Author's Notes: Guess who stole the Maximum Ride mangas from her BFF? Meeee. Guess who got new inspiration from them? Meeeee. Here's a little update. Not a big plot-mover but I didn't feel like skipping over ALL the details like I usually do(you notice Fang and Zelos refer back to a lot of conversations that don't happen in the story? Yeah, laziness thy name is Haley). Sometimes you need a little bit of filler for character building.

Hands. There were hands on his skin… Not a woman's hands though. The thought of being used while weak makes him coil up into himself.

His eyelids felt like they weighed a thousand pounds. Zelos tried harder to make them open. They fluttered weakly and he saw little bits of light and shadows. It hurts so damn much to try and see, though. He finally let his head droop completely and his mouth opened to release a soft groan.

"That thing fucked you up," a familiar voice sighed above him.

What thing? How did it fuck the great Zelos Wilder up? Why was this guy touching him so much?

His eyebrows pulled together as he tried to figure out just which parts of his body were being prodded at by these rough hands. It feels like the touches are everywhere.

One finger gets a little to close to one of Zelos's wounds and he finds himself crying out in pain. Why did he hurt so damn bad?

He tried to open his eyes again and there was another sigh. Whoever was helping him was an impatient son of a bitch.

He reached his hand up and found it was shaking uncontrollably. "Stop it," the voice grumbled, taking his hand and setting it back at the ex-chosen's side.

"Stop what?" he wanted to ask. He even tried. His mouth opened to speak, but all that came out was 'ungh'.

The hands disappeared and Zelos felt an odd moment of vulnerability. Where was he? What was going on? His lungs took a deep breath and they then let it out in soft tremors that hurt more and more with each passing second.

Then the hands were back and poking at his exphere. The gem on his chest was cold and inhuman but it was ever-present on his body. The pressure was light, but he could feel it all the same. It was the same sensation of somebody pressing an amulet down onto a fresh bruise.

His mind hiccups, diving up and down in search for a word that would get the message across of 'that fucking hurts'. He settled on the word 'no' but by the time he willed his body to say it, he realized that he had been whimpering and shivering on the ground in agony the entire time he'd been t his tracking down his 'safe word', for the lack of a better term.

Sighing, the person taking care of him reached out and tipped his mouth open more. Zelos shook his head as much as he could in stubborn disagreement, but it wasn't enough. Something was poured in-between his lips and down his dry throat.

The hands were on his face, forcing his jaw to shut now. The Tethe'allan scrunched up his nose and tried not to swallow. His caretaker caught on quickly. Another sigh and the hand was blocking his nasal passages with thick, rough fingers.

Zelos barely lasted a second before he gasped for breath and let the liquid run it's course down the rest of his throat.

Then the hands were gone.

"Zelos, you with me yet?" Fang asked.

Before Zelos could get the strength to respond, he found darkness welcoming him to its abode.

It was obvious when Zelos passed back out. He resumed the state he had been in for the past three days. His body went limp and his chest would take even, yet incredibly shallow, breaths. Those are better than the breathing pattern of when he's in the limbo of awake and asleep. Zelos would lay on the ground in front of him, where the abbey used to be, and start gasping. His body knew he wasn't getting enough air so he just started wheezing.

Fang hated watching it, especially because it was increasing in intervals. More and more he would look over and see Zelos writhing into the ground in pain, his pale fingers digging into the dirt so much that the skin would break and cry blood into the soil. Gulping in air that couldn't make it all the way into his system, Zelos would start shaking violently.

Fang hated it so much.

Before, Zelos was an unshakable tower of abilities and confidence. He helped with the plans and everything else that needed help with. It'd been three days of being alone with his thoughts while overlooking Zelos's weak condition, now.

And Zelos was just so much tinier too.

Never before had Zelos's smaller height been so evident to Fang. Especially when the Tethe'allan pulled himself out of complete unconscious. Zelos would try to curl up into the fetal position every time he got a little bit of control over his body.

It never worked though. Fang would walked over and gently paw at Zelos's limbs to get them back into a setting position. The Jabberwocky had managed to snap so many of Zelos's bones, Fang didn't know which limbs were broken and which were just sprained. Fang had reset them all, though, the very first night of looking after the Tethe'allan.

Zelos had cried all night long from the agonizing pain.

The teenager sighed and glanced over at Zelos. He was quiet and taking those little breaths.

He sat up and grabbed a few of the branches off the ground that he had been using over the course of the last few days. He gently placed them over Zelos's body and received nothing but a soft moan of distaste from the redhead. After covering his friend from sight, Fang grabbed his sword and went out hunting.

The hunting was boring, but it had to be done. He'd done enough of it on Earth while he was living on his own away from the flock, so it was nothing new. Some of the animals were a little questionable in safety for eating and he hadn't gone near any of the foliage because he was feeding the food he found to Zelos too and poisoning him along with his wounds was not something Fang had planned on doing.

Fang walked quite a ways away, not too far so that he couldn't hear if something hurt Zelos, but far enough to get the animals who hadn't been scared away by his cries of pain.

About an hour passed before Fang shot a rabbit. He shot about four more in the course of two more hours. He hoisted the game over his shoulder and headed back to the camp he'd set up where the abbey had once been. Leaning down, he uncovered Zelos, and then set the rabbits on the leaves as he looked the sick man over.

The wounds were bruised and swelled. Zelos's face was just about the only thing that wasn't completely marred. Fang examined the scratches along Zelos's cheek bones, getting close to examine coloring and inspect whether they were infected.

He made a face after he sniffed in too much of Zelos's scent. He reeked of sweat, blood, and just flat out body-odor.

"You better wake up soon, man. I'm not going to bathe you."

Zelos laid before him, not reacting to any of his jokes or comments like he usually did.

Fang let out yet another deep rooted sigh before he dragged his feet over to a tree a few feet from his friend. Then he began skinning the rabbits. The only thing that filled the quiet of nature was the crackling of their camp fire.

The avian-hybrid seriously missed Zelos's babbling at this point.