It Must Be Nice Up Above The Lights (And What A Lovely Life That I Made) Day 1 - Max, Fang, and Iggy #maxridehcpromptweek
content warnings: canon-level gore, body horror, canon-level child abuse, and neglect
title cred: self care by mac miller
Max doesn’t know what the fuck to do. She’s only eight, and for all of her life, she’s lived in a dog cage. For all of her life, it’s been the three of them. Maximum. Fang. Iggy. The Flock. She’s always been the oldest and Jeb, the nicest Whitecoat, tells her that means she’s the leader. She has to take care of her flock-mates. She has to protect them.
How is she supposed to take care of two more eight-year-olds? They’re all the same age, for God’s sake. She kicks at her dog cage and crosses her sore arms. Jeb would be mad if he saw her letting her anger show, but he’s not here right now. She’s lucky they haven’t figured out a way to tap into her mind, otherwise, she’d receive punishments for thinking things like fuck and dog cage. They don’t like it when she curses, or when one of the Flock verbalizes that they’re being mistreated.
She doesn’t know a lot, but she knows that kids aren’t supposed to grow up in cages. (Max supposes kids aren’t supposed to have fucking wings, either, but this is how she was born and she can’t exactly help that.) She kicks the side of the crate again, and Fang whistles at her. “Stop.” He says. Max sneers and bares her teeth at him, but they both know she’s only worried. Fang doesn’t say anymore, pushing further into the corner of his cage and wrapping his dark wings around his skinny body. He’d only come back from the Races a few hours ago and Max feels bad. She turns away from him and looks at Iggy’s empty cage.
When Fang had come back, they’d taken Iggy. He’s the youngest, the one that Max has to protect the most. He’s the most successful experiment out of all of them - the first with any working night vision. Max and Fang can see well enough in the dark, but Iggy tells them that being out at night is like walking through the afternoon sun, for him. She thinks that’s what the Whitecoats took him to explore because they had been talking about it in low tones during her Inspection earlier in the day.
Her lower lip wobbles. There’s a flurry of feathers as her wings twitch, wrapping protectively around her body. Inside of her own wings, it’s warm and safe. Max can pretend that she’s somewhere else. She fantasizes about living with her Flock somewhere like in those houses they show her while they scan her brain. Somewhere in the country, with horses and cows and rolling fields that she can fly over. Max is only eight. She believes that one day it might happen. She peeks over her wings when the door opens, but it’s just a Whitecoat rolling in another failed experiment. This one is sickly green with too many arms and not enough eyes. It’s breathing through a mouth that is morphed and nearly fully on the thing’s throat.
Max clenches her teeth and turns back to Fang’s cage. Their eyes catch and his mouth pulls down. He doesn’t say much anymore. She knows it’s because he’s not used to the hardware being off of his face, and that his jaw still aches when he talks too much, but Max wishes that he would go back to the old Fang. The one that had a snarled remark before every test, the one that would whisper to her when she woke up crying, the one that would tell stupid jokes with Iggy when he came back from a grueling Race. She knows that Fang is gone. They’d kept him locked in a sensory deprivation helmet for nearly three months, and she can’t imagine what that would be like. Hell, probably.
Although, Max thinks that they’re probably already in Hell, especially when the Whitecoats wheel Iggy back in. She pushes to the front of her cage, and so does Fang. Max sees Iggy’s feathers, first. They had always been so pretty, such a light color that was once described by a Whitecoat as a “warm, off white.” Now, as he’s wheeled in on a flat dolly, they’re red. There’s so much red that it makes Max’s throat catch. She can’t say anything, can’t say his name. If the Whitecoats know they’ve given each other names they’ll be separated. She can’t reach for him, because then she’ll get a kick.
Max can only watch as Iggy, covered in blood and gasping for breath, is dumped into the cage next to her. He has bandages over his eyes, but the blood is already peeking through them. His gown is covered, too. There are scratch marks on his neck and his arms. They look like he had clawed at himself like the Whitecoats had done something so awful to him he couldn’t do anything but claw and scratch and hope.
Max doesn’t know what the fuck to do. She’s only eight, and for all of her life, she’s been told she’s supposed to protect her Flock. The fear inside of her reaches a fever pitch and boils over into anger. Suddenly she’s screaming profanities, rocking her cage as she launches herself around it, doing her best to escape. Max pushes off from the back and crashes into the door shoulder first, and it breaks open. She clips her wings on the top of the door on the way out, but she’s free.
Max pushes herself to her feet and faces the six stunned Whitecoats. One of them calls a Code Red, but she’s already launched herself onto the closest person wearing a white coat. She’s screaming, but it doesn’t reach her own ears. Max smashes her fist into the scientist’s face again and again and again - she doesn’t stop until Jeb bursts into the room and hauls her off. Max knows she’s stronger than him, but he’s nice and he makes her hot chocolate and he lets the Flock out to groom each other’s feathers and- and- and-
Max is crying when Jeb wraps her up in her wings and cradles her. Fat tears are rolling down her face and she’s sobbing as he orders the rest of the scientists out of the room - even the one that’s groaning on the floor and bleeding everywhere. “I’ll take care of this.” He says.
This, Max thinks through the haze in her head, I’m not an It to him. I’m a this. That’s better. He would make a nice Dad.
Jeb lets Fang out of his cage, and he rushes to Iggy’s side. He gently pulls Iggy out and they curl up in front of the dog cage where Jeb sits down next to him. When Max realizes how close she is to Iggy and Fang, the people she’s supposed to protect, she clambers from his arms and sets her tiny, chubby hands on the side of Iggy’s face. There’s blood everywhere and the only clear spots are the tear tracks.
She whimpers and Jeb scratches the place on her back where skin meets feather. “Iggy,” Her voice cracks and he turns his head toward the sound, “What happened?”
“I was awake,” He babbles, “I was awake and I saw it until I didn’t, and now I can’t see and there was so much blood and I’m blind-” Iggy’s voice breaks again and he starts sobbing. Max and Fang instinctively curl around him, playing parents even though they’re the same age.
Max doesn’t know what the fuck to do. She’s only eight, and for all of her life, she’s lived in a dog cage. For all of her life, it’s been the three of them. Maximum. Fang. Iggy. The Flock. She’s always been the oldest and Jeb, the nicest Whitecoat, tells her that means she’s the leader. She has to take care of her flock-mates. She has to protect them. How is she supposed to protect them if she can’t even protect Iggy from being blinded? How is he supposed to fly? How is he supposed to run the Races?
How is he supposed to come with them when they figure out how to escape?
