to put my other story on a personal hiatus right now.. cough, lol.
(For those of you who are Let Me Help You readers, don't worry; I haven't officially announced it yet, so that means the chapters will still keep coming until I run out).
Please review, so that I can make this story better! =)
