Chapter 1: dig past my bones
Chapter Text
Don’t kill me
Just help me run away from everyone
I need a place to stay
Where I can cover up my face
Don’t cry
I am just a freak
- Freaks, Surf Curse
“This is dumb,” Tommy whines, folding his blanket. He hated making his bed, but he had to, daily, or else his TV privileges were taken away. He lays the blanket on the edge of the bed, tucking the sheet corners in.
“It’s bullshit,” Purpled declares, yanking at his pillow case. He was scowling down at the gray sheets, gripping the uniform fabric with a bit more force than necessary. “I don’t want to go- go talk about my feelings.”
Tommy nods emphatically, even though the other blond boy can’t see from where he’s standing. They share a bunk bed in the small room, five bunks crammed along the walls. Tommy and Purpled had the unfortunate luck of the center bunk, surrounded by other boys on all sides. Many were still asleep—the non-hybrids.
Tommy folds the corners of his sheets under his thin mattress and grabs his wrap from the bag shoved between the bed and the wall. He pins one end with the bed frame and pulls the wrap across his torso, spinning until his rumpled wings are held against his back. It doesn’t hurt anymore. He tucks the end of the wrap under the start and pulls a shirt over it.
“Help me?” Purpled mutters, even though this has been their routine for over a year, ever since Tommy moved in at barely 12 years old. Tommy wraps his wings—avian wings, a muddy yellow color—and then helps Purpled get his own moth wings through the slits in the back of his shirt; Tommy’s wings could fold but Purpled’s couldn’t without wrinkling the delicate material. Still, Tommy nods as he moves over to gently pull a corner of one wing through the slit. Purpled grumbles against the uncomfortable bend, but Tommy moves swiftly to pull the top corner to follow it and it flutters against Tommy’s chest. He does the same to the other wing and Purpled sighs, grinning at Tommy as he turns back around.
“Could’ve done it myself,” Purpled mumbles. They both know he couldn’t. “We’ll be late, come on.”
Purpled and Tommy leave their shared room without much other thought. They’d been living in the children’s home together for just under two years, when Tommy was transferred from his former home to the one they live in now, Warm Heart Care Home. It was an unfitting name.
They walk down the stone steps in sync, shoulders brushing as they make their way to the chapel. The care home had instituted a new support group for hybrids—except, unlike the ones they’d had for non-hybrids, these were mandatory and separated by general traits.
The chapel is small, but when Purpled and Tommy push their way inside, barely anyone is in there anyways. One of the psychologists for the home rushes up to them, a clipboard in her hands and her frizzy hair loose rather than in her usual ponytail. “Tommy? Tommy.. Uhm… oh, yes! You’re in the avian group,” Puffy tells him. He doesn’t move.
“What about Purpled?” Tommy scowls.
“Oh, right,” Puffy remarks. “Purpled is in the… insect group!”
They pause, Purpled’s expression falling into a glare. “What about just a winged category!?” Tommy sputters.
“Sorry,” Puffy says, wincing. Tommy doesn’t think she’s very sorry. “It’s too late to change it now.”
Purpled’s fists are clenched at his sides and, despite Tommy’s inclination to get into trouble, Purpled did not need to have a disciplinary infraction this week. He shoulders the moth hybrid roughly and Purpled spins to face him, glaring in that terrifying way only Purpled seemed to be able to do. He’s diverted his rage, at least. Tommy nods towards the chalkboard with “INSECTS” written on it and an arrow.
“I’ll talk to you after,” Tommy says.
“Fuck you,” Purpled huffs, but spins on his heel and stalks to the relatively small group, with only four orphans total. Puffy turns to him, smiling gratefully, and Tommy screws his face into a scowl.
“Fuck off,” Tommy hisses, stomping away from the too-cheerful woman. He quickly regrets this choice, however, when he realizes that his group of avians was actually only one—Wilbur Soot.
Soot had been at the children’s home longer than most. No one really knew how he ended up at Warm Heart, but whether he was an orphan or abandoned, he was far gloomier than anyone knew what to do with. He was quiet until he wasn’t, reserved until he was manic. He hid in his room and when he came out he cut the line for lunch, glaring at any who tried to stop him with clenched fists and a broad stance. He left his wings out, muddied blue feathers that lined up with each other. Tommy held only envy for his wings’ state, but he heard other hybrids calling them dirty. He fears what they’d say about his.
Tommy continues his trek to Soot under the paper with “AVIANS” sprawled across it in messy handwriting, if only to avoid Puffy forcing him to join the older bird hybrid after his show of animosity towards the woman. It doesn’t take long and Tommy stops a few feet away from Soot, crossing his arms and glowering at the teen. Apathetic brown eyes stare back, blue feathers shuffling. Tommy’s wings strain against his wrap in an effort to copy the motion.
Tommy hesitates. Maybe he could befriend Soot… and then everyone would leave him alone because everyone was a bit scared of Soot. No one would bother him! Tommy nods at Soot, something he’d seen the cooler-looking boys do around town. Soot stares at him, nose scrunching up, so Tommy sticks his tongue out, but that was too far, apparently; Soot’s face screws up into a grimace and he looks away from Tommy as one of the care home staff approaches the pair. It isn’t Puffy, thank Prime.
“Tommy and Wilbur, right?” the worker asks, checking her watch absentmindedly. Wilbur doesn’t respond, so Tommy doesn’t, either. “Right. Well, as the only two avians at Warm Heart, your support group will be more of a pair. Not every meeting will be supervised, but for now, why don’t you two take a seat?”
The only seats near them are the pews that they stand beside. Tommy perches on the end of one, sitting sideways, and Soot doesn’t move but to cross his arms. The young woman huffs. “To start out, I thought we could do some breathing exercises. Both of you exhibit some anger issues, so we’ll just be working on some grounding exercises today, how about that?”
“That’s stupid,” Tommy spits.
The woman turns to him. “This is a start. Can you pinpoint why you feel that way?”
“...because this is stupid,” Tommy repeats, eyebrows scrunched. Was she an idiot?
“What about this group makes you feel that way? Is it the people, the setting?”
Tommy stares, preposterous. “It’s just you, to be honest. Your face is irritating.” Beside him, Soot huffs, and heat rises to the back of his neck.
The woman flushes, scoffing. Her nice-calm-adult act didn’t last long, Tommy notes. Purpled would’ve been glad it had dropped. Tommy was just mad that she couldn’t even keep it up. “How about you, Wilbur? How are you feeling?”
“Scared,” Soot pouts, eyes shining as he sticks his bottom lip out. “If only we could go out to town, maybe I’d be more comfy.” It’s obviously a mockery, and Tommy snorts. Still, the woman nods sympathetically and checks her watch again.
“I suppose you two can go out to town, but I won’t join you, then.”
Tommy’s potential quips that had been cycling through his head stop suddenly. They could actually leave? He shoots his focus to Soot, who looks similarly confused, but is nodding slowly.
“Yeah. We’re going.” He glances at Tommy.
“You two must stay together. Wilbur, if you two are separated, we will be forced to consider removing you from the home.”
Soot grimaces. “Yeah, yeah,” he mutters, “we’ll stay together. Come on, Innes.”
Tommy’s honestly surprised Soot even knows his last name, but he follows behind the brunet as he strides away from the uptight worker. Soot pushes through the groups without hesitation and Tommy slinks through people behind him, but once they actually leave the home, Tommy turns to ditch him.
He’s stopped with a hand on his shoulder. “Where are you going?”
Tommy dips away from the hand. “Away.”
“We’re meant to stay together.”
Tommy scoffs. “You mean you want to listen to them? Fuck no.”
“I’ll get removed if you get lost.”
“I won’t get lost.”
“You’ll get kidnapped.”
“I won’t get kidnapped!”
“You’re definitely getting kidnapped. I’m coming with you.”
“Fuck off!” Tommy shouts, storming off in the direction of the town center. Steady footsteps trail him, so he spins around again. “Stop following me! I’ll get back to the home in one piece!”
Soot shrugs, annoyingly nonchalant. “I guess I’m just going in the same direction as you, for now. How do I know you aren’t following me?”
“That doesn’t make sense!” he hisses. Maybe if he ignores the older avian, he’ll stop following Tommy out of boredom. He turns to continue walking again.
The town where Warm Heart is lodged has a distinctly different ambience from the home. Where the care home is all dark stone walls and low, cracked ceilings, the town center is full of homes with colorful plaster walls, tiled roofs that sweep over the busy streets, shutters thrown wide and flags streaming in the wind outside narrow windows. Cheerful fingers strum at guitar strings, clapping joining tambourines. Musicians are busking at every corner and while Tommy doesn’t have any money to give, he always stops to listen when he’s allowed into town.
It’s Tommy’s favorite place in the world.
Some people give him hesitant looks, sure—he’s got the hand-me-down clothes and knotted hair of a care home brat, but usually a bright smile clears away the suspicion. The people have plenty of joy; it's hard to keep a smile off his face, anyway.
Tommy glides through the crowds easily, slipping between groups. Ideally, Wilbur loses him in the throng of people, but he knows it’s unlikely. Tommy sticks out like a sore thumb. Still, he threads around people until he reaches his favorite place: Bear’s Café.
Bear’s Café fits in with all the other shops around town, but Tommy liked it for the workers—namely one, Niki.
Niki had been kind since Tommy had first met her when Purpled brought Tommy to the café. She was pleasant to talk with and fit in perfectly with the people of the town, cheery and captivating with her demeanor and words. Tommy looks forward to the rare days they’re allowed into town, even though Purpled and he (given that both of them had earned the trip that month) spent the whole day at Bear’s. It was always a Saturday, and Niki always worked on Saturdays, but now he was in town on a Thursday—he hopes Niki is working.
He slips into the dull blue building, dark wood framing the plaster walls and minimal paintings hung all across the shop. Fairy lights hang in loops around the room, a warm yellow glow cast into the café. Windows are covered with translucent drapes, cascading lights peeking out from behind the thin material.
Behind the counter, a stout blond man with a red t-shirt and denim overalls is wiping down the counter. He’s chatting quietly with a young woman with bleached hair, a bleeded pink dye job streaking through her pin-straight hair. Pale blue eyes flick to the door as it opens with a quiet creak. “Tommy!” she exclaims, a wide smile gracing her face as he enters. Immediately, a weight slips off his shoulders.
“Niki,” he smiles. Behind him, the door is pushed open again.
“You’re slippery,” Soot pants. Tommy scowls.
“You didn’t have to follow me!”
“I did. You would’ve been kidnapped.”
“I would not!” Tommy shrieks, hands waving frantically in the air.
“Tommy, why don’t you come sit down?” Niki interrupts. Soot’s mouth is open as if to make a rebuttal, but his jaw clicks shut when Niki speaks. She guides Tommy to his regular spot at the counter. The blond man has disappeared, now, and there’s few customers at the tables around them. Niki eyes Soot but doesn’t stop him as he follows the two to the counter.
“Do you want your usual? Anything to bring to Purpled? You aren’t usually here on Thursdays,” she notes.
“‘Didn’t bring money,” Tommy sulks. Then, struck with a sudden idea, he jolts up and turns to Wilbur. “You pay!”
“Pardon?”
“You insisted on following me here. The least you could do is pay!”
“I’m not paying for you,” Soot protests.
“Yes, you are. Or else I’ll tell Puffy you left me by myself.”
Soot pauses, then, “you little fucker.” He thumbs out a few bills from a beat-up wallet (where he got the money, Tommy doesn’t know—he hadn’t known Soot left the home, ever). “Get your usual, or whatever.”
Tommy turns a bright smile to Niki, who is clearly struggling to keep from laughing. Either way, she turns to begin making the drink she makes him every time he came in.
“What are you doing in town on a Thursday, Tommy?”
Tommy grimaces. “New home rule. Hybrid support groups. We got told we could leave for ours, since it’s only us two.”
“Ah, well, I suppose it’s nice to get out of the home more than once a month, at least. You two are the only hybrids, though? Purpled’s a moth hybrid.”
“We’re the two avians,” Soot interrupts. Tommy shoots him a glare. “The groups are by types. Innes’ buddy was in the insect group, I’d guess.”
Niki nods at that, finishing Tommy’s drink and sliding it across the counter. “Do you want anything?” She asks Soot politely. He shakes his head with a smile and she pulls a stool out from under the counter to sit across from Tommy. He sips on his drink, grinning at Niki.
“This is great, thanks, Niki.”
“No problem, Tommy. So, how’s school been?”
They chat for a while, catching up with the occasional question shot from or at Soot. The two decide, with Niki as a mediator for when the conversation devolves into colorful swearing at the other, to come to the café each time they’re forced into a meeting. He leaves with a bright smile and a salute for Niki, Soot at his heel.
Purpled is waiting for him when he returns. Tommy leaves Soot to sign them back in, sliding into place at Purpled’s side. Hidden by Tommy’s baggy sweatshirt, he twines his fingers between Purpled’s and they head straight for the yard.
Yellowed grass meets them, a grey wire fence caging the care home boys in their outdoor area. It was more like a prison yard than a courtyard. Tommy leads the two to their spot sat against the fence where a rose garden frames—on the other side, of course. Tommy sits so yellow roses poke through the wiring.
“How was yours?” Tommy whispers, quiet because Purpled was.
“Shit.”
“Okay,” Tommy agrees. Purpled stays silent for a moment and Tommy doesn’t prompt him.
“There’s a butterfly hybrid. Punz.”
“Is that good?”
“I don’t know,” Purpled says, and they leave it at that.
“Soot followed me to Niki’s. I blackmailed him into paying.” Purpled snorts at that, turning dull purple eyes to him.
“You didn’t bring anything for me?”
Tommy shrugs. “Blame Soot.”
-
“It’s weekly,” Soot tells him at dinner one day. Tommy scowls and nods, and the next Thursday, they tell Puffy they’re going to town again and no one stops them. This time, they go straight to Bear’s. Tommy still tries to slip through spots in the crowd that Wilbur doesn’t, but they both end up sitting at the counter with Niki sitting across from them.
“I’m Wilbur, by the way,” Soot tells Niki after Tommy calls him Soot. “Soot’s my last name.”
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Wilbur Soot. I’m Niki,” she says, smiling, and Tommy’s face splits into a grin.
“Nikbur. Wilki. I ship it.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Soot mutters.
“Buy me a pastry,” Tommy cheers. Niki laughs as Wilbur pulls out his wallet.
-
“Why do you only wear that sweatshirt?”
Tommy hums questioningly, pulling away from the napkin he’d been coloring entirely blue with a crayon he found. Glancing down (and then realizing that was stupid of him, he knew what he was wearing, for Prime’s sake), he remembers (again, is he really remembering if he knew?) that he’s wearing his worn red hoodie—the one he wears every day, only washing it once a week on Saturday.
“Your sweatshirt,” Soot repeats, rolling his eyes. “I’ve never seen you in anything else. Why?”
“It’s red, innit?”
“Red?” Soot wrinkles his nose. “Why would you like red?”
“Oy! Red’s a good color!”
“Right,” Soot drawls.
“Well, what is better than red, then?”
“Yellow, obviously.”
Tommy’s voice goes high-pitched in a crude mockery of the care home head, “oh, so you’re a bitch!”
Soot makes a very bird-like noise then. “Liking yellow does not make me a bitch!”
“I bet you want marijuana legalized,” Tommy huffs.
“What does that have to do with the color yellow!?”
“Everything!”
Behind them, Niki’s smiling as she wipes down a table.
-
Niki’s hair is a bright blond when they arrive at the café for their weekly meet up. Soot squints at her. “Are you going to dye it again, or do you just like it bleached?”
Niki opens her mouth to respond, but Tommy beats her to it. “Did you know if you add ammonia to bleach it makes mustard gas?” he grins toothily.
Soot sighs. “How do you know that, Tommy?”
“Bleach is tasty!”
A dumbfounded Wilbur stares back at him.
-
“You know, you two don’t have to come here every week,” Niki says, seated across from Soot. She’s on break.
“Where else would we go?” Tommy asks, as if there aren't a hundred other shops and stalls outside the doors of Bear’s café.
“I don’t know, to get ice cream?”
“Hey,” Soot interrupts. “Why don’t we go get ice cream, and we’ll come back and eat it? Since you’re on your break, Niki?”
Tommy turns excited eyes onto Niki. “Please, please, please?”
She glances at the clock hung above the door to the kitchen, then sighs. “As long as there isn’t much of a line, sure.”
Tommy cheers as the three leave the homely café. He walks between Niki and Wilbur, half-skipping as they head to an ice cream parlor some ways away. The town is as filled as ever; a young girl is giggling so hard she can’t breath somewhere to his left while a scruffy man plays a guitar at a street corner ahead of them. Tommy turns to Soot to ask some random question, but he pauses when he sees the way his eyes are glinting with longing as he watches the man strum with calloused fingers. He looks away abruptly, smiling tightly at Tommy’s curious gaze.
“Here we are,” Wilbur crows, pulling open the door to the ice cream parlor. Tommy leaps inside first, followed by Niki and, lastly, Wilbur. He stops in the entryway, however, when the crisp white lighting hits his eyes. The inside of the shop is a complete shift from outside; the inside all sterile white tiles and minimalistic red accents while outside a stone building with string lights hanging along the awning. Wilbur’s hand brushes over his shoulder as he steps in front of Tommy, comforting, although the older avian doesn’t glance at him; he’s staring adamantly at the front counter.
Tommy follows Wilbur’s lead as they step up to the only worker, a teenaged-looking girl with long brown hair, roses peeking out of her curls. She wears a pink sweater, but the sleeves are pushed up to her elbows and she wore a dark red pleated skirt that poofed out like a ball gown from the 1800s (did they wear ball gowns then? Tommy wasn’t sure).
“I’m Hannah, what can I get started for you?” she asks, voice cheery despite the bags growing under her eyes.
“Could I have a… uh, sorry, I haven’t quite decided,” Wilbur breaks off with a laugh. “Tommy, do you know?”
Tommy flushes at the sudden attention, but orders anyways—a scoop of chocolate chip cookie dough, the only acceptable ice cream flavor. He steps aside as Wilbur orders his own, cake batter (why the hell is there ice cream flavored like cake… just eat a cake), and, finally, Niki asks for mint chocolate chip.
“What?” she asks when she notices Wilbur and Tommy staring at her.
“Why the fuck would you order mint chocolate chip?” Tommy asks, incredulous.
“It’s good!”
“It tastes like toothpaste,” Wilbur scowls.
“It’s minty, that’s all.”
“Yeah, like toothpaste”
“You are eating frozen toothpaste.”
“It’s good, I swear!”
Tommy and Wilbur proceed to make retching noises when Niki is handed her ice cream by Hannah. She sighs heavily, turning and leaving the parlor without another word. Tommy and Wilbur scramble after her, the latter shouting, “thanks!” as they’re halfway out the door.
The walk back to Bear’s is less eventful than before, most of their focus on keeping their ice cream from melting down the sides of their cups. Niki grabs them napkins as soon as she’s back behind the counter, and the three smile and laugh together as they eat their ice cream. A part of Tommy’s head coos at the attention of the two, and he isn’t quite sure if it’s the hybrid instincts or him.
-
Wilbur’s wings are very expressive. A mottled blue, his feathers shift when he’s confused and puff up when he’s excited or scared. His wings stretch and resettle when he’s about to rant about something he’s passionate about. Tommy watches each movement with poorly hidden envy, and, eventually, finds himself asking about the state of them.
“How do you keep your wings so… clean?”
Brown eyes focus in on him. “What do you mean?”
“They’re all… together. How do you get them like that?”
“The feathers?” Wilbur questions, eyebrows furrowing. He glances at his own wings, the ends twitching.
“Yeah,” Tommy breathes, taking note of the way each feather near the end of the wing lines up against each other. Tommy’s feathers folded at awkward angles and the barbs tangled with each other, dirt caking itself in the gaps between feathers.
“Do you… know what preening is?” Wilbur asks, voice shaking slightly. Tommy tilts his head—he doesn’t know the term, but Wilbur’s sudden anxiety is scaring him, a bit.
“No,” Tommy pauses. “Should I?”
Wilbur exhales heavily. “No, no, you wouldn’t, I suppose. It’s—uh, well,” he interrupts himself. “It’s when you move your feathers into place. Manually. It takes practice, but there’s some spots that produce oil along your wings that help you to shift them into place. Do your wings get itchy?”
Tommy has to think about it, but, yeah, his wings are pretty itchy under his shirt. They always are, though; he thought it was one of the things adults said hybrids were disadvantaged by. “Are they not meant to be?”
“No,” Wilbur breathes, eyes closing. “No, they’re meant to feel light.”
Tommy stares down at his drink, sitting on the counter innocently. His wings were meant to feel light? His just felt heavy and itchy and achy. Very suddenly, he feels robbed. Did hybrids who grew up with hybrid parents all know this stuff, then?
Their meeting is mostly quiet after that. Wilbur buys him a pastry without question.
When they get back, Purpled is waiting for him, as has become routine. This time, however, Tommy is still trailing after Wilbur, lost, as he signs the two of them back into the home. Purpled has to approach the two himself and he and Wilbur look at each other: Wilbur hesitant, Purpled suspicious. Still, Purpled wraps an arm around Tommy’s and pulls him away gently to the yard. When they sit at their spot, Tommy’s eyes lock onto the yellow rose beside him.
“Wilbur said my wings aren’t meant to hurt,” Tommy mutters. Purpled’s hand lays between them, open, but he thumbs at the petals of the rose shakily instead of taking it. A thread from his sweater loops around the stem. He moves his hand to try and untangle it. “He said there’s- there’s a way to make them not itch, and he got sad when I said they were heavy.”
It’s quiet, then, “well, who cares what Soot thinks, anyways?” Purpled says. “He probably doesn’t even know what he’s talking about.”
Tommy looks at the moth hybrid now, rose forgotten. He’d thought Purpled would understand—Tommy had been robbed, pain hindering his wings that were meant to be light, but Purpled was saying Wilbur didn’t know what he meant? Purpled thought Wilbur helping him was bad.
Tears spring to Tommy’s eyes. Purpled’s mouth opens slightly, surprised. “Tommy? What did I say? What did Soot do?”
“Fuck off,” Tommy gasps. He wipes at his eyes furiously, pushing himself to his feet. The rose rips from its roots at the fast movement, thread breaking as he stands—too late to save the rose. Purpled follows.
“Wait, what happened?” Purpled’s frantic now, but Tommy doesn’t care. He shoves himself away from the fence and stalks inside. “Wait!” Purpled steps forward, desperate. Below him, his sneaker crumples the remaining beauty of the yellow rose. He doesn’t follow Tommy, though, and the rose buries itself among dried grass to die.
-
Wilbur searches him out in the home. They never hang out outside of their weekly meeting, but as Tommy’s doing his laundry (one of many chores at the home) Wilbur peeks his head around the corner and, spotting Tommy, perks up and walks over to him.
“Hi?” Tommy says, eyebrows furrowed. Wilbur’s rocking back and forth on his heels but his fingers twist anxiously together in front of him.
“Do you want me to teach you how to preen?” he rushes.
Tommy’s hands still where he’d been moving a pair of wet jeans to a dryer. He looks up at Wilbur, scanning his face for any signs of a trick or lie—he sees nothing but genuine want.
“Would- you would do that?”
“Yeah,” Wilbur breathes.
“Sure,” Tommy whispers. “After I move this over?”
Wilbur nods eagerly, and, despite Tommy’s assumption that he’d wait nearby until Tommy was done, Wilbur reaches into the washer and begins moving clothes alongside him. It goes faster that way, although laundry wasn’t a slow chore in particular, and he’s done before long.
Wilbur leads him back to the main common room of the home. His wings are out, as always, and one wing was considerably more ruffled than the other—almost as if he’d stopped ‘preening’ midway through.
They settle on the floor by a bookshelf. Wilbur grins at him and pulls a wing to his side, he doesn’t seem to be yanking it forward—just holding it in place.
“Okay, so there’s these spots on your wings along the feathers that have little lumps. Sometimes they’re under the skin and sometimes they’re not, but those are your oil glands. When you’re preening, you want to brush it with your fingers on your way down the feather. It makes them able to move without pain. Then, you kind of… shift the feather so it’s pointing straight.”
Wilbur models what he’s saying, rubbing at the base of a feather before pulling his fingers down it along the barbs. The feather moves to sit parallel to the one beside it, and Wilbur follows the motion with the next feather. “These are my primaries. I like to go from primary to secondaries, then coverts, but honestly, I don’t think it matters. Sometimes I’ll only shift one or two feathers. It- it makes them less itchy… and lighter.”
Tommy is watching with wide eyes, but he looks back up to Wilbur’s face when he stops speaking. He’s frowning, eyes sad as he looks at Tommy. Tommy ignores the bubbling indignancy in his chest at the pity oozing from the older boy, sucking up his emotions and smiling brightly. “Thanks, Wil!”
“No problem, Toms,” Wilbur smiles sadly.
-
Tommy stumbles to his dorm room as soon as Wilbur leaves. He pulls his shirt off, unwrapping his wings with rushed movements. His wings, dull yellow, slowly unfold before a sharp pain keeps them from extending further. He squints at the half-extended wing, but shrugs, carefully twisting to reach for the base of a feather that bends in the center. Grease slicks at his fingers and, eyebrows furrowed in an effort to remember Wilbur’s motions, gently guides the feather straight downwards.
Almost immediately, an itch lessens. Tears spring to his eyes and he laughs wetly, wings forgotten as he folds forward.
-
Tommy is still upset at Purpled, but he walks with him to the dining hall anyways. The moth hybrid hasn’t apologized and Tommy hasn’t explained, but he still helps him pull the stiff wings through the gaps in his hoodie and they walk side by side through the cool hallways. Tommy doesn’t let Purpled close enough for their shoulders to brush.
When they get to the dining hall—a cold, stone room with high ceilings painted with religious symbols and unwashed graffiti—Tommy leaves Purpled’s side to go through the line on the far left, the vegetarian line. While not every hybrid took on the diet of their hybrid species, Tommy was one of them; fruits and flowers making up the majority of his diet, and, while he could eat insects, was refused any supply of them by the home out of fear of the bugs contaminating the other food in the building. He understands, kind of.
The line is fairly short. Other children come out of the end with disgruntled expressions, burying a knife of anxiety in his gut. He makes his way to the actual food and his stomach drops at the sight.
An odd, gray-ish meat sits where his berries typically are. Tommy looks up at the workers, who stare back with indifferent expressions behind the half wall. He glances behind him, where others are shuffling at the sight of the food they can’t eat. Tommy had eaten meat once—he’d spent the night throwing up with Purpled combing hair away from his sweaty forehead. They’d learned his particular species of bird couldn’t eat meat that day.
“I can’t eat this,” someone mutters from behind Tommy. The distraught words give him the courage to glare at the workers.
“We can’t eat this,” Tommy scowls. “We’ll get sick.”
One worker frowns and scoops out a pile of the meat to plop onto his tray.
“Aren’t there laws about feeding hybrids a proper diet for their needs?” Tommy says, louder than before.
A worker purses their lips. “You filthy half-breeds need to learn that the world doesn’t revolve around you.”
Someone behind him gasps quietly and Tommy’s mouth falls open, shocked. “Fuck you!” he shouts. “I’ll throw up if I eat this!”
His head snaps to the side, heat blooming across his cheek. The worker with the sour expression wipes her hand against her skirt and, embarrassingly, hot tears spring to his eyes. He rubs at the stinging cheek where she slapped him and spins on his heel, abandoning his tray of food and walking away with stiff, controlled steps despite the desperation in his legs to run.
He makes it out of the dining hall in the controlled manner before a tear slides down his cheek and then he’s sprinting through the cold halls, stones zipping by, blurred by his watering eyes.
He stumbles into a wall after taking a corner too wide, giving up his running as he heaves with his shoulder pressed to cold stone. A spider scuttles away from him and he presses his red, stinging cheek to the soothing chill of the wall.
He wants Wilbur. The realization hits him like a brick, fresh tears springing to his eyes. He hadn’t needed anyone before, but now that he’s experienced the little kindness Wilbur had spared him, the little care, he wants more.
Tommy slides to the floor, tossing his head back to hit the wall with a dull thud and an ache springing at the back of his neck, frustrated with his reaction. Being slapped wasn’t worth the tears, it wasn't worth him running away, but Tommy had thought- even if the care home didn’t really care for them, he had still thought it was safe.
The sting in his cheek pulses with a reminder of a time long before (too close, still), of a rocky beach and numb fingers. He buries his head in his arms, sniffling, trying desperately to focus on the solid ground beneath him.
“Tommy?”
He buries his face further into his arms. He refuses to acknowledge his name, he knows it isn’t real, Wilbur is in the lunch room by now. But… Tommy hadn’t actually seen Wilbur in the dining hall…
“Oh Prime, Tommy? What’s wrong?”
Someone is kneeling to his right. He sniffles again, wiping his eyes against the sleeve of his red hoodie before peering out of the soft comfort. Beside him, Wilbur crouches with concerned brown eyes, hands hovering anxiously over Tommy’s frame.
“Wilbur,” he breathes, then he’s tumbling into the older avian’s arms and his wings spread in surprise, feathers flaring out behind him and anxiety digs into his gut—did Wilbur not want to touch him? He’d been crying, his face is probably all snotty—but then warm arms wrap around his back and a chin rests atop his head.
“Tom,” he sighs. “What’s the matter?”
“The- the worker,” he gasps, cold nose pressed to Wilbur’s collarbone.
“The worker?” Wilbur prompts, patient. “What did they do?”
“They didn’t have the- the food. I got sick last time.”
“The food? There wasn’t any left?”
Tommy shakes his head. “Only- only meat.”
He can feel Wilbur tense and his shoulders pull up to his ears. Dull nails drag lightly against the small of his back, soothing. “They only had meat. What did the worker do?”
“She- she called us… um, she called us filthy half breeds.”
If Tommy thought Wilbur tensed before, now he was being suffocated. He’s pulled away from Wilbur and a sob rips from his throat even as Wilbur doesn’t move farther than a foot away. There’s a whine building in his chest but he chokes it back as Wilbur looks at him, eyes dark with something else.
“She-” Wilbur cuts off, staring at Tommy’s cheek. “What happened after that?” Wilbur asks lowly.
Tommy rubs at his cheek where Wilbur still stares. “I uh- I told her to fuck off and…”
“And?”
“She- she uh… hit me.”
Wilbur’s jaw clenches, tendons visibly tightening and Tommy’s gaze shoots down to focus on the still hands that rest on his legs. Wilbur’s hands slide up to wrap around Tommy’s forearms, and he twists his wrists to mimic the action. “Who was it?”
Tommy shakes his head, eyes squeezed shut.
“Toms,” Wilbur pleads, but Tommy stays quiet. If Wilbur knows her name, he’ll leave him in this dark corridor, too far from the dorm rooms for anyone to find him by chance. Tears well in his eyes again and he scrubs at his face harshly, nails scraping against his forehead as the heel of his hand digs into his eyes. Hands slip from his wrists and his head shoots up, panicked, but Wilbur’s hands only frame his face.
“What she did wasn’t right,” Wilbur says, forceful. “It wasn’t okay. I don’t want you to protect her out of fear or out of some sense of deserving it—because you didn’t, and you don’t, and you never will, okay?”
Tommy nods feebly. “I don’t want you- you’ll- uh,” he cuts off, but Wilbur nods encouragingly. “You’ll leave.”
Wilbur’s face crumbles. “No, Toms, I swear. I won’t leave you. I’m right here, okay?”
He nods again, sniffling, and then he’s being pulled back into a hug.
“I couldn’t bear to leave you, Tommy. I’ll never. If I do, it’s out of my control, and even then I’ll fight tooth and nail to get back to you. Do you want to go to my room?”
Tommy doesn’t want to move, he’s rather comfortable pressed into Wilbur’s chest hearing the slow affirmations as they’re whispered into his ear, but he nods anyway. Wilbur shifts away from him but his hands don’t leave from their spots on his shoulders. They stand together, Tommy stumbling into Wilbur’s side with an arm tossed over his shoulders keeping him secure against the older avian.
They don’t run into anyone in the time it takes to get to Wilbur’s dorm room and only one person remains inside who averts his eyes politely when he sees the tear stains that mark Tommy’s cheeks. Wilbur leads him to his bed and sits with his back to the wall, motioning for Tommy to sit beside him, and they stay like that until Tommy falls asleep.
-
“Niki, you queen, you goddess, I need your help.”
“Tommy? What’s the matter?” Niki shoots up, alarmed, and Tommy throws himself into the chair in front of her.
“Wilbur’s birthday! I want to do something for him.”
“Like what?” Niki asks, sighing.
“I don’t know! I’ve never had a birthday party, that’s why I need your help!”
Niki smiles at him, soft. “He’ll love anything you do, Tommy.”
“It needs to be perfect,” he insists.
The only kind of birthday celebration he’d had was on a cold beach, bruising fingers gripping his shoulder as he choked down food he couldn’t eat. He wants Wilbur to have more than that, he wants Wilbur to be happy.
It’s already brisk outside, not yet cold enough to snow but wind bites at his fingers in the yard of the home and the flowers are starting to wilt. The bruise on his cheek is barely visible, only a slight yellowing, but Wilbur’s attitude shift after that night remains. He is touchier, his fingers lacing between Tommy’s at any spare moment, and more time of Tommy’s was spent trailing after Wilbur, rambling about flowers or whatever other thought came to mind than with Purpled by their rose garden fence. Not that Purpled seemed to mind.
Purpled had been doing the same thing with another butterfly hybrid, Punz, although the two tended to get in a lot more whispered, sharp arguments than Wilbur and him—sure, Tommy and Wilbur argued, but it was never serious, never filled with quiet fury as the other two often were. The hissed poison and clenched fists of the two spoke volumes of their relationship and, although Tommy still would occasionally leave Wilbur’s side to check on his best friend (were they really still best friends, with the way they shoved past one another and glared from across the dorm room?), he would still be brushed aside with a dismissive glance and ignored in favor of clinging to the very man who filled his (former?) friend with the cold demeanor he now bore.
Tommy shakes the thoughts of the moth hybrid away, mentally shoving them behind the idea of Wilbur’s birthday.
“Anyway,” he announces, “I want his birthday to be perfect. Like… I don’t know. Um- what do people normally do for their birthdays?”
Niki smiles sadly. “They often get together with friends, maybe eat a cake, get presents.”
Get together with friends… he hadn’t seen Wilbur talk with anyone besides him and Niki, ever, so he supposes they’ll have to do. A cake, Niki could easily make, and as for the presents…
“So we’ll do it here! That way we’ve got the friends and the cake, right?”
“The presents?”
“Leave that to me, big man!”
-
He has two weeks until Wilbur’s birthday. It falls on a Thursday, conveniently when they meet for their weekly outings, and he has two weeks to find someone who will let him buy Wilbur’s gift from them.
He tells Wilbur the next Saturday outing (monthly, and, prior to the hybrid support groups rule, his only exposure to the town) that he was hanging out with Purpled. Really, he’s going shop to shop asking around for the perfect gift—one he has in mind, searching for a potential way to work for the gift.
He finds it in a corner store, one with a busker playing the saxophone outside, and strikes a deal with the owner who takes pity on the orphan with a cut on his chin (he walked into a tree branch that morning) and sad, wide eyes, allowing him to earn the gift with some simple chores—sweeping, stocking shelves, bringing in supplies, and running to grab food for the workers. He stays in that shop the whole day and, at the end, when he’s handed Wilbur’s gift with gentle hands, he runs to Bear’s Café with both arms clutching the gift to ensure it doesn’t break.
“Oh, Tommy,” Niki says when he rushes in just before their curfew to hide it behind the counter. “He’ll love it.”
-
The day of Wilbur’s birthday arrives and Tommy is bouncing up and down in place, waiting for Wilbur to leave his dorm room so they can go to town. When he does, deep eye bags under his eyes and feathers ruffled as if he hadn’t taken the time to preen that morning (something Tommy had begun doing), Tommy launches forward to hug him. The brunet stumbles back, but as soon as he fights through the surprise hug he’s laughing and returning it.
“Happy birthday, Wilbur!” Tommy cheers, pulling away to smile brightly at him.
“Thanks, Toms,” he grins, tossing an arm around Tommy’s shoulders. “Are we going into town today?”
“Yes!”
Wilbur sighs fondly, turning to head to the front of the children’s home, Tommy under his arm. One of Wilbur’s wings fan out to cover Tommy’s back and the motion makes something bird-like coo inside of him.
They leave the home without any trouble besides a few suspicious glances from care home workers and Tommy immediately veers in the direction of Bear’s Café. Wilbur follows with a sugar-sweet laugh, the usual cheerful atmosphere of the town sliding around their little pocket of bliss. Tommy makes Wilbur go into the café first, shoving him through the door before slipping out behind him. Immediately, he starts to shout-sing, “happy birthday to you!” only for Wilbur’s hand to throw itself over his mouth, face mortified. Tommy licks at his palm and Wilbur shrieks, pulling away.
“Happy birthday, Wilbur,” Niki says, pulling out the cake—it's simple, just vanilla with yellow icing and red lettering wishing him a happy birthday, but Tommy was proud of it; he hadn’t made it, but it was his doing that convinced Niki to make it as it was.
“You didn’t have to do anything,” Wilbur breathes, but the way his eyes stay trained on the cake as if he’s scared it will disappear when he looks away tells of his gratitude. He smiles softly, moving to sit at the counter with Tommy beside him.
“I got you a gift, too!” Tommy shouts, and Wilbur doesn’t even try and tame his volume.
“Tommy, you did not need to get me-” Tommy cuts him off with a hand over his mouth, pulling away to rush behind the counter. He drags the case up and it settles on the counter, Niki swiping the glass of water away where it would have been spilled.
“Ta-da!” he shouts, waving his arms around the case settled on the counter.
“You got me a- Tommy,” Wilbur breathes, hands hovering over the black guitar case set in front of him. “Tommy- I- thank you,” he whispers to Tommy’s enthusiastic nodding.
“It’s a bit beat up, and it’s got some scratches, but the shopkeeper said it still played fine!” Tommy explains, watching as Wilbur unzips the case and pulls out the guitar. Its wood is the same color as Wilbur’s hair, but there’s scratches on the finish and flecks of paint on the front of the guitar. Still, Wilbur’s hands hold the neck and body of the guitar as if it’s made of gold.
“Thank you,” Wilbur repeats, the guitar settling into his hold, as fitting in Wilbur’s hands as Tommy is at his side. “How’d you know I play?”
“You always look at buskers with guitars funny,” Tommy explains, “and your fingers are calloused, like that other boy who plays.”
“Tommy’s been capable of deductive reasoning this whole time!” Wilbur cheers, but his smile is wide and genuine and Tommy grins shyly back.
-
He goes to sleep that night with his chest warm, something in the back of his head chirping excitedly and he has to force back the sounds from leaving his throat. Purpled shifts above him where he lays on his bunk, and it feels as if he’s barely falling asleep when-
“Tommy,” someone hisses, a cold hand on his shoulder shaking him gently. “Tommy, wake up.”
“Mmm,” Tommy groans, rolling over, pulling away from the hand. “It’s early.”
“I know it is, Toms, but wake up for me, please?”
He groans again but blinks his eyes open roughly. It’s dark in his room, a silhouette standing against the dim light that bleeds through the doorway from the hall. It’s usually closed. “Whaddyou want?”
“I’m leaving, Toms,” the figure whispers, and Tommy realizes it’s Wilbur when panic spikes through him. His wings flare out in surprise, unbinded from his sleepy efforts to get away from the pressure around his chest.
“Wilbur?” he gasps.
“It’s me, Tommy.”
“You said you wouldn’t- wouldn’t leave me!”
“Shh, shh,” Wilbur hushes, frame tense. “I’m not, not if you let me. I want you to come with me.”
Tommy rubs his eyes with the back of his hand roughly, trying desperately to wake up. “What?”
“I’m leaving and I want you to come with me.”
“Leaving… where?”
A humorless laugh. “I don’t know yet. Anywhere but here.”
“Okay,” Tommy whispers, sitting up. “Take me with you- just- don’t leave me.”
And it’s a cold beach, sand clinging to his hands as he leaves, but- Wilbur isn’t leaving, he’s taking him with him, and Tommy isn’t on that beach anymore but he’s not an afterthought; he isn’t just not on that beach but he’s with Wilbur.
Wilbur helps him out of bed, stuffing the few clothes that Tommy had—kept in a drawer of a dresser shared between five boys—into a bag and handing one with slits in the back to Tommy. He doesn’t bother taking the time to bind his wings, simply sliding the feathered limbs through the slits, only realizing once it’s on that it’s one of Wilbur’s shirts.
“Come on, Toms, we’ve got to leave.”
They slip under the security camera pointed at the hallway outside of his room, easing past a sleeping care home worker at the front desk and they leave the stone-cold building without another thought, heads filled with the idea of the unknown.
“This,” Wilbur breathes as they turn a corner and approach a beat-up, ugly gray van, “is the Camarvan.”
-
Purpled had known that he fucked up that day, when he’d mistaken Tommy’s dejection as a result of Soot’s words being cruel, but he’d thought that their friendship was stronger than a misunderstanding—they were meant to be brothers.
Sure, he’d brushed off Tommy after that day when, without any thought to Purpled, he turned around and latched onto Soot, but he never thought Tommy would run away.
He finds him with his back to the fenced off rose garden, sitting criss-cross and staring absently at a crack in concrete that a weed peeks through. Black boots step up to his peripheral, and he knows it’s Punz. The weight shifts and a boot moves to toe at Purpled, gently nudging his leg where he sits.
“What’s up?”
Purpled wipes his mouth with the sleeve of his sweatshirt roughly. “Tommy’s gone.”
“Gone?”
“He left. Soot, too.”
Punz pauses, silent, then drops to a crouch beside him. “Did you know?”
“No,” Purpled hisses. “Of course I didn’t know- I mean, he and Soot were close, but we were meant to be brothers!”
Punz is quiet, again, and he can feel the way the older hybrid’s eyes are raking over his frame. Then, finally, “maybe Tommy didn’t care about you, but I’m here now, alright?”
“Right,” Purpled breathes, but his head is filled with images of dull yellow feathers, soft hands on his wings and bright blue eyes, yellow roses settled between the two.
Tommy didn’t care about him—that much was obvious. Punz did. He didn’t need Tommy, anyways, so he and Soot- Innes and Soot could fuck off.
I guess I maybe had a couple expectations
Thought I'd get to them, but no, I didn't
I guess I thought that prom was gonna be fun
But now I'm sitting on the floor and all I wanna do is run
- prom queen, mxmtoon
Chapter 2: find my aching heart
Notes:
2nd chapter/epilogue!!
I’ll be honest, I struggled with quite a few scenes here, but I think it came out ok!! Everything is entirely platonic in this fic, there is no romantic undertones or relationships.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
My head is filled with parasites
Black holes cover up my eyes
I dream of you almost every night
Hopefully, I won’t wake up this time
- Freaks, Surf Curse
When Wilbur had decided that the blond kid who hid his wings wasn’t actually that bad, he didn’t know that his plan to run away when he turned 17 would include him. He’d talk with the kid a bit, maybe help him out, buy him coffee a few times… and when it came time to leave, he’d leave.
Now, the blond kid who hides his wings sits in his passenger seat, staring out at grassfields in wonder as one of Tommy’s favorite songs blast through the stereo.
Tommy had grown on him—obviously. The kid was strangely endearing, a kind heart with sharp words, an affinity for swearing, and a hopefulness about the world that was so refreshing.
He hadn’t really planned on taking Tommy with him, even after teaching him to preen—but the lunch incident, when he found the young boy sobbing in the hallway outside where Wilbur had been arguing with a social worker about when he could legally leave and then he’d been so angry with the home.
Tommy had asked him not to leave him. Wilbur had promised not to. Now, they drive in the countryside, one of Wilbur’s hands off the wheel to hold Tommy’s whenever anxiety clutches at the younger boy.
“Wilbur?” Tommy mutters as they pass yet another billboard about drinking and driving. “Can we get food?”
He glances at the time. It’s nearing sundown, pink streaking across the sky, and a too-bright clock flashes 7:52 at him where the display of the car doesn’t adjust to the sun anymore.
“Yeah,” Wilbur agrees. “I’m hungry, too,” he says, even though he isn’t. There’s an exit ahead so he flicks on the turn signal and moves over, pulling off the highway while Tommy hums to the radio.
The town they stop in is small and the first restaurant they come across is a 24 hour diner, as advertised by the neon sign. Only two people inside are visible through the windows and he watches them hesitantly as Wilbur hops out of the van with a wet splash of his beat-up converse hitting the damp pavement.
A bell jingles obnoxiously at their entrance and they stand in the front entryway for a moment, finally greeted by a woman with poofy red hair and bright green eyes. She steps out from a backroom, freckles popping in the fluorescent lights.
“Two?” she asks, grabbing menus.
“Mhm.”
They’re led to a table by a window and left alone to decide on their food, Tommy kicking the table absently.
“What’re you thinking about?” Wilbur asks, nudging the blond’s leg with his own.
Tommy sniffs. “Will there be cops looking for me? I don’t want you going to jail.”
Wilbur’s mouth twists. The police didn’t care for the care home brats; a teen had run away just a few months prior and the staff hadn’t bothered alerting even the local sheriff, let alone the state police.
“I won’t be arrested,” is all he says.
Tommy’s only 13, brought into the care home at just over 11 years old, covered in sand and with deep eyebags. His wings had been out, then, but stripped of most of their feathers and, despite the care home workers chalking it up to a molt, the hand-shaped bruises and too-clean cuts that lined the boy’s body spoke of malicious intent. Wilbur had felt a pull on his instincts, of course, but he figured the younger boy would be fine with the moth hybrid that lived in the home for a year prior that he’d become friends with.
Evidently, the care home (and whoever had been with him before) had taught him nothing about his hybrid side and Wilbur had been forced to teach him to preen—something avians should be doing within a few months of presenting—at 13 years old.
He was both terrifyingly aware of some things and oblivious when it came to others, a deep-rooted paranoia of being left haunting him. The cops were definitely not even called, but he can’t bring himself to tell Tommy that the care home didn’t have an ounce of pity for the two avians, so he only assures him that he won’t be arrested.
Tommy nods, eyes on his menu, and a piece of Wilbur regrets ripping him away from the town he knew and loved.
-
The trip with Tommy is surprisingly tame, considering the younger avian’s tendency towards loudness and chaos. They stop for fast food and bathroom breaks regularly, music constantly blasting through the radio, and on the first night Wilbur pushes the backseats down and lays out a throw blanket for the two to sleep on. Tommy shifts uncomfortably the whole night but he doesn’t complain except for arguing with Wilbur over Wilbur’s side poking Tommy’s elbow. It’s ridiculously stupid but it’s such a Tommy thing to argue that he laughs along with it, eventually settling with a wing thrown over the other.
He pulls off to the side of the road by a farm, hopping out of the ugly van and pulling Tommy with him to the fence where a brown and white cow stands amiably. Tommy leans over the fence without another thought, sneaker scrabbling at the fence for purchase as he reaches out for the cow. Wilbur’s expecting the animal to pull away but she approaches Tommy slowly, huffing at his hand that pets her snout slowly.
“What do you think her name is?” Wilbur stage-whispers.
“Definitely Henry.”
-
Wilbur leaves Tommy at a McDonalds with ten dollars in a relatively safe-looking town, telling him repeatedly to stay there before Wilbur leaves to head to the run-down strip across the street. He stops in each store, asking about any day work he could do for some pay, but without any luck he skips to the houses down the street with a grimace. He’s lucky when, at the second house, he’s offered to mow the lawn for a fair amount of cash from a kind old lady. He thanks her profusely and spends the rest of the day doing yard work for the fairer houses in the town, stumbling back to the McDonalds late at night where, thankfully, Tommy still waits.
“You’re all smelly,” he says, wrinkling his nose as Wilbur throws himself into the seat across from him.
“Yeah,” Wilbur sighs. “We’ll stop at one of those trucker spots with showers before sleeping.”
-
Wilbur has been slowly goading Tommy into letting his wings be free in the car. He’ll only unbind them if it's a solely in-the-car day, and even then, he tucks them firmly to his back, but Wilbur’s proud of him all the same. They’re a muddy yellow in color but a part of Wilbur wonders if they would be brighter with a proper preening; he aches at the thought of the amount of dirt surely lodged between the feathers.
Wilbur’s an eastern blue jay hybrid, bright blue feathers dulled through the years of mismatched diets and unstable sleeping habits. He hasn’t binded his wings in a long time, not after being forced to hide them away—when he wasn’t struck for leaving his wings free at Warm Heart, he’d stuffed his bandages under his bed and never pulled them out again. Obviously, from Tommy’s stripped wings when he first came into the home, he experienced the opposite. Wilbur wouldn’t force him out of the safety of binded wings, but he would enforce that it’s safe to have them out around him.
He stops at a main city, one with a heavy population and traffic that clogs the streets daily, and pulls into a Walmart. Tommy’s looking around the parking lot, wet from a gentle rain that’s followed them for the past few hours, absently pulling his hoodie on over his wings.
Puddles splash beneath their sneakers as Wilbur shoves Tommy, laughing at the way he sputters. “You- fucking- you bitch!” he shouts when he stumbles into a car. The alarm starts to blare and Wilbur laughs harder and pulls Tommy towards the store front.
The inside is bright with flickering lights and Wilbur leads Tommy to the back of the store, a single aisle dedicated for hybrid care. It had been a big drama when large franchise supermarkets began stocking avian goods, previously found in pet stores (and how that had been demeaning). Still, franchises stuck the goods in the back of the store, but it was better than walking into local shelters looking for the basic necessities.
“I need to properly preen,” he explains, scanning the shelves. “You don’t have to join me, but I’d love to help you wash your wings,if you do, and I need the proper soap for it.”
There’s rabbit ear cleaner… industrial nail clippers… he spins around to check the opposite side of an alley and there it is: Soapy Swans, Dirty Duck, Pro Preen… all too expensive, but an off-brand “Advanced Cleaners for Avian” catches his eye. He grabs it with a triumphant grin, showing it off to Tommy who looks at it curiously.
“There’s fancy soap for wings?”
“Mhm,” Wilbur hums, turning back down the aisle. “Rich people clean their wings like… nightly. I try to give mine a proper wash every other month or so. There’s also feather dye, but I’ve never touched that.”
Tommy hums, knocking his shoulder into Wilbur’s. “I think… I think I’d want to have my wings cleaned,” he says, adamantly looking down an aisle of office supplies.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
-
Wilbur drives a few minutes to a truckstop, getting out and paying for a private shower. He winces at the extra expense, but he still has plenty from his parents’ wills and chalks the cost up to the yard work he did the day prior. It’s practically a necessity, anyways, with the way Tommy’s wings tremble from their clenching to his back.
The private shower is clean and, as in the name, private. Tommy hops up to sit on the counter while Wilbur turns on the water, letting it heat to a lukewarm before grabbing the soap from their grocery bag.
“Do you want to watch me clean mine first, or do you want to have yours washed now?”
Tommy hums, kicking his feet against the counter. “Yours first.”
His lips quirk into a smile. He takes his sweatshirt off, leaving just an old t-shirt with slits in the back, and turns the shower head to spray his wings. The water is uncomfortable, dragging down his wings with the extra weight but the cleaner he rubs in soothes them, water rinsing out a light brown. He wrinkles his nose and keeps cleaning methodically until the water is clear, then switches wings and repeats the process.
“It’s that simple?”
“Yep! Yours might take more soap, since you’ve never washed them before, but it’ll be the same.” Wilbur pauses, then, “do you want my help? It’s alright if you don’t.”
“I know it’s alright,” Tommy grumbles. “...can you help?”
Wilbur doesn’t respond, simply beckoning Tommy to the shower. The younger boy’s shoulders are hunched up to his ears, wings folded tightly where they peek out from one of Wilbur’s slitted t-shirts. “Can I unfold your wings?”
Tommy nods, but he doesn’t look sure and so Wilbur waits until the muscles release to set his hand on Tommy’s shoulder. He jumps and Wilbur squeezes lightly, slowly shifting his hand to the base of his wing.
Slowly, Tommy relaxes with Wilbur’s hand resting between his wings and he hands the shower head to Tommy, guiding his hands so he can wet his own wings.
“It’s just like when you shower,” he says. “It’s the same feeling. Just this time, we’ll add soap after.”
“Right,” Tommy mutters, letting the lukewarm water run through his feathers. The dull yellow darkens, becoming nearly brown, and Wilbur grabs the soap.
“Do you want me to do it, or you?”
“I’m a big man, hand me the soap.”
Wilbur snorts, passing it to the younger boy and watching carefully as he pours it into his hands and begins rubbing it into feathers. His movements are stilted and unsure, but Wilbur nods encouragingly, helping run water through the feathers as more and more dirt and, somehow, sand runs out and into the rusty drain. When the water finally runs clear and the soap bottle is nearly empty, Tommy’s eyelids droop and his frame sinks into itself.
Wilbur huffs, amused. “You tired?”
“Mm,” Tommy mumbles, leaning heavily into Wilbur’s side. He guides the boy out of the room, nodding at the workers, and brings him straight out to their car. Tommy gets in and buckles while Wilbur drives to a spot with 24 hour parking, but as soon as he’s parked Tommy’s crawling into the back and crashing against Wilbur.
He falls asleep with his wings spread wide, Tommy’s golden (golden, not a brown-yellow, with the dirt gone they shone amber) wings under his.
-
“That’s the Ursa Major,” Wilbur whispers, pointing up at the collection of stars. They’re laid out atop the Camarvan, a clear sky above them where they’d pulled off on the side of the road late at night, stuck in a stretch with no towns.
“Ooh! That one’s the Big Dipper, right?”
Wilbur doesn’t bother explaining that the Big Dipper is apart of Ursa Major, he just laughs and ruffles the blond’s hair.
-
“There was a rose garden just outside the courtyard. Purpled and I used to go sit by it and look at the flowers… They had so many colors! My favorite was the yellow ones, of course, cause those symbolize friendship.”
“Yeah?” Wilbur encourages, flicking on his turn signal and glancing back at his blind spot before switching lanes.
“Mhm. They never had any peach roses, but I’ve read that they mean fascination and warm feelings, and something else… sincerity? That sounds right. I like red, but those symbolize love,” Tommy fake-gags and Wilbur laughs.
-
The van’s engine stutters to a stop outside the shitty inn they’d picked for the night. Wilbur was okay settling, now, sufficiently away from the care home, but he doesn’t want to make a decision that they’d both regret—hence the sudden interest in motels and inns, testing each town.
This one was… struggling.
Plaster crumbles off the walls of strip malls they pass, roads more potholes than cement, and yet Wilbur’s interest piques at the locals eagerly taking the overpriced lemonade of a young boy at a street corner, in the way he sees stray cats being fed by a freakishly tall teen with split-dyed hair.
So Wilbur stops at the inn. The pavement is cracked where they step, and Wilbur says nothing as Tommy’s nimble fingers slip between his.
The man sitting behind the counter has a shaved head, not bald but close, and he slouches down with a bored expression. He pauses something on his computer when they walk in, looking up at the two.
“Do you have any open rooms?” Wilbur asks. Tommy is looking around the lobby, where wooden desks that look like they were taken from a school are scattered.
“Yep. How many nights?”
Wilbur glances at Tommy, who turns to stare back. “Uh, two days?”
“Two beds?”
Wilbur looks at Tommy. “D’you care about sharing?”
Tommy shakes his head and Wilbur turns back to the worker. “Room with one queen?”
“Hundred-fifty,” the man says, uninterested.
Tommy grins at him and Wilbur heaves a sigh, forking out the bills to pay for the stay. The man grins toothily at him, handing over a room key—a physical one, not the cards to swipe. “Second floor, room three,” the man tells them.
“Thanks,” he nods, turning with a hand between Tommy’s wings (under his shirt, Wilbur had yet to get him to stop binding his wings in public) to guide him. The blond scowls, ducking around to avoid the hand and Wilbur rolls his eyes.
They fall asleep with Tommy wrapped up in Wilbur’s arms, blond curls a cushion for his chin.
-
Wilbur, after deciding they’d break their trip for a couple days and stay in this town, takes Tommy to the convenience store he’d spotted down the streets for the essentials—some feather soap, fruit for Tommy (despite the generally run down look of the hotel, they did have a mini fridge in their room), some meat for himself, and possibly look for any day jobs he could do for extra cash.
The convenience store, much like the rest of the town, has cracked walls and flickering fluorescent lights. Dirt streaks across the tiles and Wilbur vaguely notes to ask about cleaning the floors for cash. He grabs them what they came for and an extra pack of fruit snacks Tommy had been eyeing and moves to the check out, where two men talk quietly. One with long, blond hair and the ugliest striped bucket hat he’d ever seen and clad in a deep green sweater notice them first, nudging the man behind the counter. The one behind the counter is short but built with long pink hair pulled into a braid, red eyes and tusks giving away his hybrid status. They both stare curiously at the two as they bring their few items to the checkout.
“Good morning,” Wilbur mutters, polite.
“‘Mornin’,” the pink haired man says, taking items from them and setting them onto the counter.
“Are you two new around here? I don’t think I’ve seen you before,” the blond says and Wilbur smiles briefly at him.
“Yep!” Tommy answers and Wilbur smiles fondly at him.
“You guys staying around, then?”
Tommy turns to look at Wilbur, a question dancing in his eyes, and Wilbur realizes quickly just how far he’s taken Tommy from the life they knew. Eyebags hang under his eyes from restless nights atop the seats of the Camarvan and Wilbur smiles tightly. “Yeah, yeah, I think we are.”
Tommy’s face splits into a grin.
Behind him, peach roses sit in a glass vase.
Show me if you can take it
Midnight headlights, driving aimless
Show me if you can make it
You beside me, going places
And when we lean in closer
Let it all go
- Kendall Drive, The Polar Boys
Notes:
A special thanks to: Key for helping me come up with words, Icy for betaing and helping me with the goldenduo, Paulien for the punz and purpled characterization, Yams for helping me flesh this out, the lovely Ter for organizing this event, Rowan for spray-bottling me into working on this, and the entire zoo for helping me find words i can never think of (purchase, franchise… they escape my brain) !! I hope you liked this fic satu :D
Back to your regularly scheduled horsemen’s rebellion content in the new year :D
Happy Holidays readers, and a happy new year!
Keys_chaos on Chapter 2 Mon 25 Dec 2023 10:13PM UTC
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TurnInYourNeighbours on Chapter 2 Thu 18 Jan 2024 03:55PM UTC
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