MERRY CHRISTMAS!! Or, since maybe everyone who is reading this does not celebrate Christmas, MERRY CHRISTMAHANAUKWANZISTICE!!!

And a Happy almost New Year!!

Ok, so I got bored-- which is never a good thing- and was thinking of Christmas and somehow came up with this. I wanted to make it a oneshot, but I have long since realized that it is impossible for me to write a oneshot. All of my stories have started with at least two chapters in mind. Just like this one will, because I couldn't shorten it at all. Which sort of sucks, but it's all good!! I wrote it all anyway!!

Ok, so DISCLAIMER: No, Santa did not leave the rights to Maximum Ride under my tree for me. But I did get a cool new iPod Touch. I believe this to be a little bit of a win.

WOOH!! And now, ON WITH THE STORY!!

-Max POV-

I walked out of the kitchen and flopped backwards onto the couch in the living room, taking one of the spare pillows that I wasn't lying on and smothering my face in it. I took a moment to recollect myself, and then sighed into the pillow.

We were back at my mom's place for Christmas, and she and Ella were frantically going around like chickens without heads-- or even worse, Nudge on Red Bull—trying to put up last minute Christmas decorations inside and outside the house. They had procrastinated and now, even though Christmas was only days away, they were still setting up. And then when we landed in the backyard, Mom lit up like the Christmas tree in the living room and suddenly I was holding up tinsel and being asked to string it on the staircase. The house looked like a three year old had run through the place covered in red and green paint and then started a massive silvery sparkle fight.

I hadn't gotten a break since I had landed, because either Gazzy had gotten himself tangled in the tinsel for the fourth time in a row or Nudge had taken a massive chomp out of the gingerbread house and Iggy was attempting to kill her with his bare hands or Fang had disappeared back into his room when Mom needed him to help her out up on the roof or something like that. Christmas was a load of non stop work, and I had the aching muscles to prove it.

Honestly, I'll take fighting Flyboys to this absolute madness any day. If I see another piece of tinsel, I may have to willing throw myself off a nearby cliff. With my wings closed.

"MAX!! COME HERE!!" I heard Nudge yell from outside, where she, Ella, and Angel were spreading the fake snow on the front lawn.

I groaned, still getting up. "What could they have possibly screwed up? They were spreading fake snow all over the ground. It's not like they could have messed that up! You just spread some of it somewhere else to even out the layers!"

Reluctantly, I trudged outside, finding it odd that I walked out to find the ground covered in snow even though we were in Arizona. Feeling more snow falling onto my head, I looked up to see two grinning bird children flying a few feet above the house and Ella coming towards me from around the side of the house.

"Do you like it?" She said, beaming, and I couldn't tell her what I really thought of the entire slaving- over- the- house- to- make- sure- that- the- fat- guy- who- was- breaking- and- entering- would- like- it deal.

"You guys managed to make it seem real," I said, plastering on a genuine- looking smile to please her. "Good job."

As Nudge and Angel landed, Angel looked at me with a frown on her face, knowing what I really thought. I ignored her, instead turning to scold her and Nudge. "Did anyone see you flying?"

Nudge rolled her eyes. "Relax, Max, no one saw us. And besides, even if they did, they would go to the police and then the police would have them sent to a psych ward or something. Hey, do you think that we belong in an insane asylum, Max? I mean, we all have wings, and you have a Voice in your head. And Fang is just plain scary sometimes in regards to…. certain things, so I think that they would just lock him up to make sure that he didn't suddenly snap and be all "WAH! I GO ON CRAZY RAMPAGE!!" Hey, Max, don't you think that asylum is a strange word? I mean, it doesn't really sound like a real word, more like something in some strange foreign language. Like, I don't know, Greek. He-he, Greek sounds like an odd word too. Sort of like someone got bored and decided to mix the word green and week together. Hey, do you think that someone just sat down one day and said, "Hey, I'm going to make up some words that sound cool and say that they're real"? That's really cool too. What would happen if I did something like that? That would be sooooo cool!! I could make words like corpenschnixt and dunafocious real words since I liked the sound of them! And then—"

Angel slapped her hand over Nudge's mouth, and the mumbling that came from behind it lasted a few more seconds before Nudge fully stopped. Ella let out a small "Whoa" noise, and started massaging her forehead.

How the hell is it that she managed to go from psych wards to the origins of the word asylum to the origins of language all in a matter of twenty seconds?

At that moment, the boys walked outside. Gazzy was leading the pack with a huge smile on his back. Iggy was behind him and Fang was coolly strolling along, bringing up the rear.

"Inside the house is done!! And out here looks really good!" Gazzy said, bouncing in place. I immediately turned to his partner in crime. "What did you feed him?"

Iggy shrugged, the devious grin that had come to be a default growing on his face once again. "Nothing! I just let him lick the spoon after I was done with the batter for the gingerbread house."

I put my face in my hands, groaning. I seemed to be doing that a lot today. "You know that Gazzy and sugar don't mix well! Great, now we have one hyperactive bird child to worry about."

I lowered my hands to glare uselessly at Iggy. "You don't care for me at all." Fang chuckled lowly from where he had come to stand at my side.

I turned to him. "And how has your Christmas prep been going? You done yet?"

He nodded, turning back to the house. "Yup. Remind me why we have to be doing this again?"

I sighed, leaning against him. One of the many reasons he was like my rock. Always there. "It's for Mom. She needs the help."

He didn't say anything else on the matter, instead he changed the subject. "I have something that I wanted to show you."

I raised an eyebrow skeptically. "What?"

He started to walk forward, pulling me along with him. "It's in the house. Come on."

I almost struggled, opting to actually put up a fight when we got to the doorway of the house. "We aren't moving until you tell me what it is. You know from experience that I hate waiting for anything."

However, my dark (in almost all senses of the word) Flock mate was no longer paying any attention to me. He was staring up at the ceiling, and I nearly choked on my own spit when I saw what was hanging there.

Damn whoever invented mistletoe. May your soul rot in hell forever.

The dictionary definition of mistletoe:

One: A plant growing as a parasite on trees and having leathery evergreen leaves and waxy white berries. Tradition goes that any two people that meet under the mistletoe are obliged to kiss.

Max's definition of mistletoe:

Two: An evil hell-sent plant that is trying to cause Max to make things even more awkward between her and Fang. An abomination which must be removed from the Earth immediately before anything Apocalypse- bringing occurs.

Max, calm down. It's not going to be the end of the world if you kiss Fang.

Voice, you have been reading fortune cookies and old Confucius sayings too much to fully understand the gravity of this situation. This would mean Fang and me kissing. For the umpteenth time. THIS IS GOING TO BE THE END OF THE WORLD!!

Maximum, take a deep breath and just get it over with.

I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS PERIOD!! WHAT PART OF THAT DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND?!

Maximum, you are worrying about this too much. You grew up with Fang. It's just a tradition. It won't change anything.

Yes it will!! Damn it, you don't GET it! This is my best friend!! Things are awkward enough because of the other kisses! I don't need things to get any more awkward!! That would mean Fang attempting to force another talk soone--

My angry mental tirade was interrupted by the almost- but- not- really- stifled chuckles of the rest of the Flock and Ella.

"Umm, well….," was all that Ella managed to get out from in front of us before she ran up the stairs and into her room. I could hear her hyena- like cackles from where I was still standing frozen.

Nudge spoke up. This won't end well. Although it wasn't likely to end well in the first place. "Aww, Max!! Are you and Fang gonna kiss now? Because you're supposed to kiss when you're under the mistletoe, and you're kind of standing under it with Fang now. Ooh!! Can I watch please?!! I promise I won't say a word! Or do you want some privacy? No, screw that! I want to watch you two!! This is going to be so cute!!"

The only word that I was able to get out was, "Uhhh…."

Fang's lips were turned up in a small smirk. "Well, Max? It's your call. Are we going to kiss?"

I must have looked so absolutely stunning, standing there looking like I had no brain, what with my mouth wide open and my eyes as wide as they could possibly go. "Uhhh…."

Angel stepped in for me, bless her winged seven year old butt. "Well, she sort of doesn't want to kiss you, Fang, but I think that you should. Since it is tradition and all. "

Did I say bless her? I meant "May her tiny blonde cherub butt burn forever in hell."

Fang turned back to me, the smirk on his face growing a little larger. "Well, Max, we can't exactly ignore tradition, can we?"

All of a sudden, adrenalin started to pump through my system and all my senses went into overdrive. "Umm, we're bird kids. We already break tradition by existing. And so, without much personal guilt, I'm going to have to pass up on this tradition as well."

And then I took off out the door and flew off, leaving Fang and the others behind.

"MAX!! MAX, DAMN IT, GET BACK HERE!!"

Okay, so I was running from Fang. Again. But it was different this time! I was not running from Fang after a kiss. I was running in order to prevent another lip-on-lip contact mishap.

Maximum, you have got to stop running from Fang. You're hurting him, and yourself.

Fang's a big boy. He can handle a little rejection. We've gotten enough of it throughout our lives.

Max, he's not as strong as you think when it comes to you. You're really killing him. You need to listen to him for once. And it's not right for you to break tradition like that.

What the hell?! Whose side are you on?! I flapped my wings twice more, noticing that I had been gliding for a while and was now losing altitude.

Maximum, all I'm telling you is that when you and Fang finally have that talk that you really need to have with him in regards to all the skating around each other you seem to be doing, you need to listen to what Fang has to say. Without thinking of running away.

There is no chance of that happening. I am very good at avoiding unpleasant things.

I could have sworn that I heard the Voice sigh before I felt his/ her/ its presence leave my head. And that was when Fang rammed me from behind.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?! WE'RE GOING TO DIE!" I screamed at him.

"No, we're not going to die. But we are going to talk." Fang said, being, once again, Mr. Calm, Cool and Collected. Even though we were plummeting to our deaths with BOTH of our wings closed.

"No! I don't want to have this talk! Now would you let go of me already so that we don't go splat?! I would like to live, like I have been trying to do ever since we left the School!" I yelled back, my adrenalin rushing back as I realized that we were only about 300 feet above the ground now.

"Well, I didn't want to have to do this, but," Fang started, then whipped out his wings, carrying us upwards. I let out the giant breath of air that I had been holding and released my death grip on Fang's forearms.

Unfortunately, the motion was not mutual. In fact, Fang tightened his grip on me, showing that he had no intention of letting me get out of this situation any time soon. I tried to struggle, but that didn't work out that well, seeing as Fang was a rebelling Itex experiment, and when you were a rebelling Itex experiment, you ended up gaining some muscle from fighting Erasers and all the other things that Itex tried to throw at you.

It was really too bad for me that Fang happened to be the one who fought the most ruthlessly alongside me, meaning that he had a lot of muscle packed onto his frame.

Joy. I think that the fates are against me today.

I struggled hopelessly for a few more moments in Fang's arms, and then quit. "I hate you. I really, really hate you," I muttered out loud, and the extra squeeze that Fang gave me showed me that he had heard me.

After a few minutes of only hearing the wind whistling by us and Fang's steady wing beats, I spoke up again. "So, where exactly are we going?"

"Somewhere where you can't run away from me like all the other times," Fang said, and I could hear the slight annoyance that came into his voice. Oh, this definitely won't end well.

I shut my mouth after that, and just focused on the scenery below us.

It was about 30 seconds later that I realized just what kind of a situation I was in. And that was when Fang's arms seemed to start burning my skin where they touched it.

Oh jeezus. This is Fang and me and he's holding me against him in the air andWHOAA. -brain reboots- Since when did he have such a defined six pack digging into my back? Oh, insert wear word of your choice, this is not good.

Sometimes, I think that Fate likes to put me in horrible situations and see what I'll do and how far I'll go to get out of them.

After I had successfully frozen for about five minutes, Fang started his decline to the ground. I refocused my eyes to find that we were going towards some mountains….

Where no one could hear me screaming….

And no one would be able to ever find the remains of my body after this talk had killed me and Fang had left….

Oh, for the love of Angel, I'm going to be sick.

Suddenly, Fang landed smoothly in the cave's mouth, and I couldn't help but wonder how he had managed to land so smoothly without having jostled me at all. Stupid amazingly graceful bird boy.

As soon as he had properly touched down, I practically leapt out of his grasp and to the other end of the cave.

"Ok, Max, we are going to discuss your habit of running away and avoiding me immediately after we kiss," Fang said bluntly, his eyes flashing slightly as he turned towards me, facing away from the cave mouth.

I was ready to answer him, but then I realized that with him facing away from the cave opening and with the light framing him like that, Fang sort of looked a little bit like an ange—

Maximum, stop that train of thought. You know what? Just stop thinking before your brain explodes.

I shook my head to clear away that thought, and then answered Fang. "I do not avoid you. I just… think of you as being a little bit like the plague which I do not want to catch," I trailed off, almost predicting what Fang was going to say next.

As if on cue, Fang sighed. "Yeah, because that doesn't qualify as avoiding at all. Max, you're good at running from things, but that doesn't mean that I'm going away. We need to talk about this."

"And I don't want to talk about it, Fang. It's awkward and tense! I hate tha—"

"Yes, I know that it's tense and awkward. And I know that you hate feeling anything after what happened with Jeb, but we need to make it un-tense. And you need to stop running from this like a coward," Fang shot down my sentence, and then his last point struck a nerve.

"I am not a coward! I just don't want to kiss you. Jeez, you would think you would have gotten that by now!" I yelled back at him, taking a step forward.

Fang wasn't about to take me yelling sitting down. "Max, I want to know why you don't like me kissing you! It's not going to stop being tense and awkward until you let me in!" During his speech, he had managed to close about half the space between us.

"You're supposed to be the one thing that doesn't change! You're my rock, my best friend!! You never used to kiss me, so you shouldn't start trying to now!! It doesn't work like that!" I screamed at him, and my voice echoed off the walls for a few silent moments.

Fang seemed to really think about this, and then he took another step closer, now with a certain glint in his eyes. "So, I should go back to the way I was?"

"Yes, you should," I said, this talk having taken almost everything out of me. I could feel a migraine coming on slowly.

He nodded to himself, and then turned around. "Okay."

I straightened up, my eyebrows furrowing. "What?"

He shot out his wings again, preparing to take off. "I'll go back to the way that things were before all of this happened."

I was in shock, and barely managed to get out an "Oh," before Fang took off. You would think that this would have made the headache go away.

Oh, Maximum. You have no idea what you just did, do you?

Umm, no. But things won't be awkward anymore, right? So everything's fine.

I could have sworn that I heard the Voice sigh again as I took off after Fang. You'll see, Max. In due time.

Ok, so you know the drill. And that does not leave anything open to interpretation. REVIEW!! Multiple times if you want to. Or I wont finish this. Ever.

And now, I must to set up Band Hero downstairs again. Although we still can't find the flipping drumsticks for the guitar!! DREAK IT!!

I'm all right. No need to call the asylum. I am not who they are looking for. It's all good. NOW REVIEW, MY MINIONS!!! HA HA HA HA HA!! -coughs- Ok, I'm done.

Peace, love, and:-

My history teacher: I could steal your nachos if I wanted to!!

Me: No. That wouldn't work. I am nacho queen. My guards would get you before you could even reach out with one finger. So I win.

a.k.a. Skittles31