I don't own MR

Fang

It's funny how physical pain can be so excruciating. How you have to cause yourself more physical pain to keep from acting on the current physical pain. It's just one big cycle of feeling alive. Something nobody truly ever wants to do.

Everybody claims they want to feel alive, to feel their own heart beating in their chest, to taste the adrenaline pumping through their veins, but no one can ever handle the truest feeling of being alive. Pain. The kind that sends your blood pouring over your skin, staining you with the kind of marks you never wanted in the first place, scarring you with the truth. Being alive was one big painful joke.

And just when you think you can't handle anymore of it, it throws a curveball at you in an emotional way. Being alive is the worst feeling in the world. Worse than being dead.

"She hates me, doesn't she?" I mumbled, leaning against the counter heavily as Iggy finished bandaging my freshly stitched-up arm. He had just finished the job, and I had just finished screaming my throat raw with pain. It had hurt so bad I thought I was going to pass out. It's funny how I could take so much when running on pure adrenaline, but when I'm vaguely relaxed, getting a little cut felt like getting stabbed in the heart. Well, it wasn't that little. It had actually created a long, deep gash, but still. I shouldn't have been in as much pain as I was.

"No. She's just angry. Maybe if you throw on that present she gave you it'll make her feel better," Iggy suggested lightly, though a heavy emotion hung just under his tone, threatening to climb its way to the surface.

"Somehow I don't think it would fit me," I mumbled dryly. Iggy dropped my arm onto the table and snorted. I sighed, trying to wiggle my fingers and scowling when I realized only my thumb moved. Max wasn't going to be happy about that. I also tried to roll my wrist, but that didn't quite work either. Wonderful. A useless hand; just what I needed.

"Oh God, Fang. Please tell me your hand is working." Iggy demanded, his voice coming out slightly higher than usual as he grabbed my palm and yanked it towards him, causing a fresh round of pain to soar through my arm. "Wiggle your index finger," he commanded, and I tried to do so, but for some reason even though I was screaming at my nerve-endings to work inside of my head, they didn't seem to want to listen.

"You're a horrible doctor, Iggy," I muttered, though I didn't really care at the moment. I just wanted to go find Max and talk to her. She should have been back by now. It had been over thirty minutes and she hadn't once popped her head in to watch me holler in pain. It almost made me worry.

"Oh my God, your girlfriend is going to murder me," Iggy muttered frantically, and he tossed my arm back to my side, pacing back and forth as he ran his fingers through his strawberry blonde locks. "I am so dead, oh no. What am I going to do?"

"Iggy-"

"Maybe I can get out of here. Yeah, I'll get out of here. I'll leave before she gets back,"

"Iggy-"

"I can move to Mexico! Maybe call myself Jose Gonzales, get a donkey and ride across the desert. Wait, are their deserts in Mexico? Or is that Africa, or-"

"Iggy!" I yelled finally, fed up with his pointless rambling. My anger had already gotten the best of me once, and it was ready to crawl out of its cage once again. It wouldn't take much to cause me to go into rage mode anymore. One wrong look and I could start breaking necks.

"What? Once she finds out I screwed up she'll never forgive me!" Iggy exclaimed, looking over to me as if I was Max herself. Or maybe he was looking at me like I was Fang. Maybe he was just scared of me. Maybe even more scared of me than Max.

""Calm down, Iggy." I snapped before brushing past him into the living room where a broken couch sat precariously against a wall. A stacked pile of drywall holding one edge of it up so it was roughly parallel to the ground. I dropped onto it, ignoring the cold breeze the sheets we had hung up over the hole in the wall couldn't prevent.

"Yo Prince, how's your hand doing?" Lupo slid down the flimsy railing slowly, not quite trusting it against her weight, not that she weighed enough for it to break under her anyways.

"It's doing nothing," I answered, letting my dead hand fall over the edge of the couch and just barely brush against the carpeted floor.

"Ouch, James messed you up, huh? Oh Max'll love this. Where is she?" Lupo asked, an undertone of amusement in her voice

"I don't know, I hulked out on her and she left. Why do you care anyways, don't you hate her now?" I asked, glancing over to my friend. Her dirty blonde hair was tied up into a messy high ponytail, and the crop top she had on revealed more shoulder than my school would ever allow. I almost laughed at the thought of school. Something I had used to hate, something I took for granted. Now instead of my reason to wake up being I needed to learn math equations, it was to make sure I was still alive. What a bittersweet turn of events.

"I don't hate her," Lupo sighed, dropping down on the recliner that wobbled too much and didn't recline enough. "I just, I don't know what got into me. I need to apologize to her as much as that's going to hurt my pride,"

"Hey, you apologizing gains you points in the respect department, besides, neither of you need to be at each other's throats right now. You need to be friends, you need to be able to hug each other now and help each other out," I said, and watched as she nodded solemnly, understanding my point.

"Yeah, I don't know, I'm just kinda lost right now I guess,"

"Well there's a guy in the kitchen that has some directions if you want to swallow some more pride and ask for them," I suggested, looking up at what was left of the ceiling and making out all kinds of patterns.

"I'm not done being mad at him," Lupo glared at the floor as if it was Nudge herself, and I vaguely wondered where that petite girl had gotten off to. I hadn't seen her since she came downstairs to figure out why the house exploded and Lupo's snarling comments had made her run back to her room.

"Funny because he's not done thinking about killing himself over what he's done. Loops, go in there and make up with him right now. I mean it. You don't have to make out and get back together right away, but you guys need to be friends too. If you can't fix one friendship up right now, fix the other," I ordered, sending her a stern look. I could tell she was reluctant to follow my orders, but she nodded anyways and tiredly pushed herself to her feet.

"Alright, but I don't see why I have to be the first to confront him," Lupo grumbled.

"He's trying to give you space, that's why." I reasoned.

"Well maybe I need some space,"

"Well maybe you don't. Now get your butt in there and hug him or I'm going to turn into an angry monster." I snapped and she nodded her head before obediently leaving me alone to my thoughts while she went off to fix something that was so royally screwed up I wondered how it had even gotten that bad in the first place.

"Hey Iggy, I think we need to talk," I heard her say before the kitchen door swished closed, and I smiled weakly, glad one relationship in this house was starting to work out. Meanwhile I was still lost in the world of Max and Fang. Fang and Max. Were we going to be okay? Did our names even work together anymore? Did we fit together anymore?

Just at the thought I heard the front door open and turned my head to see Max. I expected her to be covered in snow, lips blue with cold and teeth chattering loudly, and I got what I expected, and so much more.

My sweatshirt she was wearing was ripped to tatters, revealing her toned stomach which was covered in a deep crimson that held a metallic scent to it. she was clutching her right bicep and limping on the same leg that had been crushed by the falling roof just a few days earlier. Her brown hair was a matted, bloody mess, and her eyes were squeezed shut in pain and fear as she leaned against the doorframe.

"Max!" I exclaimed, rolling to my feet and sprinting over to her. My initial reaction was to hold her in my arms, to make sure she was okay, that she would live, but even at the slightest touch she winced.

"Fang… we need to… leave," she gasped out before collapsing against me, a bloody, tired mess of anxiety and fear that she didn't allow herself to feel.

"Alright, hold on." I kissed her forehead before slipping one arm under her knees and the other around her waist so I could pick her up bridal style since she was clearly too exhausted to support herself. My arm ached from holding her up, but I couldn't drop her and there was no one else around to help me at the moment

"Iggy, Lupo!" I called, walking over to the kitchen and tapping the door open with my foot, expecting to see them in the midst of a deep discussion about feelings and trust. Instead Iggy was shoved up against the wall with Lupo plastered to him, both of them too high from the make out session they were enduring to listen to me.

"I said you don't haveto make out with him!" I joked although I could feel my bad arm already giving out under Max's light weight. Lupo yanked away from Iggy and turned to me as if I was a police officer who had just caught her robbing a bank, until she saw Max that is.

"Oh my God! What happened?" She asked urgently while Iggy leaned against the wall in a giddy daze.

"I'm not-"

"Guys! We got trouble!" Ari's voice exclaimed and Lupo walked over to the kitchen door and shoved it open, revealing Nudge and Ari tied up back to back with at least twenty men in the room, all sharing the same dull smirk, and all ready to kill.

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And yes! The major cliffies are back, how does it feel?

Soar on

VR

P.S. If you haven't read my new one-shot yet you should go read it, it's called The Last Pink Starburst