Dancing in the Rain: Chapter Six

"Max!… Max?" The voice was familiar, but I didn't seem to register the wave of urgency it held. My body and my mind felt like somebody had hit the emergency shut down button, I really had no intention of answering, let alone moving my lips.

"Max, can you hear me…?" The last part sounded like somebody was trying to talk to me through a thick layer of ice and I could feel something distant poking my body (if it really was my body) painfully. That was perhaps the command that my mind needed to snap out of "shut down" mode.

The pain ricocheted through every limb in quick recession and I felt my lips part in a surprised and unwelcome gasp.

"Max!" It was Fang's voice, I was certain of that now, but the tone- merging on slightly joyous- confused me.

"Fang…" I mumbled in a drunken sounding slur and I allowed my eyes to slink open and dart around till I found his battered form leaning over mine. "You look like crap," I instantly observed.

"Feel like it," his body shook on its own accord as he lowered himself into a sitting position. "You doing any better?"

"Well I'm not unconscious, I think that qualifies for something," I rolled myself over (painfully, but a bearable pain) onto my side. "Did you break anything?"

"No," I didn't trust him to give me an honest answer and I didn't get one; I could tell his hand was broken from the way he held it still and cradled it next to his body.

"So your hand is naturally crooked?" He didn't reply and I pushed myself into a sitting position and examined my own injuries.

My shoulders, once rolled a couple of times, improved slightly and my wings and arms had seen much better days- but they had also seen shoddier- so I could deal with that. Worse case scenario I wasn't going to be able to be a proficient black jack dealer was a couple of days.

The thing that scared me the most though wasn't my minor injuries, it was that feeling. It had felt like I really died and when I tried to think back to that exact moment I remembered nothing; nothing except the gnawing feeling that there was something crucial I was missing. But what was it? My wounds had felt so much more substantial then, as if some of them had actually been fatal, what had changed that?

I picked myself off the ground carefully before extending a bruised hand to Fang. Of course being Fang he instantly rejected it and stood up with a grimace, attempting to convince me that he was absolutely fine.

"Don't worry Max, the trees broke my fall."

"Real reassuring," I snorted, but stopped mid snort because it hurt my lungs. "Okay," I composed myself with my back turned to Fang. "Let's get the heck out of here." I took a purposeful stride towards our camp and tried to wipe the frustrated look off my face.

Fang didn't follow me.

"Max?"

"What," I pivoted, hardly aware of the droplets of discomfort in my thigh, to see his hard set face. "What's up?"

"Max, we should be dead." It was a statement and it fell heavily down on my shoulders.

"I know," I said in a very small voice. "But were not, so…." My voice drifted off and he startled me by speaking louder than necessary.

"Do you have any idea what that storm was about?"

"I think it was caused by the collision of hot and cold air in the atmosphere, but why it's here I don't know. Are you saying there's something at work here?" He nodded slowly and I continued. "But what?"

"Strange things just follow us around," Fang muttered wryly and I looked unknowingly at the sky.

"Yeah, but it doesn't mean we have to stop and figure all of them out. I'm starved." With that I grabbed Fangs arm and dragged him towards our temporary settlement.

But I still hadn't forgotten the lingering darkness and moments of insanity earlier.

Please review and sorry for the filler.

Flamingflie