"Oh my god." I said under my breath. "Fang!" I yelled. Fang had to be where the blood came from. I carefully stepped over the blood puddle walked over to Fang's room. Fang was slumped on the floor by his bed.

"You know, you could have said something like, "Hey Max, I'm bleeding to death out here." I just might have ended my shower early for that." I said sarcastically as I knelt beside him.

He looked at me for a second and smirked. "The day Nudge shuts up." He replied and started to take his shirt off.

"Oh no, buddy. We're going to cut that off. You might dislodge any clots that are already developed if you move to much." I said and looked around.

He rolled his eyes and pointed to his desk. "The scissors are in the drawer." He said, giving up on the motions.

I stood up and walked over to the desk and opened the drawer. The scissors wheren't there.

"They aren't here." I told him.

"They're there." He stated

I rolled my eyes. "I'm not blind, they're not there." He looked at me for a moment as if to say look again. Not one to be ordered about I grabbed the drawer and dumped it onto the floor. "See, no scissors." Fang looked at the scattered items on the carpeted floor.

"Okay, plan B. There is a knife in my left boot." He said and looked at the other wall.

"What?" I said to myself. I knew he wouldn't repeat himself so I just knelt down and slipped my fingers up his left pant leg untill I got to the edge of the combat boot.The knife was clipped to the inside of his foot. I grabbed it and started cutting off his shirt. A pair of scissors would have made this job far easier because the knife didn't cut straight. I decided to scrap Fang's Plan B and just unbuttoned his shirt.

"What are you doing now?" He asked me, his brow raised.

"You don't want to know." Was my reply right before I ripped the shirt off.

Fang let out a strangled gasp of pain and looked me in the eyes. "Ow?" He said sarcastically.

I wanted to puke. His right side looked like ground hamburger. Not only that but by the way his ribs were waving at me from the surface I was pretty sure he'd broken them."What happened?"

"I got beat up."

"And then ran throught a woodchipper? This is a lot worse then just getting 'beat up'." I said and applied a slight prssure to his ribs. Suddenly blood started gushing out of the wounds and I grit my teeth. "I'm getting Mom." I said and stood up.

"No!" He shouted. I turned and looked down on him. "Can't you just fix it?" He was pleading without pleading again. I understood why. If I told Mom, she'd come in and take him to her clinc. It wasn't her fault that the clinc smelt like anti-septic, the smell that made of the flock a little ill.

"I can't fix this. You're going to bleed out if I don't get her." I said softly. He stared at me, looking for the truth of my words in my eyes. He knodded and I ran down the hall to Mom's room.

I pounded on the door. "Mom, Fang's hurt, grab your bag." I heard shuffling behind the door and she appeared in her nightgown, black bag in hand. I lead her to Fangs room.

"Fang! What happened?" She asked him as she knelt by him and opened her bag. "Max, got get towels. Wet two of them and hurry."

I ran out of the room and went to the closet across the hall. I grabbed an armload of towels and set them by his door. Grabbing two I went to the bathroom he shared with Iggy and wet them down real well with hot water. I scooped up the other towels and headed back in.

"We're going to have to go to the clinic. You need surgery." She said and started to wipe hime down.

"I'm not going to the clinic." He said and tried to push her hands away.

I looked at mom desperately. "Mom, please? There's got to be something you can do here."

"I can't even give you pain killers without the proper percautions." She said to him as she watched the towel she was holding to his ribs turn red.

Fang darted his eyes around untill he spotted me by mom's side. "Max..." He said to me.

I really don't like being in these situations. "Mom! Just do something!" I said. She turned to me, shocked that I'd spoken to her like that.

She looked from me to Fang and bit down on her lip. "Max, hand me purple topped bottle in there." I looked down into her bag and grabbed the bottle and handed it to her. I recognized the pills by their distinctive "V" patern. Mom poured about five pills in her palm and shoved them into Fangs mouth. "Swallow those."

He complied but still looked panicked. After about a minute he stopped strugging from mom and his features started to slack. "What did... she...give me?" He asked in the familiar state of Valium induces loopiness.

I kept a straight face and replied, "Tylenol with codene, It's called Vicodin." I said and looked at mom with the "Just smile and nod your head" expression on my face.

She shook her head and said "Help me strip his bed." We pulled the comforter and sheets off and lined the bed with towels. I knew what was comming next so I ran to get Iggy. He was already at the door waiting for orders. He must have heard the comotion. "Can you help me lift him onto the bed?" He knodded and we hauled Fangs giggling form onto the bed.

Mom opened up the disinfectant and the smell filled the room. Even doped up Fang went rigid. "Max!" He yelled.

I hurried to the other side of the bed and grabbed his hand. "It's okay, Fang, I'm right here. It's just mom working on you." He stared at me and pushed his hair out of his eyes. "Would I ever lie to you?" I asked.

"Yes." he replied. It felt like he'd just ripped my heart out.

Taking a deep breath I calmly said "Just shut up and enjoy the ride. Mom does great work." He smirked and kept eye contact with me. Suddenly his face went very serious. "Don't leave me, Max. I need you here."

I knew he meant while mom was fixing him up but I couldn't help but be reminded of the night of my birthday. "I'll stay Fang, don't worry."

He looked at me and then did something I'll forever thank Valium for. He smiled. Not a smirk, not a grin, A full on smile. Something I don't think I'd ever seen before. "I cause you so much trouble." He said.

Oh, now here was an opertunity. "About as much as I cause you. Mutual chaos and what not." I replied.

"You do cause a lot of trouble." He said slurridly.

I acted offended and said "Tell me how you really feel, why don't you!" I said. I was just waiting for something crazy to come out of his mouth so I could get him back for the whole I love you this much thing.

"LIke crap. I did get jumped and run over by a car." He said matter of factly. I looked at mom. She knew what I was thinking and knodded.

"Yes, Max. The injuries are consistant to that." She said and I heard a sickening slurping sound. I looked down to she mom stick her fingers into a three inch incision on his side.

I passed out and I woke up to Ig's hand waving something putrid under my nose. "Oh gross! What is that!" I demanded.

He smirked and tossed the pad away. "It's amonia. Nothing like cat pee to wake you up in the morning,huh?"

I shook my head and tried to sit up. The world decided it hated me and I was decided it was a good idea to lay down for a few more seconds. "Take it easy, Max." Iggy said as he helped me sit up.

"You okay, Max?" Fang said from the bed.

"Yeah, I'm okay." I replied, rubbing my now throbing head.

"You should of seen it! You looked down and then just flopped over! Like a fish!" Fang declared and started giggling. I was turning red again but he started whincing. "Laughing hurts." He said softly. Then he started giggling again. "Ow... ow... ow..." He siad with a yelp of pain.

"Gee Mom, how long is he going to be like this?" I asked.

"What? In surgery?" She asked as she started stitching him up.

I looked at her firmly. "Off is rocker." I retorted.

"Oh, his meds already wore off. He just thinks you're amusing when you flop like a fish it seems." She said and cut the last stitch.

"How? I was wonky for hours!" I said.

She took out a large piece of paper out of her bag, it was a clear adhessive bandage that she put over the ribs so she could check for drainage. "I gave you medical strength injectables. About 200 cc's. that about 500 milligrams of that tablets and he only took a hundred."

Go figure, my one chance for revenge and I just had to pass out.

"Hey Max, thanks for helping me." He said and reached for my hand. I gave it to him and smirked. "It wasn't like I was going anywhere."

Mom gave me instructions to watch his tempature and check for signs of infection around the incision then she went back to bed. I closed the door behind her and steped over to the left side of the bed. "Iggy, can you just help me bring him to my room so he can get some sleep. I need to get this cleaned up too."

Iggy shrugged and ran his hands along Fang's side. "How are we going to do this? His side is really messed up. Just picking him up could break the stitches." I Looked around and found a sheet that had been tossed off the bed.

"We roll him onto his good side and slip the sheet underneath him.Then we grab the ends and haul him to my room." I said.

Iggy helped Fang turn over as I unfurled the sheet. After a small struggle with the sheet we were heading to the room. I'm sure it must have looked very odd because we weren't successful in keeping it straight so Fang was a giant lump still touching the floor as we shuffled down the hall.

Finally after we got him settled in bed I said good night to Iggy and turned off the lights. Pulling back the covers on the right side of the bed, I lay down. "Good Night, Fang."

I was almost asleep when Fang rolled over and brought his arm around my waist. " G'night Max."

I held very still for a while trying to figure this one out. I decided that he was just more comfortable this way. That was a good excused for him concidering his ribs were broken, but what about me. Why did I feel more comfortable like that too?

Soon I drifted off into a night of dreams that evaperated like dew in the first minutes of morning. I awoke to Nude's exclamations of "Oh my god! Max! Fang! You two make a cute couple!" I was preparing to destroy the alramclock and probably strangle Gazzy through the phone line when I noticed a dark figure in the doorway.

"Nudge!"