A/N: Yes, this IS EllaxIggy. No, the summary was not a mis-print. I wanted to see if I could do it. Besides, this wouldn't work for NudgexIggy, and I just really wanted to do a story in which the backdrop was a closet. I'm sure you can relate.

Closet Confessions

"Shh!" he whispered, grabbing me by the shoulder and pulling me into the closet.

Um. Wow.

I had actually pictured Iggy's and my first conversation in which we would divulge our innermost emotions and desires. But I'd never imagined we'd first connect in a closet with hangers digging into our skin and a game of Scrabble tumbling down on our heads.

That would come later.

But now?

My cheeks flamed, and I instinctively put a hand over my face to hide in shame even though present company was blind and the closet was dark. The only source of light snuck in through the slight crack of the doorway. It shined on Iggy revealing his eager and mischievous smile as he cocked his ear toward the doorway.

"Shh!" he said again, but more out of his own amusement, caught up in the adrenaline of this game he was playing, than trying to make me quiet. I was speechless anyway. Aphonic, I stared up at Iggy, one of the amazing, beautiful angels who'd landed disregarding all normalcy, and shattered the mundane glass that had once trapped me in a sheltered box. My gaze traced him, taking in his completely surreal form. Again I hiccuped a breath not fully believing that this angel (although they preferred the term "mutant freaks", I couldn't think of them as anything but angels) was actually a few inches away from me. His lips quirked to one side in devious amusement. His eyes, though without sight, weren't dull in any way, and shone brightly with a child's playfulness. A playfulness that certainly hadn't been there in the first few days of staying at my house. They'd all been so heavily guarded on themselves, and any attempts my mother made to break down the barrier could only be slightly bent by Max's encouragement. But now, Iggy had opened up much more showing more sides to himself. Sides that I couldn't help finding… slightly… attractive.

Iggy pulled away from the door and took a seat next to me, brushing past the crap on our closet floor to make a comfortable seat for himself. His mouth dipped a little with disappointment.

"Hmm…" he said to himself more than to me. "She followed him."

I blinked, trying to understand the situation. When it became clear that I wasn't going to be able to put Ella, Iggy and Closet together and come up with something rational by myself, I opened my mouth.

Of course, faced with this fair angel I couldn't sound like anything more than an idiot lest I not completely give away how I felt about him.

"Um… er… Iggy?" It felt weird to say his name. It differed so much from the names that I usually dealt with, Tim, Dave, Matt, that it felt foreign on my tongue. One more huge difference between me and my angels landed. "Um, why did you pull me into the closet?"

Iggy cocked his head to the right before turning in my direction. His face pulled out of disappointment and he started to grin again.

"Max is going to kill me," Iggy stated, as though that cleared everything up.

I nodded, pretending I understood exactly what he was talking about, but apparently those sightless eyes saw right through me as he went, "Gazzy and I blew up something special of hers, and so she decided to chase us, shaking her fist in animosity and wailing threats to kill us. When Max is involved, you know it's no exaggeration, and so I ran. I just happened to run down the hall in which you were standing, and figuring you would give me away if I left you out here, I pulled you into the closet."

As though this was perfectly normal. As though his heart weren't pounding nervously. Though, it probably wasn't. I suddenly realized that the metronome thunder was my heart.

"I wouldn't have given you away," I mumbled dumbly.

Iggy nodded, not bothering to listen for the hidden semantics of that sentence, instead dipping his head toward the door. He smiled contently.

"She's real mad. Listen," he said to me, and he motioned his hands toward the door.

I stared stupidly at Iggy for five seconds before pressing my ear on the closet door and closing my eyes and listening. Then I heard. Not that I needed to close my eyes to hear her; Max's shrieks were loud and demanded the attention of ear drums from here to Beijing.

"I'm coming for you, Iggy!" she called from across the house.

I backed away from the door and drew my knees into myself, studying Iggy.

"What'd you blow up?"

"A present of Fang's. I 'spect he'll be real mad at us when he finds out, but luckily he's at a soccer game."

"Do you enjoy torturing Max?"

"It's what I do."

And he said it so nonchalantly that I had to smile. As though, not being enrolled in school or employed in a job, he dubbed his purpose as spending his time creating plans and devising schemes to drive Max crazy.

"You don't think that maybe... I dunno, added to saving the world, you destroying her coveted items might... maybe, make things worse?"

Iggy paused, and his smile dropped, but not into a frown. His face registered into a thoughtful expression as he backed from the door, and leaned on the side of the closet. He was still mute as he reached behind him and cleared the stray hangers and board games. So silent for so long that I hastened to break the silence, embarrassed that I'd started talking about something that I didn't understand.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I just--"

"I don't think I'm making it worse."

And again I stared. "Oh. Um. That's not what I--"

"In fact, I think I'm making it better."

"Right, I'm sure you are, I never meant to say--"

"Will you shut-up?" Iggy said, but with a small smile. I amused him. "What I'm saying is-- you're right. Max has a lot on her mind right now, and Gazzy and I help to relieve some of that. I mean, her brother just died after spending half his life as a monster—the fate of the world rests on her shoulders—and her stupid best friend keeps pushing his feelings on her. If I can relieve her of some of that pain, and if only for two seconds hear her laugh—even at the thought of eventually torturing me—as long as it's not tinged with the bitterness that it has been—then I'll do whatever."

I looked at Iggy Ride, and suddenly even with this new wave of information, I realized that I knew absolutely nothing. I realized that, although their arrival was the highlight of my otherwise average life, this was only a pit stop for the mutant-angels. There was an entire life to them that I didn't know about-- couldn't know about-- would never know about.

But I felt thoroughly grateful that I could occasionally catch glimpses of it.

To make this moment last longer, I uncharacteristically pushed words out of my mouth. Undoubtedly, they'd turn out stupid so I tried hard not to care, just prolonging our moment. In the closet. Not the most romantic place for a secret rendezvous, but when I recounted it to the girls, I would definitely change the location to someplace worthy of jealousy. Like a yacht. Although if they only saw Iggy, it would be enough to spark at the green embers of their envy. But then I abruptly realized that I didn't want them to see him. And I probably wouldn't tell anybody about this moment either. Not even to embellish it to make it seem like Iggy Ride proposed to me. I kind of just wanted to keep this simple, understated point in time to myself and my pillow.

Hmm.

"So you're holding me hostage?" I asked.

Iggy's grin widened. Apparently playing Kidnap the Human was as much fun as Watch Max's Head Explode. "Sure. I wonder how much you're worth?"

My blush intensified. There's something to be said for having a blind crush: they can't see how utterly stupid you're being. But I covered my face with my hand anyway even though it didn't help the sudden burning under my fingertips.

"Oh—uhm, I dunno, probably not much." Wait—didn't guys admire confidence in a girl? Where's the confidence in saying that you're "probably not worth much"? Ugh, no wonder Iggy never looked twice at me. Such low self-esteem. And the fact that he was blind. Still. "I mean, I guess I'm worth a few dollars… maybe a yo-yo?"

A yo-yo?

Mini-Ella's jaw dropped at Real-Ella's incredible stupidity and lack of cool-ness in any regard, especially in the area of Men. Who compares themselves to a yo-yo? I pointed out to Mini-Ella that a yo-yo is perfectly relevant as there was a yo-yo not an inch away from my toe. Mini-Ella asked me why the hay I was staring at a child's toy when there was a perfectly fine-looking angel not two feet away from me. I mentioned calmly that staring at Iggy for too long made me dizzy and lightheaded in a medically worrisome kind of way. Mini-Ella killed herself.

"A Yo-yo?" Iggy repeated, indicating that he sided with Mini-Ella in this one: I was an idiot. I proceeded to dig my humiliated and shamed face into my hands. I decided that I'd never come out. In fact, I'd never come out of this closet. I would stay in this closet until the end of the world which, if Max decides not to save it, would come pretty soon by Uncle Jeb's estimates. I was already planning how to work in bathroom trips when Iggy said something that made me re-think my cave-dwelling plans.

"A pretty high quality yo-yo, I'd say…"

If any other guy compared any other girl to a yo-yo, even a high quality yo-yo, I doubt that the girl would think it was a compliment. Really, it would possibly be construed as a down-grade as most people associate yo-yo's with two minutes of fun before you become frustrated and give up.

However this was Iggy; he could've compared me to G.I. Joe and my stomach would've emerged from its cocoon, sprouted butterflies, and progress to flying up my throat where it would get stuck and keep me from saying anything besides the various filler words: "Er… uhm… erm… uh… yea…"

But by this time, Iggy's attention had averted from me and my stammers, and his ear was pressed to the door. Seconds later, Max's shrieks followed, and his mischievous grin sprouted, and I knew that our Moment-In-The-Closet was over. I knew that maybe we'd never connect like this again, or maybe we would, but that all seemed okay because he called me a yo-yo.

Max's screams drew closer and Iggy quickly stood up. "See ya," he called as he wrenched open the door, bolted from the closet and began running down the hall.

The sane thing to do, the thing that my Mini-Ella conscience would advise me to do, would be to exit the closet and go about my life as though nothing had ever happened because realistically nothing of importance would come from our coincidental meeting. But Mini Ella was dead, and I had no sane figment of my imagination to tell me what was "right". Thus, I got to indulge in my purely improbable fantasies without the constant nag of reality.

I closed the closet door, settled myself comfortably in the sea of coats, hangers and board games, and grabbed the toy yo-yo from off the floor. I breathed in the smell of my angel; yes mine, even if he didn't know he was mine, even if he just thought that I was this chick with low-self esteem who happened to be good for a conversation in a coat closet.

That's when I realized, in the dark, the closet door having shut-off all entryways for reality's cruel daggers, that maybe there was hope for Iggy and me. Maybe something would come of this.

After all, he said I was a yo-yo.

Could this be love?

A/N: So... did I do well? As my first EllaxIggy that's not one-sided and doesn't leave Ella in tears and close to cutting-stage?