Summary: Max and Fang, caught in a forbidden romance that they can't help but defy through nature. AU human.

Okay! Sorry for the long wait :/

I will start writing again, and hopefully I'll update if I get enough response from you guys.

But I know I promised *heat* in the last chapter, but I promised that -2 months- ago. Therefore, sorry, but THE NEXT chapter will have alot more heat than this one. Its just that I promised you guys that stuff back when I knew what I had wanted to write. Now I have to ease into things all over again. But worry not. From this point forward, the story is going to get really angsty, and actual ROMANCE and attraction will start to show.

Okay. Hope that cleared things up. Sorry, and Enjoy. :(


Chapter Eleven: Limbs.

They ended up watching movies the next night too. It was always silent between them, both paying attention to watching the movie, but they were in the same room and thus, tolerating one another, so that was enough. They continued to do it, because that was their resolve: to get along with one another.

Fang walked into her room casually as she fiddled around with the computer, getting the screen ready. He resolutely and calmly sat down on the carpet by the side of the bed, facing the screen and Max. He pointedly looked away from her and instead busied himself in occupying his face in a terminably bored expression as he waited for her to finish.

She took note of his entrance, heard him enter, and continued fiddling around until she was done.

They didn't talk or say much, but it worked. They were no longer so hostile to another—at least not antagonistic at least. It'd be going too far to call them friendly, afterall, they barely knew one another, but the point was that they were no longer outwardly antagonistic towards eachother. It was a question and proper manner of tolerating and accepting one another's presence.

Besides, Fang had nothing better to do at night anyway. And Max had slightly begun to feel pathetic being online MSN all the time when everyone was off doing stuff and she was just sitting at home at night waiting for instant messages. Neither of them really had anything much better to do anyway.

So that was the second night. Normally, Max considered, she would've felt annoyed at Fang coming into her room unannounced and neccesarily uninvited, but she didn't really mind for this everyday. Afterall, it was much less pathetic than watching a movie all by herself. She didn't really mind his presence now, with the lack of Iggy.

Iggy had left last night—or, more correctly been dragged off unconcious by Fang into his room—and she and Fang had stayed together last night as they continued watching (although she had to admit he had lower stamina than she did), and it was fine.

He had fallen asleep on her bed, but it was alright. Her bed was king-sized, aka, huge, and he had been all the way on the opposite side of the covers, despite being beneath the same blanket. He hadn't even touched her, and quite honestly probably didn't even know how he got there. Either way, she didn't have any problem with it.

And being waken up by him in the morning wasn't irritating, like how she'd expected herself to respond. She shrugged it off though.

Iit beat an alarm clock at least.

But what surprised her the most, was the slightly childish, groggy look on his face. Innocent and unreserved, so much unlike what she'd seen from him from his thus stay at her house. She had normally just been seeing him as looking angsty and overtly defensive in a variety of ways. Generally unapproachable.

And she wasn't like Ella or Iggy. She couldn't make an effort to warm up to someone. Which is why she had seen Fang as not worth an effort in the first place—because he had seemed so stupid and unwilling. Ella and Iggy had made an effort with him, and obviously seemed to like him a lot. Ella had basically begun seeing him as a luvable older-brother figure, as noted from her departure to camp, and Iggy had basically made Fang a best friend of his. That was apparent in that Fang knew more about Iggy nowadays than she did, and a lot of his own friends, she'd be willing to bet, evidenced by Fang expressing knowledge about Iggy's glaucoma and lasik stuff.

That morning when he'd knelt by the side of her bed and gently rocked her shoulder back and forth, his eyes focused solely on hers, for some reason, Max didn't see him as so angsty and reserved anymore. He seemed just like a normal person who had gotten up from sleep, groggy, tired, and needing a good splash on the face with water over the sink. He'd seemed like a child, and not the crude, self-righteous jerk she'd come to know over this month and a half.

Which is why she didn't mind that he'd marched in here right now, into her room, sitting down on the floor in front of the bed. Quite honestly, she'd kinda hoped he'd come in, and that they'd do their movie night again, which is why she had been getting her computer ready.

It was a nice, taciturn relationship they were starting. Nothing much was spoken between the two of them, but a quiet acceptance and apathy was set between them. At least it wasn't the previous hate that had preoccupied the two's minds though.

So he sat down in front of the bed, and she turned around and climbed on top of it, digging into the covers. The AC was on, so it was pleasantly cool. Max had put 'Mean Girls' on, just to see how willing Fang was to get along with her. It was almost a dare. Would he leave if he had to sit through a chick flick? Or would he say?

Much to her surprise, as the title screen came on, Fang didn't move an inch, still sitting there on the floor beneath her bed, his legs spread out wide in front of him, in a typical guy-like fashion. He didn't even flinch at the title page, but instead continued watching, the terminally bored look on his face remaining.

Max observed it steadily for a mere moment before letting go of the pause and climbing up onto her bed again. His face was always terminally bored, but what was he hiding beneath there? He obviously didn't mind/wanted to watch with her, since he was obviously here, and not moving.. but he was so.. apathetic.. about it.

Zoning out of the flicker colors on the moniter and lost in her own thoughts, Max suddenly hit an epiphany: that was the reason she hated Fang so much—she didn't get him at all. He made no sense to her, and wasn't seeming to do so as time continued. What was she supposed to do?

At least this was helping them a little bit—their movie nights.

Max shrugged her thoughts off as they traveled farther away from her and then tried to zone back into watching their first movie. It ended and they put on another one, but halfway through, a hesitant grunt/growl thing sounded out. It took her a few seconds to realize it was Fang's rough voice.

"Can I get up on the bed? My necks' sort of killing me," he seemed to let out irritatedly. Surprised, Max blinked a few times, digesting the request that Fang so obviously didn't want to make, before nodding strangely.

Fang craned his neck around, his other palm swung around it and watched her assess her acceptance. He turned back around before lifting himself back up on his palms from the cold hard tile floor and plopping himself horizontally on the bed, much like how he had been yesterday, at first.

And just like yesterday, he had righted himself on the bed at some point, so that he faced the screen while he lay behind her, beside her. Max had fallen asleep on her forearm, so he was propped up on a pillow on his right elbow, watching the screen from over her sleeping shoulder.

Once the movie ended, Fang's tired, yet sleepless eyes shifted over from the zoned black screen to around the dark room, assessing his situation all over again. Max lay in front of him, cuddled up beneath the same blanket he was under, blissfully sleeping. He realized he didn't know how to work the netflix station or Max's computer media, so he couldn't put on another movie. Considering he was feeling superlatively unsleepy at the moment, the thought irritated him.

And then he realized Max would probably kill him, unleash her freaking bitchtastic-crazy wrath on him, if he were to mess any of her computer equipment up. She probably didn't even know how to work half of this stuff herself, he thought wryly as he loomed over the desktop media center thoughtfully. He had gotten up out of the bed to assess the area, but then had decided against touching most of her stuff, fearing the PMS-Queen's screechaholic wrath. He decided just to turn the blinking moniter off, realizing he probably wouldn't be able to sleep with that anyway.

Once he had pressed the off button on the desktop, he walked over around the bed to the opposite side of the room and the wall on the other side of the bed, opposite to the computer. Max was still sleeping on the edge of her insanely gigantic bed quietly. Fang walked over to one of her two windows—to the one without the windowseat, and to the one with the air conditioner attached to it.

Bending over a bit, he squinted his eyes to adjust to the pitch blackness in the room to figure out how the setting and knobs worked. With a little bit of feeling around, he felt it was safe to say that it was the same type that was in his room right now. Reaching blindly, he looked for and turned a knob.

The temperature went up, losing cool air, soon after. Tiredly turning around, Fang realized how ached his muscles actually were today. He spent the day playing basketball with a bunch of Iggy's friends from the high school he was coming to attend, and a kid on the block really tight with them, the Gasman.

Rubbing his eyes wearily, Fang walked over the short distance from the AC, to the bed Max was sleeping on. He got on on the opposite side, and got over to lie ontop of the blanket—which was the reason he'd lowered the AC in the first place—to sleep ontop of the blankets, rather than beneath them, with Max.

Yawning quietly he fell into a deep sleep.

He woke up beside her, still ontop of the blankets.

The only problem was, so was she. And their legs were tangled together completely. And her head, despite being a respectable distance away from him, was tucked under his chest, and beneath his chin. Despite it all, they were now both in the center of the bed. Fang's legs were intertwined with hers in ways he wasn't even really sure of.

All he knew was that it was natural. It was comfortable. The morning light was coming in, and it was probably around 6, but his eyes were groggy and he was sleepy, since he'd only gone to bed a couple hours ago.

He had assessed the situation, felt the clash of limbs around their legs, Max's deep breathing steady and comforting on his chest—the nice scent of her shampoo, with the slight grease indicating a necessity of a shower. He noticed it all groggily, but still nonetheless. And then he went back to sleep, arms resolutely by his sides.

Max's arms were between her sides in front of her, her head tucked neatly into his chin and under his chest, and their legs all tangled up between them.

She would wake up soon.

Please review :(

This chapter begins the actual story. w00t.