Hey guys! Sorry for the wait… I could list excuses, but I doubt you want to hear them…. I actually do not think this is my best, but it is my longest(over 2K). PLEASE KEEP IN MIND: I wrote this at 2 a.m. My brain may not have been working. Hopefully, Max and Fang aren't too OOC and you don't hate it. And if you do, be kind. At least I did write it…
Flying is the most amazing experience ever. Of course, I can't exactly say the same for flying with hungry, tired kids above the wilderness. Just as I had predicted, after about an hour of flying at a low pace, the complaining had started. For once, I was glad Fang stayed silent.
"Even if I thought we should land, there's no good place to stop at," I said for the third time in the past four hours. We'd already stopped by a stream to clean up and devour what was left of the food in Iggy's backpack.
There seemed to be a trend with the universe proving me wrong, right after I say something out loud. So naturally, a semi-isolated town came into view moments later.
Iggy snorted. "You were saying?" I glared at him, even though I knew he couldn't see it. "Ok, change of plans. Let's land and find somewhere to eat and rest for a little bit." Before the last words were even out of my mouth, my flock had broken formation and were swooping down from the air. Even Fang had fled, although I had a good feeling he hadn't left because he was tired or obscenely hungry.
Tucking my wings in, I manage to bypass the rest of the flock. Living up to my title, I lead the way to some surrounding trees before landing not-so-gracefully. Right when I thought I'd land perfectly, my knees buckled and I collapsed. Total, who I happened to be carrying, barked at me and glared. I managed to stand up again before the others landed, of course, but my ankle still hurt like crazy. I brushed the pain away, and did a quick head count. To my confusion, I noticed Gazzy was missing.
"Yo, Gazzy," I said. At first, I heard nothing. To be honest, I may have panicked for half of a second before spotting the eight year old pyromaniac dangling from a tree branch that had gotten tangled in his wings. He whimpered in pain before answering.
"Max?"
"I'm coming!" I flew up to him and inspected the branch. Angel and Nudge were still recovering; turns out they weren't very graceful when they landed either, although they seemed more dazed than injured. Fang looked silently up at me and Gaz, while Iggy seemed a little more frantic.
"What happened? Is he ok?"
"He'll be fine." I turned my attention back to the Gasman. The forked tree branch had tangled with his wings in a way that caused one of his speckled wings to be over a limb of the branch and the other partially under, but still caught. I could tell he was struggling to support himself by the way his back muscles were clenched. I gently lifted one wing off of the branch, causing another whimper, and then slid his other wing away. I helped him to the ground and then handed him off to Nurse Iggy.
After inspecting his wings for however long, Iggy announced that the injuries were not fatal.
I rolled my eyes. "Really?"
Iggy just grinned in my general direction and then continued. "He has some cuts and missing feathers, but besides his wing muscles being sore for a couple of days, he'll be fine." I nodded, ready to move on so that we'd be able to reach the house as quickly as possible.
"Ok guys," I said, "when we're in town, act natural, only talk to people if necessary," I looked at Nudge, "and if anyone asks where we're from, walk away."
With that final note, we tucked our wings inside of our jackets and walked towards the town.
I could've stopped the chapter here, but this line break persuaded me not to.
I was used to people staring at me, it was kinda in the mutant job description, but getting stared at when people can't see my wings is just plain annoying.Not that I was the only one they stared at, the whole flock was under the suspicious gaze of every single person we passed. It was more than a little creepy, honestly.
I locked eyes with Fang. Whatever we were going through did not stop our practically telepathic communication when we knew something was wrong.
"Lets just eat something and leave," I said in a low voice that only my flock could hear. Nudge, in her own little world, didn't quite understand.
"Why rush? This little town is so cute. I bet they have quaint little boutiques and restaurants that have home-style cooking and maybe they have a little inn we could stay at and me and Angel could share a room and Iggy and Gaz could share-" I kicked her softly in the ankle and with one look at me, she stopped talking. I saw a diner down the street that looked crowded and easy to blend into to. I nodded towards it.
"Lets go there, I'm sure they see different people everyday. We'll be in and out." Iggy looped his finger in my belt loop and I grabbed Angel's hand.
Ever heard of this little town called Argleton? Of course you haven't, because I swear that it is so tiny is shouldn't count as part of the U.S. It's probably not even on Google maps! So tiny that the people there can spot an outsider(or a flock of outsiders) immediately.
We entered the tiny diner called Ellen's in an awkward formation. I was in front, holding Angel's hand and Iggy was slightly behind me, holding on to my belt loop like his life depended on it. Next to Iggy was Gazzy, who was cringing every five seconds(wing injuries are the worst), and behind them was Fang who was glaring at Nudge who continued to talk about something that obviously bothered him. Total was darting in between all of us. Actually, it wasn't all that surprising that the restaurant became completely silent.
Instead of lowering my eyes and muttering something incoherent, I glared back at everyone, daring them to say anything.
"Table for six," I announced loudly to the hostess. She nodded, and then glanced hesitantly at Total.
"I'm sorry, no dogs allowed." she said nervously. She should be, I thought.
"He's a seeing eye dog," I said, motioning to Iggy. When she gave me a doubtful look, I pushed Total with my foot so he stood still next to Ig.
She nodded, finally. "Right this way."
While I thought crowded restaurants were a good thing, it turned out to work against us. Not only did people stare at us, but finding somewhere to sit turned out to be a problem too. I ended up squished in a booth next to Fang with Angel on my lap. Iggy and Gazzy were sitting across from us and Nudge sat in a chair at the end of our table. Total, living up to the seeing-eye-dog claim, sat in Iggy's lap. Slowly, the noise returned to the diner, and the urge to hit my head against the wall repeatedly hit me head-on. Oh, and the waitress didn't help either.
She was extremely pretty, no, gorgeous with straight blonde hair and blue eyes. Fang was practically drooling and I'm sure Iggy would be too if he could see her. I really need to save Gazzy while I still can.
"Hi, I'll be your waitress today, can I get you guys anything to drink?" Cue Iggy's drooling; even her voice sounded pretty.
Nudge started talking first. "I'll have an extra large Sprite and a chocolate milkshake." Everyone else said what they were going to have, and I let them order whatever-everything ranging from Mountain Dew's to Shirley Temples. Iggy had to stop Total from ordering. Miss Pretty then looked at me expectantly.
I bit my lip. "I'll have a water." The flock looked at me in surprise. I looked back. The waitress shuffled away and everyone waited for me to say something. "Just felt like something light." I lied, and everyone knew it. Normally, when given the chance, I had two cokes and a coffee, and that was just for the caffeine. They didn't question me though, a perk of being the leader. Fang, however, continued to stare at me, but I shook my head and told him I'd tell him later. He nodded and went back to staring at the wall, probably to daydream about our waitress.
The truth was, the Max Ride card was getting worn out. I wasn't sure how much was on it, but I knew for sure there was no endless supply of gold at the end of my rainbow. Sooner or later we'd be out of cash, and I figured I would rather that be later.
Angel turned around in my lap and looked up at me. "I should've ordered water, too" she whispered.
"No, honey, you shouldn't have. That's why I didn't say anything." She frowned, but turned back around.
Miss Pretty came back with our drinks in no time. I couldn't help but notice she smiled extra wide when she handed Fang his coke. I couldn't help but notice that he smiled back. Wait. Rewind. Fang smiled at some random girl? What the heck?
It really shouldn't have bothered me since Fang and I weren't… anything. The issue with that is, that everything that shouldn't bother me tends to bother me especially.
"Does everyone know what they're going to order?" No, no I don't. I looked over Angel's shoulder at the menu and scanned it quickly. The typical burgers and mac n' cheese. This time, Angel started first.
"I'll have the chicken nugget's," she said. I nudged her shoulder, hard. "And the double cheeseburger and the Kraft macaroni and cheese." That's better. Besides me, Fang was the last to order. Everyone else had ordered the normal three or four meals, depending. Fang looked once more at the menu before ordering.
"I'll have the triple cheese burger and a side of fries with the vegetable of the day," he said. Great, he'd figured out we were tight on money and decided he was going to starve himself. I glare at him.
"Wow, that's a lot of food, are you sure you can eat all of that?" Miss Pretty said, obviously flirting. Was she mental? The six year old girl ordered triple that!
"He'll be fine," I assured her. She started to walk away without getting my order, but I stopped her. "I'll have a side of onion rings and the fish and chips." She nodded and wrote it down. With one last smile directed at guess-who, she walked away. Fang and I stared at each other silently. We both had ordered light for the sake of everyone else, but he was supposed to be part of the everyone else. I was the leader after all, he didn't have any obligation.
"You don't have to do everything yourself, you know." he said defensively, practically reading my thoughts. I looked away. Not ordering tons of food might not seem like a big issue; however, for us, it definitely was.
Our food came after a while, and I realized I was being as quiet as Fang. It was a little hard to eat with Angel on my lap, and if things were normal, Fang might have offered for her to sit on his lap for a while. Obviously, he didn't.
We devoured our food and left quickly. Before we had gotten outside though, Miss Pretty had slipped Fang her phone number. This, you might imagine, made me want to rip her hair off and shove it in a shredder. Why, I have no idea. It wasn't like he had a phone to call her with. And to make matters worse, Nudge started talking non-stop as soon as we were outside of the diner.
"That food was so good! I wish I could have a chocolate milkshake everyday for every meal! I hope our new house is near somewhere that sells chocolate milkshakes.. Or we could learn to make our own! But, that would need a blender. Max, does the house have electricity for blenders and lights? It should because how else would we have Christmas lights for the-"
"I'm not sure," I interrupted. She frowned. I sighed. Since when did the flock start to worry about little things like electricity? Then again, since when did I worry about my relationship with Fang?
When you stopped trying to save the world, Maximum.
Dun dun duhhhhh… Guess who's here? Ok, so I said I'd mention the people who said what they liked and disliked about the story or suggested something, so here they are: awesomealpha11, , nacho5, the-academy-isn't, and MPHknows. Thanks to everyone for being awesome reviewers!
Also: Someone mentioned grammatical errors/spelling and I looked over the last couple of chapters and gosh am I sorry. I really do know correct grammar, but I tend to not go over my fanfic chapters and look for them. SO, should I get a beta, perhaps?