A/N: I've been thinking. I have contemplated this for a while now. I will put a hiatus on chapter stories and Maximum Ride fanfics for the time being. I'm not sure if that's going to be permanent (hopefully not), but you never know.


Lesson 11: If all else fails, tell him the truth.

Fang

Emotional declarations are always corny, whether they be love confessions or I-cheated-on-you declarations. Your fingers just instinctively curl into fists, don't they? I don't think there is a way to make any confession not corny. Can being blunt work? The shorter the better?

I'll let you in for a little secret: I'm not actually a Seduction guru. Never have been. So why didn't I tell Max this? I don't know the reason myself. I was bored and I needed to pass time? I like playing with vulnerable angels?

I stopped using my head since I got probated (Is that a word? Am I using it right?). Clearly I did something wrong to piss Lucifer off and receive a six-month probation on Earth.

Let me tell you, I hate Earth. Never liked this world. Earth is supposed to be the middle ground of good and evil. But in my opinion, it's more evil than it is good. I feel sorry for all the treehuggers, the peacemakers, and the doctors who spend their entire lives trying to make a better Earth. Yeah, that's not gonna happen. If anything, Earth is becoming more evil by the second.

So, I told myself, why the heck not become a seduction guru? WHY NOT? (Kids, don't ever ask that question. You will either kill yourself or someone else.) I've been on dates. I kissed some girls. I said, let's use whatever knowledge I have in romance to help or more likely destroy some helpless angel.

Damn, did I embrace roleplaying as a guru. Just days later, I thought I was an expert in love and dating. Iggy's advices were wrong and mine were right. Do you know how awesome that made me feel? I wasn't bored anymore; I was having fun roleplaying with an angel.

Then, things started to go downhill. The angel became her. She became... not my playmate anymore. Things started to become serious between us that a brush of fingertips brought tingles down my spine. A one-second eye contact became too much for me.

I would wake up the morning after I "taught" her a lesson gasping but also feeling guilty as hell. I wasn't a guru; I was just a random devil. I couldn't bring myself to tell her the truth.

I'm so evil; fuck me, right?


Max

I was surprised to see the devil drinking his demonic beverage. Well, that's not the one that's surprising. It's the fact that he's awake before me that had my jaw falling before I even knew it.

I lengthened my walking stride and was beside him in three seconds flat. I must have given him a look of pure ignorance (and maybe scared him) because he choked on his Blacker Demon. Like full-on choke: tendrils of coffee on his jaw, his nostrils running with the liquid, his black eyes red and wet.

I couldn't be any happier.

"What's wrong with you?" Fang almost yelled the question at me. He turned his face away from me and used the sleeve of his gray shirt to wipe off the coffee on his nose and jaw.

I grabbed his shoulder and forced him to face me. He coughed before giving in to my super strength. "Why are you awake?"

He closed his eyes and rubbed the corners dry. "I can't be? Goodness."

My lips curled. I was enjoying this too much. I took the mug from his hand and put it down on the counter. I took it to myself to cleanly wipe his face because really, he can't even be thorough with that? I used the sleeves of my jacket to wipe his all-too-smooth face.

He must have been enjoying the feeling of my hands on his face because he suddenly opened his dark eyes and all I saw was desire.

Why that of all things at five in the morning?

Immediately, I dropped my hands and hid them behind my back. A corner of his lips perked up. I narrowed my eyes when I caught it.

The devil...

My hands decided to reappear and wrapped around my hips. "Enjoying yourself?"

He half-grinned a wicked one. "Immensely."

I took hold of his coffee and moved to throw it down the drain, but his arm somehow snaked out and pulled me away from the sink before a drop could even fall.

"No, no, no, no, no. NO. You don't have the right to throw my precious coffee away," Fang said too quickly while whisking me away from the kitchen itself. I tried to wriggle to get out of his grasp, but when he saw that his coffee was threatening to succumb to the promises of gravity, he growled in my ear, "Stop moving."

I stopped, merely because I was getting hot from his breath on my ear. He sighed in relief and removed his arm around me. Taking the coffee from my hand, he walked around me and sat down on the couch.

I suddenly felt cold without his arm to warm me up. That's ridiculous. I immediately remember the reason why I woke up early.

"I have to talk to you," I said with a serious tone as I took up the seat next to him. He turned his face, still drinking. He put it down and moistened his lips. My eyes immediately stared at his tongue.

"I have to talk to you as well."

I mentally slapped myself. "Well, you can go first," I motioned with my hands, as if to give him the podium.

He shook his head. "You go first. Ladies go first."

I flicked his ear. "Don't give me that garbage. You, who practically said that saying does not apply to us otherwordly creatures"

Still rubbing his red ear, he threw me another wicked grin. "So you remember?"

I slammed my hands on the table in frustration. "Just tell me what you were going to say."

He grabbed my hands before I slammed them down again and further hurting them. "Okay. How about we both say it at the same time?"

I squinted my eyes at him. I still don't quite trust him.

"At the count of three, we both say it. I promise I won't fake it." Fang rose one hand, as if to formalize it. I still don't believe it.

I nod curtly.

One, two, three:

Fang: I'm not really a seduction guru.

Max: I actually hate seduction.

"WHAT?" We both surprisingly asked in unison. "YOU WHAT?"

I quickly rose to my feet, anger coloring my vision red. "The hell? You're not actually an expert?" The urge to slap him was overwhelming my thoughts.

Fang still couldn't grasp my statement. "You hate what?" He asked in a low voice.

But I chose to ignore him. I started pacing around the couch. "NO. All this time... NO." I stopped behind the couch and faced Fang. "I wasted months with you when I could have been living peacefully in Heaven?!"

Fang's eyes were crazed with fury. Slow burning, the fury's flames rising exponentially. "You're blaming me for wasted time?" He pointed a finger at me, accusingly. "I should be saying the same to you!"

I slapped his finger away. "You listen here, you devil. It's not my fault. If you just told me at the very beginning, I wouldn't have been suffering in your presence."

He just shook his head in disbelief, still, fury visible in his dark eyes. "Me? ME? If you didn't show up and destroy my door, I would have been in peace! Not troubled by YOU!"

"ME?" I shrieked. "I didn't come here with the purpose to trouble you! HOW DARE YOU? I went here because I wanted to help my friend score a date with A DEVIL!" I was breathless, still, anger coloring my vision red.

Fang was tightly fisting his hands before I finished my shrieking. They immediately slackened when I finished. "What?" Fang asked in a low voice.

I suddenly realized my mistake. All my anger dispersed and was immediately replaced by humiliation. I blinked many times and forced my eyes away from him.

But Fang wouldn't let me. Instead, he came around the couch and forced my chin to his direction. Still I kept my eyes away from his gaze.

"Max, look at me."

I wasn't giving in to him. Not now, not ever.

"Angel."

I shook my head and tried to push him away. Useless. Fang's strong hands wrapped around mine and squeezed.

"Max."

There was something in his voice that made me look up. Fang was looking down at me with... What? What was it? Amusement? No, he's not that evil to laugh at my distress. Desire? Really, that's too inappropriate at this moment. What was IT?

"Tell me," he murmured, his voice taking the tone of the wicked ravisher of innocent ladies.

So I did. Damn myself.


Fang

"I really shouldn't laugh..." I murmur to her, after listening to Max's story.

Max sneers at me. "Then don't."

But I do. So hard that I earned a red handprint on my back. "But you have to admit it's funny." The look on her warm eyes aren't buying it. "Years from now, you'll look back and double over because it was so hilarious."

The angel crosses her arms over each other and glares at me. "Does it look like the years has passed?"

So cute. I reach out flatten the crease forming between her eyebrows. She smacks my finger away.

"This is not funny." Then to no one in particular, "God, I'm going to kill her."

I chuckle low in my throat. "This might be the first time where I'll actually help you with one of your plans."

Something utterly evil (but sexy as fuck) twinkles in her eyes. Dear Lucifer, I'm not falling in love, am I?

Max smirks evilly. "When do you want to do the deed?"

Oh, I'm thinking of another deed altogether. "I'm thinking..."

Max tries hard to conceal her amusement. "I'm just kidding," she pats my hand and squeezes it. "I can't really kill her. She's too damn precious."

But I'm not listening.

"- quite annoying at times. No, scratch that. All the time. I don't know if she even closes her mouth, but- WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

I hook a finger on the neck of her shirt and pull, until her face is inches away from me.

Max screams, "You perverted devil! What's wrong with you? This is exactly why I hate-" I lick her plump lower lip and she shuts up. I pull away slightly and stare down at her.

"I didn't even look down your shirt. It's not like there's even something worth looking at. Calm down."

"Of all the-"

Now she licks my lip. Somehow I died a little.

With her brown eyes glaring up at me, she breathes on my lips. "I'll have you know I possess things worthy to look at."

My eyes flicker down her shirt for a brief millisecond. "I can see that."

"Are you going to kiss me or not?"

"Hm, I was actually contemplating whether or not I should."

"You should. You really should."

"Hm."

Hm, indeed.


Fang

My probation is finally over, which means I'm free once again to do whatever I want!

Why was I in probation in the first place? Well, Lucifer thought it would be fun to kick me out of Hell and leave me to the cruel societal constraints of 21st century Earth. He even accused me of some false "crime" for the probation to be legal. I hate him so much.

I AM NOT A TOY TO BE PLAYED WITH. But he's Lucifer. I swear he is not fit to be the "ruler" of Hell. He's so energetic and happy-schmappy that you forget he has the power to burn you with just a snap of his fingers.

Sometimes the most energetic people are the deadliest and most dangerous. They might look friendly and happy but once you get in their bad side... The thought of suicide suddenly becomes promising.

That's the main reason I've never gone against Lucifer, no matter how ridiculous and useless his orders were. Follow him or else. Don't ask what "or else" entails.

At least the moon feels the same as I do. Tonight it's a waning gibbous getting ready to be a third quarter. As the amount of sunlight hitting the Earth lessens, there's less moon to see. Just like the waning moon, I'm also questioning my existence and purpose in this world. My existence is shrinking as I doubt more.

Surely there's more to this place than just work and fun?


The next morning, I find myself next to the angel and waiting for the sunrise.

I'm not usually an early-riser since I don't like the sun that much. However the angel changed that and now makes me wake up at five AM every day and wait for the sunrise. Recently I found myself liking the sun when it's in the process of rising. But when it's fully out? Not so much.

She sits in the middle of the kitchen island and faces the window. I stand next to her dangling legs and look out. The horizon is already tinted with yellow and orange.

"Do you know why I do this every day?" Max asks softly, her eyes still on the window. I think of a clever comeback but it disappears.

"Why?"

She rests her arm on top of my head and uses me as her post. "As reassurance. I have to watch the sunrise or else I will be insecure the rest of the day."

I tip my head up and look at her. Her face when she's watching the sunrise is so different from her usual faces. It's the personification of serenity and vulnerability. You'll feel at peace when this face comes to your view.

Never have I felt this kind of peace in my entire lifetime. Are all angels like this?

"Why?" I ask her again. She pulls her legs to her body and I feel her shift behind me.

Suddenly she traps me between her legs and I tense up. She wraps herself around my shoulders and rests her chin on my left shoulder. I forget to breath.

"Heaven never sleeps so we don't necessarily have a 'night' time. What you would call 'night' in Heaven is more like dusk here in Earth. There's still enough light to see, but not enough to still call it morning.

"So when I first came here, I was a bit unnerved by the complete darkness after the sunset. I couldn't sleep that night. I wanted to badly see the sun. When I felt the sun, I quickly ran out to see it. It was reassuring to know that I was not trapped in the darkness."

With her front pressed against my back, I struggle to focus on what she's saying. I almost groan when she presses even closer. I turn my head and I'm surprised to see her eyes closed.

I smirk and I'm tempted to wake her up. But the peaceful face is back again so I refrain.

"You just missed the sunrise, angel," I murmur and press my head on hers.

I feel her mouth where my collarbone meets with my shoulder. She mumbles something under her breath.

"What?"

Her mouth moves again. "The sun does not rise without me."

I chuckle and touch her nose. Her nose crinkles in response. I turn my eyes back at the sun.

I'm sandwiched between two warmths.


A/N: I want to try to write fanfics for other books. Any suggestions? Only if I've read them will I write one. Don't even ask me to write a fanfic for the Beautiful Creatures series because I have never read them. Oh, and thank you for reading this fanfic. :D