Disclaimer: I do not own Maximum Ride.
Fang was breathing heavily. His brows furrowed as he glared at Max. He stood above her vulnerable body lying on the floor. Just seconds before, she looked like she was about to kill him, but now, the anger was gone from her expression. Her eyes were empty, like a void emotion. That was when Fang saw a stray tear trickle down her face.
Max stood up weakly, as if the life had been drained from her body. "Thanks," she mumbled, and Fang could tell that her voice strained. "Thanks for reminding me why I should be dead." Then she ran, face in her hands, to her room. Fang stood there, his breathing still staggered, but something felt different.
What just happened? he thought. One minute, Max was yelling at the kids to go to bed and he was sitting quietly on the couch. The next minute, he and Max were at each other's throats. They rarely fought, but when they did it always ended badly. This time was no exception, but it seemed worse than usual.
Bits and pieces of the fight replayed in his mind. Fang groaned and smacked his forehead. He felt like clawing his eyes out, and began to swear. "What did I do?" he cried. "My god, it was Max! How could I have been so stupid?"
"Did you and Max get into another fight, Fang?"
Fang spun around in horror to see Angel at the bottom of the stairs. She was looking in between the railing posts. Her blond curls were lightly spread across her shoulders, and in her right hand she tightly clutched a blanket. Angel could read Fang almost as well as Max, and that was when she wasn't using her powers. There was no point in lying to her.
"Yeah," he said quietly and looked down.
Angel hopped off of the steps and went to sit down softly on the couch. Fang collapsed on the sofa across from her. He rested his arm over his face, like if he shielded himself there wouldn't be any shame.
"You can tell me, Fang," Angel whispered. Fang uncovered an eye and peeked over at the little girl. "You need to tell me," she corrected herself. "You have to, or else it wouldn't be right."
Fang sat more upright, though, still slouching. "Why?" he asked.
"Because," Angel said in a matter of fact way, "if you don't it will haunt you tomorrow or until you face the problem."
When did she become a psychologist? Fang wondered. Her smile and soft laughter made Fang grin, which calmed him down. He could trust Angel. She could help him. Maybe, if he told her about it, things would get better. Fang sat next to Angel and lifted her onto his lap.
"Okay," he said, "but you have to promise me one thing." Fang waited until Angel nodded before he stated his condition. "Please, keep this conversation between you and me."
Angel nodded her head again. "That's okay, but you'll have to tell Max eventually." Fang smiled the slightest bit, as he slowly began to tell Angel what had just happened just minutes before.
"Whoa," Angel gasped quietly after Fang had finished telling her about the fight. "That sounds like it hurt both of you a lot." Fang closed his eyes and shook his head in solemn agreement.
"I hurt her more than anything," he murmured. "I'm such an idiot!"
"No, Fang, don't blame yourself," Angel whimpered. "Just tell her that you're sorry. She needs to hear you say that."
Fang ran a hand through his dark, over long hair. "Yeah, but it's not that easy, Angel. What if she's still mad or I just make it worse?"
"But what if you make it better?" she countered back. "Fang, you can't just think about could not happen. Think about what will happen. She needs someone to lean on sometimes, and that's what you are. Max really needs you."
Angel watched Fang silently take everything in. She closed her eyes and thought. What more could she say to help him? There had to be something. "You should tell her," Angel finally said.
"I should tell her what?" Fang asked.
She smiled. Fang would never admit to anything personal aloud, but if he wanted to make it up to Max, he'd have to. "You know," she teased, "tell her that you love her."
Fang cringed and tightened his fist at his side. "Angel, I . . ."
Angel frowned. "Fang, you need to tell her. If you don't, you'll regret it."
"But how do I tell her!" Fang cried in a hushed tone.
Angel shrugged and hopped off of his lap. She started to walk over to the stairs, her blanket trailing on the ground behind her. Just as she was about to take the second step, she turned around. "I can't help you with that, Fang," she told him. "You'll figure it out. You need to do this on your own now."
Fang watched her until she had taken the winding stairs out of view. He groaned and lay down with his arm over his eyes. How was supposed to do this? Not only would it be out of character for him, but how would Max take it? He shuddered at the thought.
The memories reeled through his mind like an old film. Max kissing him on the beach when she thought he was dying, that was the first one. Max sitting on her bed at Anne's wearing nothing but a towel, scared and confused, and he told her it would be alright, kissed her forehead, and left. Max kissing Sam on Anne's front porch― Fang bit the inside of his cheek and thought bitterly of the regular person. But hadn't he done the same thing to Max by kissing Lissa? Nothing seemed to make much sense.
He shifted on the couch uncomfortably and remembered kissing Max in the cave in Arizona. Fang couldn't believe that he had done it and she went along with it, but she did run away from him in the end. Then, when she was having the chip in her arm taken out, Max said that she loved him. Fang's heart had fluttered. Leaving Max and taking half the flock had been the biggest mistake of his life, but when they finally got everyone back together and she was there in his arms, everything seemed to go right.
"I'm going to do it," Fang said confidently. He stood up and walked silently down the hall to Max's room. When no one answered when he knocked on the door, he walked in, but Max wasn't in there. Panic began to set in, and then he saw her open window. Fang took a deep breath and pushed himself out of the window, slowly unfurling his ink black wings.
Back inside the house, Angel watched Fang take off from her room. She wanted to send him some sort of clue to where Max had flown off too, but would that be cheating? Fang had to do this on his own, but even the strongest people need a little push in the right direction. Finally, Angel closed her eyes, concentrating on Fang, and sent him a tiny image of where Max was.
Thank you, she heard him think. Angel smiled, knowing she did the right thing. She pulled the covers over her shoulders and tucked Celeste under her arm, smiling as she finally drifted off to sleep.
Ha ha! I posted two chapters today! Okay, since I have no idea what I'm going talk about...I'll just talk about the story some more! Yay!
Uh...I still don't know what more to say...Well, I've gotten 3 reviews within the first few hours of posting the first chapter! Whoo! And some more stats, 41 hits, 2 favs, and 2 alerts. All in a couple hours! So thank you! So...I might as well reply to my reviews since I have nothing else to talk about!
barigirl1- Awww. Thank you so so so much! I think that the best stories have the potential to draw a tear or two. Writers need to play with their words to get an emotional response from the reader. I try my best to do that, and I've had my fair share of emotional reactions from some really amazing stories.
EVIL-max- Short, sweet, and straight to the point. I like it. lol. Like I said, emotion is important. You have to take the sad with the happy, the hurt with the comfort, the cruel with the pleasure. By combining the senses, emotions, and the right words, any author can have a strong effect on their readers.
Laura.S-x- Yeah, I know Fang was a bit out of character, but sometimes that's the best way to portray the character in order to push the plot forward. I hate making characters act like they wouldn't in the book, but it is necessary sometimes. And if the author does it the right way so it's believable, it makes all the difference.
So, with that said and done...
Read, review, and make it all better!
- Saz
