A/N: if you're reading this, you must be slightly freaked out by the summery. Yes. Fang likes spoons!! WEEE!! Sorry. I'm on a sugar high right now…really hyper. And I'm sorry to all of you people that I'm butchering the characters in an AU setting and Fang doesn't care about spoons and blah blah blah…but whatever! GIVE THE STORY A CHANCE!! Please? And don't ask me WHY Fang is obsessed with spoons.
Oh, and everyone's grown up, Iggy can see, blah blah blah…and plenty of Fang bashing! Yey!
Disclaimer: Fang bashing, lots of swearing
Fang placidly strode to his front door, a steaming cup of coffee in hand, intending to go out and see if the morning paper had come. He opened the door, and a faint breeze wafted its way through the loosely-tied bathrobe to softly caress the bare tanned skin beneath. He looked out at the world of summer-green, the morning sun lighting it gently, seeming to lightly kiss each emerald leaf and blade of grass. Fang's lips turned downward in a rare smile, as he stepped outside.
He furrowed his brows. "What on Earth--?" He moved a foot back, and looked down at the ground. Fang bent down, and took the unexpected object in his long and deft fingers.
"Whatever is a spoon doing on my front step at this hour of the morning?" he wondered aloud.
Fang shrugged nonchalantly and looked to see if the newspaper was on the stoop. It wasn't.
"Odd. It's usually here by now. Oh well, I'm sure it will be here later." He sighed, not worried about the status of his paper. It would come when it did and not before. It was a beautiful morning. He contemplated it over the rim of his coffee mug. Somehow everything seemed more defined, more alive, to have more meaning, from that vantage. He took a sip of the warm coffee. It was days like these that made him glad to be alive.
He slowly turned away from the beautiful morning and went back into his house. What he didn't notice, right beside where the spoon had been on his stoop, were the words scrawled in a small, spidery hand, "LIBERATE ME."
On his way back to his kitchen, something caught his eye. "Another?" There on the end table, a glint of silver on the smooth wood grain, was another spoon. "I know it doesn't belong to me... I don't leave my spoons about the house. Curious." He picked up this spoon as well, cradling both gently in his hands.
The two pieces of ideal silverware sparkled in his hands, and though the metal should have been cold from the slightly brisk morning, the spoons felt warm in his hands, almost as if they were radiating heat, as a living body would. Fang smiled again at his own odd thoughts, and decided that since his mind was going to go in odd directions anyway, he might as well go along for the ride.
"Well then," he began, addressing the spoons in a serious manner. "What shall we name you two foundlings, hmm? Paul? ..no...David?...possibly...hrm." He thought for a moment, then gently turned the spoons over in his hands. "However am I to tell if you're female or male spoons, though? ...there must be a difference..."
"Fang, what the hell are you doing?"
Fang started slightly at the somewhat cranky voice that broke the morning's silence. "Oh. Good morning, Iggy."
Iggy, his torso catching the early sunlight as he stretched fully, extending his arms far above his head. "Your beds are too soft, Fang."
"Oh. Terribly sorry."
Iggy had decided to stay over at Fang's. He shrugged as his arms came back to his sides. "You didn't answer my question."
"What was it again?"
Iggy sighed. "Were you talking to spoons?"
"Well, ehrm...actually, yes, I was. I found one on my doorstep, and the other on the table. I haven't the foggiest notion where they came from. Have you any idea?"
Iggy frowned. "No. Sure they're not yours?"
Fang shook his head slowly. "No, they're definitely not."
The two stood in silence for a moment, contemplating the possibilities.
The quiet was quickly shattered however, as a loud crash and a innumerable of obscene shouts came from outside Fang's front window. The two rushed to the front door and into the front yard.
"FUCK!! STUPIDFUCKING..WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?! FUCKING...SHITE!!"
Iggy groaned. "...I thought Nudge was out with Max for the night?"
Adam sighed. "Well, the night is over, Iggs..."
"Shut up."
Max came around the corner of the house, limping. "Fang, why the FUCK do you have a huge pile of spoons in your side yard?"
"What were you doing in his yard, M--" Iggy started to ask, and then stopped. "...a huge pile of spoons..?"
"You think I'd make something like that up?!"
Iggy and Fang exchanged a look.
"Okay, okay...seriously, though, there's a giant pile of spoons in your yard."
"Oh dear...I do hope they haven't ruined my gardens."
They all exited the house to investigate the new happening, Fang striding briskly, but calmly; Iggy following along at a short distance, a little slower, wondering to himself whatever Fang had gotten himself into now, and whether this could even be normal for the HIS residence; and a shuffling, muttering Max (who had launched a small tirade under her breath along the lines of, "…thinksI'minsomesortofdrunkenstuporcompletelyoblivioustoapileofexpletivedeletedspoonsinhisownexpletivestilldeletedfrontyard...") far in the rear.
They reached the garden-area, where, as Max had claimed, there was indeed a large group of spoons.
"What the--?" began Iggy.
"See?" demanded Max.
"Lo-o-o-ok!" breathed Fang softly, lowering to his knees by the mound. "You didn't tell me they were all babies, Max! And look how many of the poor, defenseless things! There must be three dozen here easily!"
"Baby spoons?" Iggy asked blankly. "Ah, Fang..."
Suddenly Fang gasped as he touched one. "Aughh! Oh, no, oh, no! Iggy!"
"What?"
"It's crying! I can feel it, Iggy, it needs some sort of attention, and I don't know what, and I don't know what to do!"
"It's crying?" Nudge asked, for the moment unable to get any farther mentally.
"Max!" Fang commanded suddenly, turning to the singer. "Go back into my house and call Angel. Tell her to come over straightaway--she'll know how to feed these things and how they should best be kept. And Iggy, somewhere in my garage should be a large pile of shoeboxes. Start lining them with dishtowels. We're going to have to bring these orphaned spoons up by hand."
Max stared for a second, shook her head a bit in bewilderment, heaved a great sigh, began another tirade ("sentonsenselesserrandswasgoingtosleeptodayandnowI'llbewatchingstupidbabyspoons"), about-faced, and started back for Fang's house.
Iggy, however, balked, folding his arms in the middle of the yard. "Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no. Fang, we've gone along very nicely with all your other bizarre schemes over the years--and kept them away from the press, for which we can all be more than grateful--but I am not about to pander to your regression back to a childhood state--"
Fang held out a hand, casting a horrified stare back at the spoons. "Can't you hear them wailing, Iggy? If we don't help them...well...who knows what'll happen?"
"I don't hear a thing. Now, c'mon, Fang, hasn't this nonsense been--"
Fang gasped. "Oh, no, they're all at it now, at the top of whatever lungs they may have! Hurry, Iggy, please, I'm begging you, I'll...I'll...I'll eat normal sandwiches for a week if you'll only help me!"
Iggy cast a long glance at Fang's panicked, desperate face. Eat normal sandwiches? Oh, dear, either this was serious, or Fang had finally gone round the bend. Either way...
"All right, I'll go line the shoeboxes," Iggy conceded. "You bring them in. When Angel comes, she'll figure out what's going on here." He turned and walked back through the dewy grass as Fang knelt again to croon at the mound of mini-sized spoons, beginning to gather them into his arms as best he could for the journey inside.
When Angel arrived at Fang's house, she found the front door unlocked, negligence resulting both from Fang's eagerness to care for the abandoned spoons and his panic that he hadn't a clue what to do. Angel found her four flock members (A/N: Gazzy isn't in this story because he's off doing Gazzy-ish things…just saying) in Fang's kitchen huddled around the table, Fang staring fretfully into the makeshift spoon beds and Nudge, Max, and Iggy looking at their anxious friend with concern. Iggy lifted his gaze from Fang momentarily to nod a greeting, his arms crossed over his chest and his jaw tense with worry. Angel placed the worn backpack she had been carrying on the nearest chair and patted Fang's back comfortingly.
Without looking up from the rows of spoons in the shoeboxes, Fang explained, "They're crying, and I don't know what to do. They've been at it for nearly half an hour!" Fang stroked a spoon with the gentle tip of his finger and was apparently dissatisfied with the result only he could hear. "Of all the gardens in the United States of America, they had to seek refuge in mine. I'm useless to them!" Fang folded his arms on the table and let his head fall into the cradle they made with a grand sigh. Max regarded his exasperated friend with sadness and caught Angel's eye to silently plead for the wise, sensitive young girl to do something to help.
Angel pulled up a chair beside Fang and wrapped an arm around his tense shoulders. "Fang, I think the spoons are lucky to have found themselves in your yard. How many other people would have demonstrated as much concern and willingness to help? None of the four of us can even hear the poor spoons crying."
Fang pouted, "They aren't just crying, Angel. They're wailing! The poor things are trembling...look." Fang gingerly picked up a spoon and placed it in Angel's palm.
She caressed the forlorn spoon with slender, gentle fingers, hoping to soothe it while she took time to think of what to do next. Speaking with infectious calm and characteristic thoughtfulness, Angel said, "I think the immediate need is to comfort these spoons, while we try to sort out why they're here and how we can best help them." She tenderly placed the spoon in the shoebox with its friends as she pulled to him with her other hand, wordlessly urging her anxious friend to rest his head on her shoulder as she soothingly patted his hair. Fang acquiesced into Angel's touch and she felt him relax appreciably.
Inspired by her calming effect on her friend, Angel reached into the shoeboxes and began to arrange the spoons so they were not laying side by side and spread out amongst several boxes, but snuggled up in one box and nestled together front to back - "spooning." Angel looked to Fang, the blessed hearer-of-spoons, for approval. Adam sat up straight, peering into the box curiously, before a smile slowly spread across his face, happiness smoothing the lines of worry. "Angel, you've done it! They've stopped crying!" Fang hugged Angel gratefully.
Angel smiled. "I just figured, it always works for me." Leaning against Fang's countertop, Iggy snickered quietly. Angel cleared her throat. "Well, they should be dropping off to sleep soon." Embarrassed by Fang's glimmering gaze of admiration, Edge turned to rifle through her bag to retrieve a cloth generally used for polishing silver and tucked it around the slumbering spoons as a blanket.
Max moved forward to peer into Angel's knapsack curiously. "What else have you got in your bag of tricks, Angel?"
Angel emptied the contents of her bag onto Fang's table. In addition to the polishing cloth, Angel had thought to bring a wide, shallow bowl, a bottle of dishwashing liquid, and several jars of baby food. "When they've done with their nap, we can feed them and give them a bath."
Nudge picked up the bottle of dishwashing liquid and read from the label. "Gentle on skin...won't dry out your hands...fresh spring scent." She grinned. "Why, Angel, I never would have thought…"
Angel took the bottle from Nudge and set about filling the bowl with warm, soapy water. "I figured the regular stuff would be too harsh for baby spoons."
Iggy and Max collapsed into giggles, leaning on one another for support as they cackled like little kids. Fang shushed them sternly, both out of consideration for the sleeping spoons and defense of his considerate friend who had come to the rescue. He stood beside Angel to help him with the bathwater and whispered to him respectfully, "How do you know how to care for the spoons so well?"
Angel's cheeks lifted happily. "Admittedly, I know very little about spoons...but I am a bit experienced with babies, you know."
The five flock members formed an efficient "assembly-line" process for feeding and bathing the infant spoons. Max dipped the spoons head first into opened jars of baby food and waited until the spoons had absorbed their fill before carefully wiping them off to hand to Angel for bathing. Angel allowed the spoons to soak in the warm, soapy water for a few moments before tenderly scrubbing them clean with a soft cloth; her skillful fingers both gentle and effective. Fang cradled each clean spoon in a plush towel in his broad palm and lovingly dried it with a corner of the fabric.
Finally, Iggy took the shining spoon and placed it back in its cradle with its brothers and sisters, a simple task that Iggy felt he could carry off without jeopardizing his masculinity or his sense of reason. He was doing his part to help, although he was still trying to piece out Fang's relationship to spoons. "Fang, why do you have spoons around if you don't eat with them?"
Fang patted the drops of water from a contented spoons glimmering surface before wiping away all lingering traces of moisture with the thick cloth. "It gets a bit lonely in this big house sometimes, Iggs," he said slyly.
Iggy shook his head. "What about food? I mean, how do you eat something like pudding?"
Fang smirked. "Maybe I'll show you sometime." As he handed Iggy the spoon he was holding, Fang regarded the towel he was holding and judged it to be too wet for drying the newly-bathed baby spoons. "Iggs, may I have another towel, please? They're in the hall closet."
Iggy gestured to the drawer behind Fang. "Aren't the dishtowels in there?" Immediately realizing his mistake, Iggy apologized to Fang's wide, injured eyes and set off to retrieve a fluffy towel worthy of Fang's beloved flatware. He placed the spoon he had been holding in the chest pocket of his tight shirt while he looked through the hall closet for one of the smaller towels Fang reserved for guests. Upon returning to the kitchen, Iggy found Max holding a large serving spoon out to Fang as the spoon-loving mutant recoiled in horror. For all appearances, it looked as if Max were threatening to bludgeon the long-suffering Fang with the large plastic utensil. "What the (expletive deleted) is going on?!" demanded Iggy.
Fang, absorbed in his indignation towards his fellow Flock member, didn't answer Iggy. "Max, I cannot believe you'd suggest such a thing!"
Max was earnest. "Fang, all I'm saying is that maybe this spoon knows what to do for the babies. It would make sense that the larger spoons are the adults, correct?"
Fang looked to Angel for support and found the her to be equally confused at his outburst. Fang shook his head. "That is a ladle. It's completely different from a spoon."
Max stared at Fang blankly.
the exacerbated Fang threw his hands up in despair. "Imagine I suggested you hire a giant gorilla to baby-sit Angel when she was a kid."
Placing the offending ladle in its drawer, Max nodded in understanding. "I see. Do you have any spoons that would do?" SHe looked through Fang's drawer and discovered a set of antique silver. "How about these?"
Fang shook his head. "Those are all elderly. They aren't fit to care for babies. I don't think I have any spoons of proper child-rearing age. I wasn't planning for this to happen!" Fang rubbed the back of his neck in frustration.
Eager to help, Nudge stepped forward and looked through the utensils with Max. "These forks look pretty new. Would they be of any use?"
Fang looked at Nudge incredulously. "Forks aren't alive, Nusge."
Iggy shook his head and clucked at Nudge with mock disapproval. "Really, are you feeling alright today?"
Fang turned to look at Iggy and noticed the sizeable bulge in Larry's pocket. (Author's note: I wonder how many ways you can interpret that :) ) Advancing upon the mutant, Fang rescued the spoon from the form-fitting cloth of Iggy's shirt. "What do you think you're doing? How can a spoon be expected to breathe in your pocket!!" Fang trailed off and coddled the spoon as Max, Nudge, and Angel exchanged a look.
Iggy was properly repentant. "I'm sorry...I didn't traumatize it or anything, did I?" He gazed curiously upon the trembling spoon Fang was cradling.
After raising the spoon closer to his ear and listening carefully, Fang shook his head with a small smirk. "No, actually...I think it rather enjoyed it."
Iggy rolled his eyes. "Have we done washing them all yet? Isn't it time for them to go to bed?"
Angel was finished tucking the sleepy spoons into their warm bed in the shoebox. "Sure, Iggs," she giggled. "Why don't you tell them a bedtime story? They seem to like you."
Iggy groaned and accepted the box of baby spoons warily. Mounting the stairs with gentle steps, Iggy began, "Once upon a time, in a cutlery kingdom far away, there lived three ladles...the Papa Ladle, the Mama Ladle, and..." Iggy's increasing distance into the upstairs hall and the laughter of the Flock drowned out the rest of his tale.
The End
HAHAHAHA! Hows THAT for complete character changes and what not!! That was so much fun to write. I just love making Fang look like a faggot….uh. wait. I didn't say that. Ahem.
Please read and review!
PLEASE!!
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!
Okay. I'm done.