Dance Dance Revolution by Phoenix Fanatic

A/N- This is why people say I'm insane. Rated T for swearing, but it's nothing that you wouldn't hear in a school day.

This is one of those stories that's meant for pure fun. Fluff for the win!

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it's not mine. I don't want to be sued by creepy men in suits today.

I should have noticed it before this whole mess occurred.

Each night I go to sleep thinking if I could have done something –anything!- different. Nobody ever knows what they'll get in the morning, now. Could this be their last day of sanity? It was a question that was never answered.

The first time I noticed it was when Fang was in the kitchen, humming some up-beat song.

Woah.

Wait a minute.

This is Fang. Humming? An up-beat song? I don't think I'm alone in the world when I say that I expect Fang to listen to dark goth music about people killing themselves.

So naturally I was afraid.

Very, very afraid.

"Fang?" I asked cautiously, afraid he would explode or something. I didn't want Fang-guts all over Mom's floor. She was letting the Flock stay here for a while, until we figured out where to go.

"Yeah, Max?"

He smiled.

DEAR GOD.

This wasn't Fang. Sure, Fang smiled and all, but never at nine o'clock in the morning. Normally he resembled a zombie or some other half-dead monster.

"What song is that?" I tried to keep the tone of my voice level.

He shrugged as he chugged back a glass of milk. "Not sure. I was downloading songs yesterday, and that one really stood out."

"Ah. Of course." I wanted to pursue the matter, to see if he was an Eraser in disguise or something, but Iggy plodded into the kitchen and started asking Fang if he knew where he could get some sort of illegal explosives from. Apparently he'd run out of his supply last night.

I sighed, and forgot all about the experience until a week later when the Flock was extremely, extremely bored. And as I know now, from boredom stems lunacy. Fang was disappearing off to his room more and more often, only appearing to us when food was in the proximity. However, when he did appear, he seemed different.

More…perky, for lack of better term.

It would have been a nice change, if it had happened over a longer period of time. But within a week, sullen, dark, suave Fang was now smiling, more cheerful, and the scariest of all, wearing colors other than black.

I mean, it was only dark blue, but when he came down the stairs that fateful day, he gave the rest of the Flock an aneurysm.

"F-Fang," Nudge stuttered, "is that dark blue?"

"Yup," he said, jumping the last two steps. He grabbed an apple on the counter and bit into it. "Why?"

"Because I think the Apocalypse is about to occur," I drawled. "Three…two…one…ow!"

He had punched me.

And then, a week later, my life was forever changed.

The Flock, sans Fang, who was off doing his own thing, was chilling out and watching TV when Mom ran into the room. She shoved two twenty dollar bills into my hand.

"Go out to the movies or something," she said hurriedly, attempting to tie her hair back with one hand (it wasn't working). "I just got an emergency call from Mr. Leroy Jenkins down the road; one of his cows has gone into labor but he wants me to be there in case it's a breech birth. Be back by eleven, try not to blow anything up, and have fun!"

And with that, she was gone.

I looked at my hand. Forty dollars gleamed back at me.

Sweet.

It's not every day forty dollars is thrown at you. I looked up at the Flock, who were all looking hungrily at the money in my hand.

"Wow," Iggy drawled. "That was fricking epic."

I nodded. "Let's get Fang, and then we're out of here!"

We set off at six thirty, opting to take public transport downtown instead of flying. With Erasers finding more and more devious disguises, I could tell the whole Flock was uncomfortable being around so many people on the bus. Our windbreakers, covering our wings as usual, were gathering suspicious looks.

"What are you looking at?" Nudge was glaring at a girl probably the same age as her, innocently licking an ice cream cone.

I sighed, not bothering to tell her off. Who knew, Erasers could be disguised as ice-cream-eating eleven-year-olds now.

We got off at the stop directly in front of the movie theatre. It had an old-fashioned marquee at the top, displaying the names of the movies.

"So what do you guys want to see?" I asked.

"High School Musical!"

"Beverly Hills Chihuahua!"

"Madagascar!"

"Eagle Eye!"

"Zack and Miri Make a Porno!"

Dead silence.

And then I asked: "Fang, what the hell is wrong with you?"

He grinned devilishly. "Just kidding Max. Yup, totally kidding. One hundred percent kidding, actually." His voice was dripping sarcasm over me.

I decided to rule Fang out of my head for a moment. "Well, there's no way I can see Zac Efron shaking his hips. Sorry, Nudge."

Before she could complain, Fang added in, "You know, Zac Efron doesn't even have hips."

You know, this conversation was just adding up in the awkward points category.

"Oh really?" Angel said, drawing herself up to her full height (which was up to about Fang's waist).

"I mean, he's like a robot or something. His hips are so static it's like they're superglued in place or something. He hasn't fully unlocked them."

Before there could be another weird silence, I said, "Well then, Fang, can you show us how males are supposed to properly move their hips? Without being viewed as a dork, idiot, and/or fool?"

I honestly thought I'd trapped him, but he didn't look phased at all by my challenge. In fact, he looked pleased.

We walked into the theatre, Fang having a smug look on his face. In the main lobby there was the box office to our right, an arcade to our left and in front of us was the concession stand. It was pretty busy, seeing as it was a Friday afternoon. I glanced over at Fang to see what he was doing, and at that moment I realized I had made a horrible, horrible mistake.

His eyes were glued to the arcade. Specifically, to one of the bigger and scarier looking games.

It was a Dance Dance Revolution machine.

It's one of those games where there's a platform where two people dance and try to step on the correct arrows that match the arrows on the screen. I had seen a few of those "child prodigy" videos on YouTube that made it look like a snap, but it was actually hard, and nine times out of ten the dancers looked stupid dancing up there. There were two teenage girls on it, giggling as they missed most of the steps.

"No, Fang," I said slowly, stepping between him and the game. "Just…no."

"Oh come on, Max, you asked how a guy can shake his hips without looking horrible and feminine. So here I am. It's a challenge!"

I looked back at the rest of the Flock, who looked as if Fang had just announced he was going to convert and become a nun in Siberia. "I've got to see this," Nudge said. I gave her one of the twenties, and she exchanged it for the arcade coins. She spent five on the coins, and gave me fifteen back in change.

I gave Fang the coins. "This is such a Kodak moment," I said.

He smiled and happily accepted the coins. Once the two teenage girls got off the platform, he hopped on and put in two of the coins.

"Welcome to Dance Dance REVOLUTION!" A perky male voice said. The screen lit up and listed a whole bunch of possible songs. Fang quickly navigated the menu and picked a song.

"How do you know how to work it…?" Gazzy asked. Fang didn't say anything.

I twitched.

Dear God, this was going to end badly.

Fang started to tap his toes as the beginning of an incredibly fast techno song started to blare. I saw his eyes light up as the first arrows appeared on the screen.

And then Fang blew my mind.

He was fricking perfect. Every step, every jump, was perfectly coordinated with the arrows and the beat.

But the thing was he didn't just hit the steps, but he also modified it into an actual dance. Whenever there was a pause he managed to do a spin or a twist. Occasionally he leaned on the back railing and did some mad footwork.

And then came the hips.

Hot damn, he was good, too.

Fang put his hands up in the air and swayed his hips with every beat in a very entrancing way. Suddenly there were screams from all around.

He was gathering a crowd! I hadn't even noticed. It was if every girl in Arizona was watching that waist of his. Fang caught my eyes for a brief moment as he did the dance…while facing backwards. He had memorized the dance! But…how? He grinned, then unzipped his windbreaker and undid his button-down shirt.

"Holy CRAP!" I heard myself saying. Sure, I had seen Fang with his shirt off, but now it was all sweaty and glistening and smooth…I shivered. Luckily he was still wearing the windbreaker on his shoulders, so his wings were perfectly hidden.

The girls in the crowd were starting to get creepy as they edged closer and closer to the platform. "Marry me!" one of them shouted, while yells of "Back off, bitches, he's mine!" echoed through the crowd as well.

The Flock stared at Fang in a mixture of horror and extreme amusement. Camera flashes went off. "I would kill to see this right now," Iggy mumbled, smiling slightly.

Finally the song ended. Cries of despair rose from the crowd as Fang did up his shirt and windbreaker again, and he ignored the shouts of "Encore!" and "AGAIN!"

He jumped down from the platform and landed in front of me. "That was fun," he said.

"That was an understatement," I said, licking my lips.

The crowd surged towards us as numerous girls tried to tackle Fang and eat him for dinner or something. The Flock attempted to push them back, but it wasn't working. "Do you have a girlfriend?" one of them shouted above the rest.

Fang realized the craziness of the situation. If he said no, he would never get out of here. He would drown in phone numbers and emails. Out of no other choice, he yelled, "Yeah, I do have a girlfriend!"

The crowd stopped pressing, and they even backed off a bit. "Really?" came a quiet voice.

"Yeah!" Fang said, this time more confident.

And then, before all of the crazy man-eaters, Fang dipped me in his arms and kissed me senseless. Naturally, I was more than a little stunned, but hey, how could I say no? This was one of those holy-crap-thanks-for-just-ruining-any-chance-of-me-getting-a-good-kiss-after-this-one kisses. I threw my hands up into his hair. Heck, I might as well play the part.

For a fraction of a second, no one spoke. Then, from the crowd: "You WHORE!"

Fang brought me back to my feet. "We should get out of here," he whispered into my ear.

I caught the Flock's attention with a yell of "Away!" Normally that meant we'd break open our wings and do a daring escape into the sky, but unfortunately for us, the movie theatre had no convenient skylight. Instead, the six of us sprinted to the doors.

A few of the more stalker-ish girls ran after us. We ran through the doors and booked it down the road. The crowd on the street grumbled as we pushed our way past. Fang, who was leading, shouted back to us, "Left!"

There was an alleyway to our left that we all ducked into. Moments later, screaming fangirls (what else could I call them?) went past the alley, not bothering to look down it. Fang let out a sigh of relief.

"That's what you get for shaking your hips!" I said, not sure if I was sarcastic or not.

Fang took a deep breath and sat down in the dirty alley. It looked as if we were in a side road between two bars. The sun was just beginning to set. "That was wicked, Fang!" Nudge said.

"How did you know the steps so well?" The Gasman asked.

"Well," he said, "I memorized the dance from guides on the Internet, actually. That's what I've been doing recently. I was just really bored. I never knew it would get such a …reaction."

"Oh, come on," I said. "You're a good-looking guy who undid his shirt and then just steamed it up playing a game to techno music. Of course it would get a reaction!"

"Did you just call me good-looking?"

Oh. Whoops. Hadn't meant to say that.

I grabbed him by the arms and hoisted him to his feet. "Come on," I said. "There's another theatre a few blocks from here. We can catch a movie there."

The Flock all agreed to that plan, since we could hardly go back to the house early with thirty-five dollars that was still available for us to spend. On the walk there we passed by a few disappointed-looking girls. Whenever we saw one of them we ducked our heads down and didn't make eye contact. We got to the theatre, which was smaller and a bit more modern looking. Stepping into the lobby, I groaned.

There was a Dance Dance Revolution machine in the arcade with no one on it. Music blared from the speakers.

I looked at Fang. "No," I said clearly.

"Oh, come on, Max," he said, grabbing my hand. "And this time, I won't be up there alone."

"And who is your victim that's going up there with you?"

Fang grinned. "You. If you're going to be my 'girlfriend', you're going to have to know how to shake your hips. And it would be pathetic if I was a better dancer than you. "

Iggy, Nudge, Gazzy and Angel all sighed, knowing what was going to happen. "We're off to actually see a movie," Iggy said, neatly taking a twenty from me. "You two have fun."

I waved bye to the rest of the Flock, and I turned back to Fang. "Are you saying I can't shake my hips?"

"Exactly."

"Well, my dear Fang, I most certainly can shake my hips. And I don't care how long I have to dance on that stupid machine, but believe me, I'll prove it to you…"

And I did.

A/N- Dance Dance Revolution is amazing. And some of those videos on YouTube really are insane.

Reviews are loved!