"Don't kill me." he murmured before pressing his lips to mine.

I should have pushed him away. Key words should have. Instead I turned around and threw everything into that kiss.

It felt like hours until we finally parted out of breath and completely dazed.

Fang's eyes were glittering and a smile tugged at the corner of his lips while I was still trying to clear my thoughts from when they'd fizzled out about two seconds into the kiss.

"Hey Guys!" Nudge sang loudly as she entered the apartment.

I groaned and Fang let me go about a second before she skipped out onto the balcony.

"Oh you went flying! That's so cool! How'd it go? Did you actually stay in the air or did you fall and Fang had to catch you? I have to say I'm going for the last option, no offense Max but you aren't exactly the best with heights-"

"Nudge!" Fang growled and she instantly shut up.

"Sorry." She squeaked, the tips of her ears turning pink.

– Some place else –

Knock knock.

Iggy sighed and sat up on the bed but stayed silent. He was in no mood to see anyone, let alone her. He knew it was her even before he heard her shoes, it was always her. She'd taken it upon herself to keep him company the last week or so. He didn't want it. The only company he wanted wasn't anywhere near that room.

"Hi, Iggy." She said in a soft voice walking over to him.

He nodded in her general direction, still not speaking.

"Um–" she started but he cut her off.

"Listen Megan, I appreciate what you're trying to do but please just leave me alone." It came out just a little harsher than he'd intended but then again you couldn't really blame him. Everything he'd ever cared about had been taken away and he couldn't do anything about it.

Silence.

"No." She said simply in a determined voice.

He had to suppress a sigh. "Whatever." He lay back down and shut his eyes. Not like it makes a difference he thought bitterly. He missed his sight, before he hadn't really appreciated it but now that it was gone… he'd give anything to have it back.

"You need to stop this!" Megan ordered angrily.

"Stop what?" he asked, completely baffled by her sudden change of attitude.

"Feeling so sorry for yourself!"
That set him off, he shot up and snapped his head to 'look' at her. "Feeling sorry for myself? You thinking that's what I've been doing for the last two months?" He yelled, shaking with his anger.

"Well it's pretty obvious." She grumbled suddenly feeling very small. Her confidence had petered out and she felt like a child again.

He barked out a laugh. "My best friend, the only person I've ever trusted in my life thinks she killed me, and now has wings. The two most important people in my life have been attacked twice by Hunters the most deadly creatures on Earth and I don't think they can even begin to comprehend what's really going on because you're father refuses to tell them and here I am in who-knows-where with no sight and no information besides the little pieces I'm occasionally allowed to be told with complete strangers and in my opinion traitors so I do apologise if I'm not happy and smiley and jumping for joy just because they've managed to survive this long." He hissed venomously.

He could practically hear her wince but he was beyond caring about some stupid teenagers feelings. She'll never understand. She never had to deal with any of the things we've gone through because her Daddy dearest actually decided she was worth saving from this hell.

Max's P.O.V.

It was late by this point; Nudge was passed on the couch wrapped up in a blanket while Fang and I had decided to sit on the ground so we could stretch out wings out slightly. We were half sitting half lying on the floor in front of the TV where Nudge had put a movie on hours ago. It had long ended but neither Fang nor I got up to do anything about it.

Thing's were still a bit weird from the kiss, we hadn't really spoken either and had kept to silence. It wasn't exactly awkward it was more…thoughtful. Yeah I guess you could put it like that. I was still fighting with myself over whether or not it was a good idea to get involved with someone, especially Fang I mean after the night I was shot… I realised that I might have feelings towards him and I'm pretty sure we have all concluded that assassin + sappy feelings = total disaster. And Fang was thinking about…well I don't know what he was thinking about this is Fang we're talking about and as well as I knew him now I still couldn't even begin to try and figure out what he was thinking at the best of times.

"Do you remember that secrets project we did back in school?" Fang said out of nowhere. Talk about random comments.

I turned on my side to look at him and nodded. It felt like such a long time ago, was it seriously only a matter of months?

"What did you write?" he asked gazing at me intensely.

"My name." I said simply.

He frowned, "Why?"

I smiled, "Not Maximum Ride. I wrote Viviana Forester just not in those exact words." I explained, "My name means Alive forever so that's what I put. Obviously for extra precaution I wrote it in two different languages." I shrugged. "What did you put?"

"I lied. Put something a normal. I wasn't going to take the risk of someone finding out about them." He gestured at his wings and I nodded.

"So where did that come from?" I raised an eyebrow, referring to the random question.

He smiled, "Break the silence." He said simply.

Ironically silence followed until Fang once again spoke. Wow he's talkative today. But I took a deep breath because I knew what was coming next and I still didn't have an answer.

"About today…" He drifted off obviously unsure of how to continue.

"Was it just a spur of the moment thing?" I blurted before I could stop myself and I wanted to die of embarrassment. I felt myself blush and got the honour of watching Fang's cheeks tint pink too.

He didn't answer for a while probably stunned. Then he cleared his throat and shook his head, "No, I-I've wanted to do that for a while. And you were kissing me back?" He said nervously leaving the end of the sentence more of a question.

Oh god I felt like I was fourteen again. Now you have to understand that I've never done this before, it's not like I could just date anyone I wanted to. Any relationships I had been in were fake so I didn't really know what to do. I couldn't do what I did in on a mission because I wasn't being me, I was being the person I had designed to be my target's perfect match so now I was totally stumped.

Answer, have to answer or he'll take the silence the wrong way. Uhm… yep I have no freaking clue.

Just go with your gut! One part of my mind screamed at me and since I didn't really have anything else to go on I did. Do you wanna guess what my gut told me to do? If you guessed kiss Fang again and hope he gets it then yes you are correct.

I hadn't really realised how close we were until then and I realised that if I wanted to take him by surprise it would really be quite easy. I didn't though, I just moved closer until there were only a few centimetres between us. "Yeah, I was." I breathed then connected our lips. This one was much gentler that the first one and it made my heart swell – as cheesy as that sounds.

We both adjusted how we were sitting to free our hands and mine immediately went to his hair, still mostly blond from going undercover. I made it my mission to go to the store and get us both some hair dye the next day. His one hand of course moved to that spot between my wings that he knew I loved and started rubbing circles while the other rested on my hip pulling me closer. I can guarantee that we spent at least an hour like that, not really caring about anything besides each other and it was amazing, like the last six years hadn't happened, that I'd never become a murderer and our parents were still alive and we were two normal teenagers.

Another thing, we were so lost in each other that neither of us noticed what was happening until we ever so slowly parted and Fang noticed that my wings were no longer behind me.

He gave a breathless laugh and ran his hand over my back, clear of anything birdish.

I gasped and my eyes grew wide when I realised what was missing. "Where'd they go!" I panicked craning my neck to make sure they were seriously gone and it wasn't just my imagination.

This just made Fang full out laugh and then his wings were gone too. "You've retracted them." He said pressing his forehead to mine.
"But how? I don't even know how I did it." I said completely baffled, one minute I'm kissing Fang with my wings spread out the next they're completely gone.

Fang of course then decided to start explaining, "Any intense emotion does that. Anger, fear they make them come out and apparently whatever you were feeling makes them go back in." he said absentmindedly wrapping a lock of my still black hair around his finger.

"I felt safe." I admitted but that seemed to need to be explained too, "You make me feel safe." Yeah what's that? Three embarrassing moment in one day? Definitely going soft.

OoOoOoO

Hours later we were lying on the floor having stocked up on pillows and blankets to make a very comfy bed – it was more like a fluffy mountain really – me lying on Fang listening to his slightly sped up heartbeat.

"Since we're taking a trip down memory lane today I wanted to ask you something." What? I was my random question time.

"Mmm?" he hummed sleepily.

"You said any intense emotion brings the wings out." I clarified.

He nodded.

"So why did they come out the first night I saw them? I touched the slit in your shirt and they just burst out."

I felt him sigh, "It was surprise I guess. Like I said, no one had ever touched them before and where they come out is always sensitive."

Yeah right, there was something he was hiding from me. I snorted, "And what else?" I enquired.

"Nothing."

"Liar." I accused, sitting up to look at him.

He rolled his eyes, "You're so dramatic." He grumbled then decided to just tell me since it would cost us a lot of time and energy, "It felt weird. You touching my back felt weird. Good, but weird."

He could tell that I wasn't getting it so instead he pulled me close and slipped his hand under my slitless PJ top.

His fingers ghosted over where my wings would be and I gasped not expecting the zing of warmth that shot through me. Of course when he did that I couldn't control them and there was a flurry of feathers. Uh huh.

"See what I mean?" he murmured tracing the join of where my wings met my back.

I nodded, totally baffled. "What was that?" I asked hoping he could answer.

He shrugged, "I don't know but its part of the reason why I didn't trust you. When you touched my back and I just couldn't control myself…I didn't like the fact that you could get that sort of reaction out of me."

"Understandable, we weren't exactly on good terms at that point." I said then broached another matter, "So how do I get them to go back in?"

Fang grinned, "Well there's one thing we know that works."

I playfully glared at him and smacked his chest. "Anything else Einstein?"

With a smug smile in place he instructed me on how to do it, "Relax, you need to will them to go back in, don't think too hard about it or it won't happen. It's like moving your arms and legs. Just do it."

It took a while but after a few tries I finally got it right even if it did take Fang rubbing those amazing circles between my wings. "Where'd you learn that?" I sighed as I felt my wings retracting slowly. We were back in our original position only slightly altered so that I had space for my wings until they retracted.

"Always hurt the most for me though it doesn't the same effect on me as it does on you." He chuckled, "I think I've found you're kryptonite."

I was too sleepy to retaliate but he was going to pay for that in the morning. I let myself drift off to sleep, the events of the day becoming too much.

OK, long chappie – that I really couldn't have ended anywhere else – filled with Faxiness, be happy! I have to say it's really mushy…probably too mushy but at least there's a little part that doesn't have fax in it. I'll probably do a little bit of Iggy every chapter, he'll be the key into the world of the people out to get Max, Fang and Nudge.

Anyway! At least that stupid little question that's been niddling at the back of everyone's minds has been answered! Lol, I couldn't exactly put it in before with all the chaos of my unveiling plot and I wil admit I actually forgot about it until it popped into my head today and I was like 'ah crap, I need to work that in!' so I did! Hope it was ok!

Thank you all so much for your reviews! I luvd every single one of them! Do you think we could do that again? Pwease?

Thanks guys.

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