Max POV
I could barely keep my eyes off of my feet as I made my way towards my cabin, each step bringing me closer to my impending doom. The cabin that I had been so eager to see just this morning was feeling more ad more like a cage that I would be trapped in as I painfully continued on. Just the thought of seeing the flock again, of locking eyes with Fang again, made me feel sick. The pool of nausea flooding into my gut reminded me of that dreadful day so many years ago. It was the feeling of waking up to the sense of death, of waking up to find you are being abandoned and the only memory you have of that family you love so much is the little black tattoo on the back of your neck.
My hand fluttered up to the nape of my neck, feeling the raised skin of the date, forever embedded in my skin since my crowning day. I could almost imagine the numbers of the date as they ran under my finger. Seven, eighteen, eleven, numbers that made me flinch when they were mentioned. Whenever the date rolled around I would lock myself away because, even though it was the day that I was crowned a goddess, it was also the day that I died, in a sense that is. Max the Rag-Tag Avian American was killed and Max the Goddess was born. Be sure to trademark both of those.
What with my thoughts flying around in my head, I barely even realized that I had reached my cabin until my feet gently knocked up against the door. I had all but ran into the door and I didn't even recognize the action until it happened. I pulled my head up, taking a step away from the building so I could square back my shoulders, eyes narrowed and face set in a deadpan expression. If I would have to face them again I would face them as neutrally as possible.
Taking a deep breath, I allowed myself to close my eyes one more time before opening them again at the same time as I gripped the doorknob and swung the door inwards.
Immediately I was bombarded by a cacophony of warbled 'Max!''s completed with a thin body being launched at my midsection, quickly latching onto me with strength to rival my own. I couldn't help the burst of pride I felt blooming in my chest. I had taught them well, my family.
That pride was quickly extinguished at the last thought. Family. Family didn't desert family, no matter what.
I masked my face once again and pushed the body off of me. I couldn't help but to do it gently. Even if I told myself that I wanted to rip the child off of me, to grasp at their arm so tightly it would bruise, I knew that I didn't, that I couldn't. Instead I carefully unwrapped the arms from my waist and set the body away from me. Gazzy I recognized as soon as I locked eyes with the boy.
His were already dripping with gentle tears and I could feel my own glossing up as well. I couldn't let them fall, I told myself, not with these people, not with the people who all but left me for dead. Gazzy reached up to scrub at his eyes, his face already red with tears he had cried earlier. He always was an ugly crier I thought with laughter on my tongue. Still, this laughter was humorless.
"Max," he sobbed out as he continued his assault on his dampened eyes. He sniffled and slowly repeated himself. "Max."
"Max," Iggy's voice, soft and cracking, added itself into the conversation. I convinced myself to turn my head slowly. Slowly, ever so slowly. I finally pulled myself in his direction. His eyes, as unseeing as ever, glistened brightly in an almost startling contrast to the cloudy blue caused by his blindness. "Max, what are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same thing," I snarked, hoping that they would ignore the quiver in my voice. The flash of emotion across each of their faces was enough to tell me that they wouldn't. "This is my life now, these people are my family. Why do you have the right to just march into it like this?"
"Your family?" Angel whispered softly, taking a hesitant step towards me as she wrung the corner of her t-shirt. Captain America, I noticed. That seemed more up to Gazzy's speed, not the soft sweet girl I once knew, the same girl who insisted on wearing flowery dresses and hugging teddy bears and pronouncing that love was real and we were all her one true love, each and every one of us. This didn't seem like the Angel I knew. But then again, what did I truly know about that Angel? "Max, please, we're your family!"
"You're not my family," I let out with a sharp, sobbing intake of breath. I should have prepared myself more for this moment. I had a feeling that it would happen one day, but I should have been ready for it. Perhaps I should have prepared a speech. "You lost that right the day you abandoned me. The day you left me for dead."
"That was a mistake, Max," Nudge injected herself into the conversation, her voice rusty and crackling as she spoke. "We should't have, and we know that now. We did a stupid thing and we want to take it back." Her eyes were pleading, soft and malleable, as if asking to be played with. This expression made me choke. Nudge had always been a warrior, my warrior, and I had never wanted her to wear this face, not when she was able to wear another.
I was the cause of this face, I realized with a start. Even if I already knew perfectly well that my attempted disinterest would hurt her, I had never wanted to see her like this. That face alone was nearly enough to break my resolve. The thought of all of their faces ridden with puppy dog eyes and quivering lips was enough to give my heart a stab, although the thought of Fang with such an expression made me want to laugh. Somehow I restrained myself. It could have been the serious situation that diffused my dry humor, but now we'd never know.
"You can't just 'take it back!'" I cried out, my tears finally falling from the corner of my eyes. Once again I was reminded of the day I had discovered my expiration date, how my resolve had cracked just as quickly as it was doing now. "Saying sorry won't make it any better. You kicked me to the curb, completely ignoring everything that I had ever done for you. You were my family, and family doesn't just leave their family. Especially when they need their family the most."
I took in a shaky breath of air and allowed my hand to fly to the back of my neck once again, cooling the heated skin surrounding the black ink. I absentmindedly fingered at it, even as my eyes continued to stream with tears. "I was dying. I couldn't tell you, and you all know that. You made me leave the very day that I learnt I would have to leave you all for good. What did I do wrong? Did you all hate me so much that you couldn't even fully justify yourself? Yes, I'm sorry that we couldn't be normal! I'm sorry that you couldn't have the friends you wanted, Gazzy. I'm sorry that you couldn't go out without looking over your back every three seconds, Nudge. I'm sorry that we aren't normal and I'm sorry that I wanted to keep you safe.
"Is that what you want me to say? To apologize for the fact that you're not normal. That we're not normal? Hiding away hurt me just as much as it hurt all of you, you know. You think I didn't want to be able to act normally? To be able to be normal? I wanted that more than anything. If we were normal than I wouldn't have to constantly worry about keeping us safe, about keeping others from finding out about us, about trying to give you this normal life that you all wanted so badly. I just wanted you to be okay, and instead you kicked me to the curb as if everything that I ever did for you was silly, unwanted, unneeded. Well! Maybe it was, and so I'm sorry for that!"
They seem to be shocked into silence, quiet as they stared at me with wide eyes. My head lowered as the sobs continued to wrack at my body angrily. It had gotten worse throughout my speech, slurring my words to a point that I wasn't even sure if they had gotten the gist of my words. My hand had fallen from my neck and I quickly brought it and it's twin up to rub furiously at the river of tears smearing at my face.
"Max," a voice heavy with tears whispered followed by the sound of approaching footsteps. Before I could comprehend what was happening, I was wrapped into a tight hug, a darkness of fabric spreading out before my eyes. I squirmed slightly, uselessly playing at trying to escape until I finally succumbed to the warmth, melting into the hold of the other. The dam that had held back the most of my tears–which was certainly saying something considering that I had been sobbing enough to drown the cabin–burst and I was quickly left helpless as I clung to the body grasping at me.
I could feel hot tears falling onto my neck as well and felt the desperate shaking of the other as they quivered hopelessly into me as I was doing into them. Our sobs sang out together as my knees fell out, pulling the other down with me until they were cradling me on the ground. My grip tightened as more desperate sobs joined our tune of sadness, hands hungrily grabbing me and bodies falling into my own.
"Max, please," the heavy voice tried again, breathless and snotty. Their grip tightened just as mine had. I felt soft hands grip onto my face, pulling it up so my gaze met one as deep and alluring as they had always been. Our noses were almost touching, Fang's and I's, and I felt the last bit of my shield being teared away. This was probably the most emotion that I had ever seen Fang wear so openly, I realized. "Please, we were wrong, we were so so wrong. We don't deserve you and that's the truth, but we need you. We're lost without you, and with you we're whole, we're a family."
"We need you so much," Iggy chimed in from his spot in our dog pile, wrapped up around my back, head buried into my loose tangle of hair, likely snotting it up. I couldn't find it in myself to care, however, as he squeezed at my midsection. Between the two older boys I sat, feeling like a p-b-and-Max between the two of them. It was a wonderful feeling, if I were to admit. "It's not the flock without you, Max. We were stupid to ever think that it could be. We love you, Max, and we're all disgusted at ourselves for ever thinking otherwise."
"You're what keeps us together," Nudge sobbed miserably, "And you were right. We're not normal, and we treated you so horribly just because we wanted to be! It's not your fault that we're like this, and I had the audacity to blame you for it. I blamed everything on you and I hate myself so much for ever doing that. You kept us safe and clothed and fed and treated us right and we still just made you leave."
Gazzy nuzzled deeper into my shirt, wetting it all over again. "I love you so much, Max, and I always have and I always will. I said such mean things to you, and any excuse that I come up with won't make up for it, but if you could love me back I'll do everything that I can to make sure you know that I love you. Everyday."
This really was too much for me, and I couldn't help but to bury my hands in the long locks sprouting from his head, pulling him into the older-kid huddle to plant a wet kiss to the crown of his head. Nudge shifted in closer to where we were and Angel wriggled her way into the pile as well, locking onto me as tightly as a leech.
"I want you back, Max," she warbled, a shocking reminder that she was just a kid after all, no matter how mature she asked to be treated. "I just want you back so badly. I want you to hold my hand and brush my hair and tell me stories and sleep with me when I have a nightmare and- and-" Angel's voice broke off just as her brother's did and she angrily launched herself into my side, nudging against my shirt as if she wanted to dig into her skin.
"I can't just accept this, guys," I answered softly, face buried as deeply into Fang's chest as I could get it. Behind me Iggy was just as deeply attached to me so the three of us could nearly pass for one. Nudge, Gazzy, and Angel stuck out from the main huddle, but were still melded into the full of us. It felt so right. "I want to be a family again, I want to so much, but I can't just erase what happened, no matter how much I try to."
"Please, Max," Fang spoke again, lifting my head so that our eyes were able to meet. Both of our faces were blotchy and red and streaked to a point where we were simply the tracks of dried up rivers, but Fang still managed a soft, sad smile, desperate and pleading. "Give us a chance. To make up for what we did. To be a family again."
Slowly a smile of my own echoed after Fang's. "Okay."
