Summary: What if Max and the Flock had never gotten "the talk"? What is the outcome of an adolescence without an adult and knowledge of societal norms?
Chapter Fourteen: Leadernism
Once I got the table set and Iggy was well on his way through breakfast, I sat down on a stool at the counter wondering where the kids were. It was a big dumb moment, I realized, as I looked up to the clock above the kitchen counter and realized Max probably hadn't gotten up yet--she was the one who got the kids up. I shook my head irritatedly; to not wake up on time must mean she had been really tired out yesterday. I felt an aching in my gut as I realized it was probably because of me.
I couldn't do this to her.
I needed to figure out a way to fix this, without letting her get involved. I began to regret that I'd consented to let her help me other day. But.. when she was actually doing it, I couldn't help but groan in pleasure. It was just too good.. I lifted my forehead up from my palms before I got up tiredly, dragged down by the intensity of my thoughts. Those conflicting emotions.. how do you deprive yourself of something you know is bad for someone else and consequently you, yourself?
"Man, I forgot to wake the kids...," I absentmindedly informed Iggy as I walked around the counter, heading for the stairs. I quickly jogged up the stairs, knocking on each door on either side of me as I continued the light jog through the hallway. I heard Nudge groan in the background.. I guess those knocks weren't so light after all. Well, those kids needed it. Sleepyheads, the lot of them. No comment on myself.
I reached the end of the hallway, slowing down as I came face to face with Max's door. I slowly cracked it open a few inches to see her still sleeping peacefully in the clothes she had been wearing yesterday. I mentally sighed a breath of relief. Good, she needed it. Sleeping in for a day couldn't hurt her, although I expected her to be raging mad when she woke up and saw the time. I shut the door slowly and quietly to make sure the kids wouldn't wake her. I'd tell them to stay downstairs and why the heck not, I might as well make them do some chores while I'm at it.
Turning around to face the stairs at the other end of the hallway, I curiously noticed that it was still empty. Ahh.. so this is what Max has to deal with every morning. I walked determinedly into the room the Gasman shared with Iggy to see him sprawled ontop of his covers in his rocket pajamas. The room was so completely bathed in sunlight that I had to blink a couple of times to get adjusted to it.
His dirty blonde hair looked like a birds nest and his long-sleeved light blue thermal top with red and orange stamped rockets, a hand-me-down from Iggy, had bunched up to above his navel, his bloated little tummy exposed to the world. I smirked before I picked him up and swung him around the back of my neck, my arms lifted and hinged around his torso and knees to keep him balanced on my shoulders.
He screamed in surprise, having suddenly been lifted 6 feet into the air, restrained by my muscular arms. Once he realized it was me, he started laughing energetically, although he still wouldn't stop squirming. Well, he was definitely awake now.
I walked him over into the boy's bathroom and seated him ontop of the covered toilet seat. I bent down, and squatted in front him to be at his eye level. I brushed his messy hair back and looked into his murky brown eyes.
"Get dressed, sport. Come on down and eat some breakfast, and don't wake Max up, got that?" Gazzy grinned widely and nodded proudly. My eyes smiled at him as I stood up again and closed the worn old bathroom door behind me. Next up, Nudge and Angel.
I walked into their ruffly room, it was dark and shaded completely. Like mine, their room was on the opposite side of the hall of Gazzy and Iggy's, and thus the sunlight didn't reach through our windows in them mornings.
The room was uncharacteristically dark and gloomy looking, but glimmers of light rested against the closed curtains. I looked over and saw Nudge engulfed in a deep sleep, my heart feeling like it was softening at the peaceful look on her face. I couldn't bear to wake her. Turning my head, I glanced at Angel, who looked more restless than she.
Walking over to Angel's bed, in which she looked so tiny, I gently put my hand on her waist and rubbed it around in circle on her back until her eyebrows furrowed in confusion and her eyes opened. Rubbing the crust out of her eyes she blinked a few times until she recognized me in the dark.
"Fang?" she asked curiously, tilting her head to one side. I sat down on the edge of her bed, my hand still on her back as she sat up to face me.
"Mhm. Get up, and stay a little quiet please. Max is really tired, so don't wake her up. Come downstairs for breakfast and wake Nudge up after you get out of the bathroom, okay?" I dictated softly and clearly. She looked awake already, and was finger combing her clean waist-length light blonde hair as she nodded in response. She smiled, but then frowned.
"Fang, why did Max get mad at me yesterday?" she asked curiously, raising her eyebrows up on her forehead earnestly.
The question startled me, but I didn't let her know it, despite the fact that she could probably already sense it in my head. What was I supposed to say to her? It took me a second to figure out how I could explain this to her without letting her know too much. And then I changed my mind. This was Angel, she could read minds. Theres no use in keeping anything from her.
I really didn't want to tell her this, but I couldn't avoid it at this point. Better me than Max, I reasoned.
"Angel, I'm having a problem these days and Max is helping me. We're going to fix it very, very soon, but you have to wait until we can, okay?" I explained to her slowly, and seriously. I made sure she heard every word clearly and understood all the implications of what I was saying. She nodded gravely, understanding that I was entrusting her with a secret.
"Okay, Fang. But, but.. I just wanted to help yesterday," she said confusedly. I was taken aback, how was I supposed to explain this? There was something that just wasn't appropriate. Next to all that, she was too young to be burdened with all of these problems. I sighed quietly, looking off to the side before I answered her.
"Yes, Angel, but you shouldn't do that," I said to her sternly.
"Okay, Fang.." she responded sadly, looking down to her hands sitting in her lap, "but.. you liked it. I thought you wanted me to keep doing it. It sounded like it in your head."
I raised my eyebrows threateningly. Precisely why I didn't want to have this discussion with any of the kids: how could I explain something to someone that I, myself, didn't understand completely? Yes, I enjoyed it, but did I like it? Absolutely not. How hard is that to explain? You'd be surprised. My voice hardened as I spoke to her.
"No, Angel, I did not," I mustered out dangerously. She looked up at me, and if she were not Angel, any other 5 year old girl would be scared to death. I was regretting the harsh tone of my voice, but I continued to speak steely. "It was uncomfortable, and I needed that to be fixed, Angel. It needed to go away, and you should not have kept doing that," I commanded sternly. She looked down sadly.
"I'm sorry.." she said quietly.
I looked at my feet. No, I shouldn't be getting mad at her. I shouldn't but I was. I was trying to protect her, but all that transcended to was anger.I needed to work on this whole temper-management thing, I thought to myself.
She knew what was going on in my head. I could feel her presence there, sifting through my thoughts as I had been sorting out my words in my mind before I spoke them. She was confused, very confused. How do you enjoy something without liking it?
It was hard to explain, but she knew where her place was. She didn't ask anymore. My eyes shifted from my calloused toes to look at her head, bowed down before me as she stared into her lap.
My gaze softened. I didn't mean for her to feel so upset, but I couldn't help it. It was precisely why she shouldn't have known. She heard my thoughts and I was hoping that she could decipher some of it. I couldn't say it out loud, but I hoped she wouldn't resent me in the future for my words this morning.
I placed my large palm on top of her soft blonde hair that nearly camouflaged in with her pale infantile scalp. The ratio in size thrust a sense of responsibility and obligation unto me. She was so small, her wings so fragile and she didn't even have all of her feathers grown in yet. Most of her limbs were still covered in soft white downy fur.. she was still a child.
My hand slipped down from her silky blonde hair to her cheeks to gently tilt her face up to me. I slid my hand down from there to her shoulder and then her forearm. My length of my hand was larger than the entirety of it. I gazed at the stark comparison in amazement. She was so small, so innocent, so untainted by the world.
No. She was tainted. We all were. It angered me to know that the whitecoats had touched this flawlessly innocent form in the beginning. That the first to ever hold her was Jeb. A sudden wave of anger fell over me. When I found that bastard, I'd kill him. For hurting Max, for hurting these kids, for hurting us. He'd pay. I'd make sure of it. Angel looked up at me, her large eyes swallowing her face.
"Fang, its okay," she said earnestly. I let go of a breath I was holding and nodded to her, my face wiped of all and any emotion.
"Go on, bathroom," I reminded her as I got up from the side of her bed, letting go of her forearm.
She nodded at me happily before she began to untangle to sheets from her thin limbed legs and pull them over to hang over the edge of the mattress. I left their room with the door open behind me and walked down the steps to see where breakfast was.
Iggy was quietly flipping omelets when I got down. I sat down on a stool in front of the kitchen counter, the breakfast table behind me, facing his turned back. I stared at his suddenly uncharacteristically taciturn figure. I waited, but even after two or three minutes, he was still staying quiet like that.
He was flipping systematically and articulately, but if I didn't know better, he would seem like he was concentrating hard. But he didn't need to concentrate on making omelets, especially since he was Iggy--blind chef extraodinaire.
So the only conclusion left would be that he was thinking hard about something else, which couldn't possibly be, since that was Iggy--one track mind, doesnt-know-to-keep-his-mouth-shut-for-anything, Iggy, standing in front of the stove.
"Sup," I said quietly. I wondered if he could catch the curious undertone laced within my greeting. He turned his head around to face the area I was in and responded.
"Hey," he said goodnaturedly.
Not that I didn't mind his usual naturally loud, boisterous, joker personality, but the atmosphere was grotesquely empty without it. Iggy was not the type to find himself lost in thought, as far as I've ever known him—which is definitely a while. You wouldn't ever find him daydreaming or deep in philosophical thoughts about morality and the universe.
What was up with him this particularly morning? I wondered. It was almost like he didn't even realize how strange he was behaving--also weird, considering how hypersensitive he is of the atmosphere. I decided to try and start up a conversation. Unfortunately, its not the area of expertise that I'm most skilled in, nor something I usually needed to have to do around Iggy.
"So I'm letting Max sleep in today, shes mad tired," I mentioned casually. Most people wouldn't know exactly how much caution and thought I put into picking my words and sentences. I paused for a second, assessing any reaction from him before I continued, "I woke up this morning and found her lying asleep on the freaking basement floor."
At that, Iggy turned around to face me immediately, a spatula in one hand. He was adorned with a yellow frilly apron over the old raggedly white shirt hanging limply on his thin shoulders and frame. His glazed over, sightless blue eyes stared me down.
"Crap, what? She fell asleep down there? Are you serious?" he asked, alarmed. He eyebrows shot up in worry.
"Yeah, I was just as surprised when I went down there to do my sheets," I continued, watching Iggy carefully, "She hadn't finished up the laundry last night and fell asleep halfway through," I said between bites of the sausage and scallion omelet he had slid towards me a moment ago, my eyes still watching him carefully. Looking down, Iggy untied the apron from behind his back and slung it over a chair next to him before he sat down facing me.
"Crap, whats she thinking?" he asked absentmindedly, almost to himself, before he chugged down half a glass of orange juice. He got to work on his omelet as I reached over and grabbed a second.
It was unusually silent for the next minute or so. I looked up at him questioningly, but Iggy just seemed to be casually working on his third or fourth one. It didn't seem so strange, but he'd usually be a lot more.. huh.. boisterous than that.
"YO Iggs, you alright?" I asked him suddenly, raising an eyebrow. His mouth chewing leisurely, he nodded.
"Why?"
"You seem out of it," I accused.
"Oh." So, he was aware of it. I waited for him to continue. It was silent for a few moments before he began.
"Uh... dude," he started, turning his head both sides to check for noises of anyone coming. Bringing up his shoulders leaning up on the kitchen counter up, he leaned closer towards me, his voice dropping. I looked up at him; it was clear that he wanted to talk about something private.
"Yeah man, I'm here," I responded seriously, giving him my full attention. We were best friends, he could tell me anything. He let out a breath he had seemed to be holding in for a while. He spoke quickly and fervently, his voice still dropping.
"So I had.. this weird—," Suddenly, I turned my head suddenly to hear a loud--
"Whoo-hooo! Do I smell sausages?" coming from the direction of the stairs. Gazzy screamed and then jumped the last five steps, landing with a loud BAM, with the glass table in the den shaking. I furrowed my eyebrows angrily. Nudge followed after him, rolling her eyes, eerily Max-like.
The Gasman excitedly ran over to the kitchen counter and got up on a stool, grabbing three sausages with a few omelets and messily digging in. I stared at him incredulously, my head turning, having followed him. Nudge sat down next to him, just a seat away from Ig, and stared at the Gasman disgustedly before she grabbed four omelets and placed them on her own plate.
Eh, so much for setting the table. I guess we were eating at the counter today. I continued to stare at Gazzy stoically, expecting him to look up and cringe, but he was obviously too preoccupied with stuffing himself to notice. So instead I took the initiative.
"Gazzy, what did I tell you about being quiet?" I said to him through my teeth. I was trying so hard to control my temper, god, I was trying so hard.
Gazzy looked up at me and his cheerful grin slowly and clearly fell down to a frightened one as soon as he assessed my facial expression.
Agh, What's wrong with me? I thought to myself, as I realized that all I'd done this morning is scare kids. I felt Angel's presence in my head. She was disappointed in me. You know you're doing something wrong when ethically-gray five-year-olds impose their moral values on you.
I leaned back into my chair, still looking at Gazzy. I had a right to be angry with him, but he didn't have to interpret it so perniciously. Well, I suppose I couldn't blame him. Its not often that I actually get angry enough to show it.
Thinking back to what I'd done earlier in the morning with Angel, I mentally shrugged. I already did one kid, might as well start being honest with the other. Max would definitely not agree with me on this point, but the kids seriously need to start facing the world. Sure they don't remember as much of the horrors of the school as we did, but we can't shelter them forever. They aren't dumb, and we can speak english to them and they'll understand. Afterall, we're the ones raising them; they're imprinting on us.
"Look Gas, Max is really tired, I want to make sure she can sleep in. I really don't want you guys to disturb her. She works hard. For all of us," I said steely. I broke my words as I spoke, looking around the counter at all of them. "She deserves a break." Gazzy didn't look so frightened of me anymore, to my great relief. Afterall, no one wants to face the wrath of a condescending Angel.
"Sorry, Fang," he apologized, sounding superlatively guilty.
"Its alright Gasman, lets eat," I said, surprising myself with the level of inherent leaderness present in my voice.
We dug into Iggy's great breakfast as the normal chatter and laughing began to break out around the table. That occurrence was to my great relief as I had been beginning to think that without Max, the flock would just completely break down, what with the weird pensiveness radiating from Iggy in the morning and the two small kids I've already managed to scare.
Man, I seriously don't think I'm cut out for this whole leadernism-thing. One morning was fine, but doing this everyday would make me want to crack a neck or something.
An hour or two later, we were still sitting around the kitchen counter idly talking around in a circle, and I was mentally checking the sound of our laughter to make sure it wouldn't reach up past the stairs. We didn't usually do this—just sit around in the morning and talk around empty plates. The kids would usually just go off and find something to amuse themselves with after the dishes were done, but I had told them that they couldn't go upstairs this morning.
"You're being rather restrictive you know," Angel commented in my head.
"And where did you learn such big words?" I asked playfully.
"Iggy!" she exclaimed delightfully. Her childlike voice in itself made my heart feel lighter despite the fact that she wasn't supposed to be in my head in the first place.
"Well do you really mind? What would you have to do upstairs anyhow?" I asked her out loud. Gazzy and Nudge were giggling in sheer delight as they tied girly ponytails in Iggy's frisky hair.
He simply smiled, interjecting a comment here and there, letting them mess around as he honestly couldn't care less as to how he looked. At least Iggy wasn't being weirdly quiet anymore. He was back to his boisterous self.
I worriedly realized he hadn't finished telling me whatever it was that he was going to before Gazzy jumped into the scene.
Angel smiled in response to my question, her eyes closing with the impact of her wide grin. I smirked, looking away as I heard a shuffle come from near the stairs. Max drearily walked down, her head resembling something of a tree stump. She patted it down as she walked down the steps. She was rubbing her forehead as she walked towards us, and she had changed out of the clothes she had been wearing yesterday before she came down. She was now in a large t-shirt reaching halfway down to her knees. She sat down quietly, blinking a few times before she confusedly looked up at all of us. Sitting beside her, Gazzy was obviously having a tough time suppressing his snickers.
He didn't even know what he was laughing at, I noted amusedly. It was Gazzy afterall. Who gets that kid's sense of humor? He'll laugh at a bug.
My chin sitting on my palm and leaning over on the counter, I looked at her bemusedly. I was just waiting for the outburst. Instead, Max continued to look around confusedly. She seemed rather disoriented.
"..Man, what time is it?" she asked, still rubbing her forehead. Gazzy snickered some more.
"Heh, its half past one Max," Iggy said helpfully, a large grin on his face. I amusedly noted that that made him look all the more ridiculous, with eight 1-inch ponytails on his scalp. Max looked up at him when he spoke, and her face immediately contorted into confusion.
"Igs, you look ridiculous," she informed him, with an eyebrow cocked way up high. Ah, it seemed like she was beginning to wake up now. She looked around the table to see the empty dishes, as Gazzy passed her a plate we'd saved for her.
"Ugh, someone, please do the dishes," she said disgustedly, staring at them.
"Ay ay cap'n," Iggy said with a salute. The further ridiculous gesture didn't help his already effeminate image any. "Nudge, you do it," he promptly commanded.
Nudge rolled her eyes at Iggy, but got up to gather the dishes nevertheless. I smiled in my head, she was always a good sport about things. Max stared at Iggy, who was still retaining his ridiculousness, and didn't look amused. I observed the exchange. It was all entertaining to me. In fact, I realized that nearly all of what Max did amused me in some way. She was just fun to laugh at, her gestures, her remarks, her facial expressions, her sighs, her screams, her rants, her whimpers.. they never failed to amuse me. I realized how much of a tangent my thoughts were trailing off as Max cut them off suddenly.
"Fang, why didn't you wake me up?" she asked angrily. Oh, there we go. Theres that outburst I was awaiting for. Curiously enough, it wasn't as haughty as I had expected it to be. How disappointing, I noted.
I shrugged. I could see the irritation grow on her face. That was fun.
She threw me a glare before she started mumbling to herself as she wiped Gazzy's chin. Leaving two omelets on her plate unfinished, she got up and walked downstairs to the basement, looking like she was running things through her head. I watched her go, my head still sitting on my hands lazily. Sooner or later, she'd find out that the laundry was already done. I waited, watching the clock above the kitchen stove.
Three.. Two.. One..
She reached the top of the stairs 10 seconds later and sat down again at her seat, finishing up those two omelets. There was a look of confusion on her face, and she was mentally calculating something out.
"I guess I must've finished the laundry last night. Weird that I don't remember. Man, I must've been really tired to blank.." she commented idly as she chewed. Iggy turned towards me and shot me a look. I would've shrugged at him if it'd mattered.
Angel and Nudge had gone upstairs already, but Gazzy was still at the table, experimentally pouring out some BBQ sauce and dipping some peas in. Iggy meanwhile, was pulling the hair ties out, cringing and making small "ow" sounds in the background.
I looked bored, I was guessing, although I wasn't really. It was hard to be bored to the extent of disenjoyment. Boredom isn't such a bad thing, if you ask me. But I was observing Max. That was never boring. She cleaned her plate and then sat back, making eye contact with me, her face too, sitting on her palms.
"Ugh, this feels like such a waste of a day. You should've woken me," she accused. I shrugged. It wouldn't be a waste of a day for me. I had plans, after all. I stared her for a moment longer.
"The fridge is nearly empty" I said quietly, turning my head to look away from her. She knew what I meant. I already knew I had to go into town today since yesterday, when Iggy had told me that we were running out of food in the morning while he was packing up stuff for the picnic lunch and dinner.
Her head turned the other way, she observed me from the corner of her eyes, obviously thinking I was going to bring up the whole bringing-Nudge-and-letting-the-kids-see-the-town issue again. Naw, I wasn't in the mood to be particularly naggy. I ignored the paranoia of hers that drew lines of irritation on her face targeted towards me. On some level, she downright offended me, and so I silently ignored it.
Half of the reason she was growing frown lines on her face were from simple assumptions. It made me feel guilty, yes, but was it really my fault? Sometimes it felt like it was, but sometimes--like right now--it felt like it was just her domineering attitude and a self-destructive humanistic nature.
"What do you need?" I asked suavely, ignoring the disapproving look on her face. Dear god, I wasn't even suggesting that I wanted to bring Nudge into town today and she was being a tightass anyway. It was beginning to really irritate me.
Iggy grabbed a pencil from the counter and handed it to Max as he began to list some ingredients. Max hesitated for a moment before she began to jot things down. It was an inevitable fact that we needed resources to survive. She definitely couldn't argue with that.
"....and... hairspray," Iggy finished. Max looked up and glared at him for that last one. He grinned stupidly.
"Wha-at? I need it for what I'm planning," he replied. She shook her head in retaliation, and wrote that down on the list too.
"Didn't you say you were gonna use our toaster?" she asked him.
"Oh yeah. And a toaster. Fang, make sure you get a toaster."
"Why do we need a toaster? We already have a toaster," I drawled.
"I'm throwing a prank on Gazzy and I need to use our toaster," he explained excitedly in a rush, to make sure Gazzy wasn't in earshot.
"He's dying his skin purple," Max said irritably, still writing something down on the piece of paper. I looked at Iggy questioningly.
"Well, its only temporary, but it doesn't help that I told him a few days ago that birds turn purple before their wings start to fall off and turn into fins and, or claws."
Nudge walked in and gasped.
"Iggy! Thats horrible!!" she exclaimed. Iggy cursed underneath his breath, to which he received a well-placed kick beneath the table from Max, eliciting a large "OW," from his mouth before he turned to explain to Nudge.
"Please, please, don't tell him, okay?" Iggy begged her, his hands clasped together. It was amusing to see him like that. The extents he and Gassers went to for the sake of fun. What a relationship.
Nudge sighed irritatedly, and I absentmindedly noted how much more and more like Max she'd been becoming like lately. She was growing up some, definitely.
"Fine, whatever. Its like, totally not my problem." she said to him breathlessly, turning away. "But don't expect me to help!!" she called out before she stepped out into the backyard. Sitting back down on his seat Iggy cursed again. (To which he received another well placed kick to his shins, eliciting yet another "OW" from his mouth).
"Damnit, I wanted to ask her for that stuffed rhinoceroses.. now what'm I supposed to do?" Iggy started rambling to himself. It was at this point the rest of us are cued to zone him out.
I looked over to Max expectantly. She scribbled a few more things down and then handed me the list. I took it from her hand and looked down. She'd added a few more things.
Gazzy had walked by us a while ago and reminded her to get some bigger shirts, a comment to which she had started blushing profusely. There were also a few miscellaneous things. Like bleach, some white paint, styrofoam, some wood; we needed to fix that hole in the ceiling Gazzy and Iggy had blown out last week, I recalled. I nodded at the list and looked back up at her.
"Cool. I'm going then. I might be back late," I said to her before I got up to stand. She frowned.
"Late?" she asked, confused. She cocked an eyebrow up, expecting an explanation.
It was not a comment I usually made. Not that there were set time spans for me to come home or anything, but it usually never took me more than an hour or two to fly down the hills and the mountains and do all the shopping in town and come back up. I expected I'd be out later today though.
"Why?" she asked.
"I, uh, I'm gonna do some research. I think I'll go check out the library. See what the deal is with whats been happening," I said, my voice dropping, letting her know exactly what I was referring to.
Max's face suddenly grew serious and she nodded determinedly. She looked like she'd like to come. She looked as if she was conflicted between the flock and our house and actually joining me down there for what she was completely against. I didn't care for watching her emotions play it out on her face and turned around, walking back up the stairs to get some clothes to change into before I showered.
Wow, you guys are really really really awesome. !
BECAUSE YOU GUYS REVIEWED SO MUCH I UPDATED SO SOON!
HAPPY ME = UPDATES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I didn't think I'd actually be able to get up to it but you guys are great! And it happened so quickly ! I hope you guys keeps reviewing too!
This is the shortest update interval i've ever done, cause the more feedback i get, the more prepared i feel to post up another chapter, and thats why i put this up so early!
Someone told me that having thoughts in large clumps is harder to read, so I spent a considerable amount of time spacing out sentences with that glorious little enter button in this chapter. Do you think its easier to read now? Its easier for me to write in large clumps of paragraphs. But if its irritating to the eye for you guys, I'll try to make my chapters a bit more spaced out.
The next chapter isnt a pt1/pt2 chapter, so why did I ask about this? Its because Chapter 15 is really really really really really short.
I thought you guys might be dissatisfied with such a short chapter, which is why I offered to post Ch.16 along with it.
But in your reviews, you guys said that I should put up two chapters and more feedback. And the majority said that they'd rather two chapters so that they dont get a teeny tiny scrollbar.
But seriously, Ch. 15 is just pathetically short. It says everything in it that I want it to say, its just you know--not a very large, momentous, time-consuming thing that I need to say. Which is why I didn't need alot of space to write it.
But how about this? I'll add something onto Ch.15 to make it little bit longer if you guys give me a good amount of feedback on what you think about this one.
So if you want the next chapter to be longer than you guys should give me some feedback on this story! =)
I got alot of compliments on Fang's POV in the last chapter, so thanks alot, i'm really flattered!
I really hope I did him justice in this chapter, and I'm just warning you, a LARGE part of the beginning of the second arc is in Fang's point of view, and this chapter begins the Second Arc! If I'm doing something wrong with Fang right now, you should tell me RIGHT NOW, so that I don't continue to do it later on and mess it up! If I add something onto Ch.15, it will probably be something in Max's POV for a change to relieve you guys of all the impending Fang-thoughts (and not just simply Max's thoughts on the things around her, but simply sheerly, Max herself and alone--which is something you guys have been asking me for).
I'll do this if I get enough reviews on this chapter, so that I'm sure people actually want something that has Max divulging into herself. I have to like, take time out of my day to write an addition onto Ch.15, and I'll see how much of a response I get to this Author's Note and if I do get a good amount of positive feedback, then I'll decide to put some time aside to add on whatever you want to this story for you guys. =)
You guys are awesome, and I hope you guys keep making me HAPPY!!!! =D
Aha. I promise. This is the last epicly long A/N. Sorry. _
These aren't ultimatums btw, these are just personal goals. I will always update regardless. Usually, I'll just update right after I'm happy with the amount of feedback I'm getting though. And since there was such a large influx of feedback these past 3 days.. well after I tweaked some chapters in accordance to what you guys have said, I immediately posted this chapter up. =)
Giving me feedback, is not because I'm writing for reviews. I am definately NOT writing only for reviews. But giving me feedback makes me more confidant in what I'm writing, so its good for you (because updates are faster) and good for me and you (because the writing is better).