Chapter 1: Fallen Angel
Notes:
this chapter is rather closely inspired by the first chapter of Stars Above by Galixee
Chapter Text
Jimmy hadn’t been too happy at his cousin’s decision to leave for the big city to make a name for herself, about a decade ago now. They’d been thick as thieves, them and Lizzie and Martyn and Scott. They’d spent nearly every day together, inside school and out, until … well. Like all good things, their high school time eventually came to an end. While everyone else decided to stay back in Lifeshire, Pearl had left to study ecology in Hermitopia. She’d felt restless after moving with her parents for her work multiple times—she’d spent a large part of her childhood in Australia, then moved from France to Brazil to Ireland, to some other countries Jimmy didn’t remember, and only after her father’s death did she and her mother return, seeking comfort in their remaining family.
Pearl had stayed in Lifeshire for six years, longer than anywhere else at that point. And then, about a month from graduation she’d revealed to them that she’d not only applied to the little college two towns over but to Hermitopia University as well.
And, well, that’s how their friend group slowly fell apart. Not that there was any use dwelling about it, Jimmy decided. It’s been, like, ten and a half years. Well, if he was still salty that she’d stayed in Hermitopia much longer than in Lifeshire, that’s only for himself to know.
“So,” he started after they’d walked through the forest for a while. “How’s life been treating you?”
Pearl had only just arrived this afternoon, without as much as a peep beforehand, conspiring with Scott so she’d catch him on a day he didn’t have anything planned, just as he decided to go for a walk to enjoy the clear winter weather. She’d jumped on the opportunity to join him, and here they were.
“I’ve been great,” Pearl explained, explaining the measures she’d taken to fix Hermitopia’s horrid mail system, and what she was going to implement next.
It had been a surprise when Pearl had announced she’d dropped out of uni just to make her part-time job at the post office into a full-time job, let alone getting promoted within, like, two months, and then rising to the top within the next five years. But it wasn’t exactly like they talked very often now. They’d grown apart, and after Lizzie had moved to live with her fiancé Joel in Hermitopia after meeting him during a visit to Pearl’s, only Jimmy, Scott, and Martyn were left. Though, Martyn had recently accepted a job offer further away, as well. Scott had joked that he was tired of third-wheeling, and, well, he might just have a point.
“Earth to Jimmy?” Pearl asked, and Jimmy squawked in surprise as she waved her hand in front of his face.
“What?”
“You back with me?” Pearl asked, and Jimmy nodded quickly.
“I never left.”
Pearl regarded him with a thoughtful hum. There was a spell of silence, only disrupted by the sound of wind in the canopy above and crunch of their boots in the snow. There was something off, Jimmy thought, about the way he and Pearl talked. Maybe some part of him had hoped that it would be like she'd never left. Still, that didn’t quite justify the depth of the pit in his stomach.
“How are—” Pearl started in the same moment Jimmy asked, “Do you—”
They both interrupted themselves once they realized the other spoke, then argued for a few moments that reminded Jimmy of times past about who would let the other speak first.
“Do you hear this?” Jimmy ended their little squabble, because this was really making him anxious.
Pearl was quiet for a moment and just listened. “I don’t hear anything,” she concluded.
“Exactly.”
“Why do you look like that’s a bad thing?” Pearl asked with a frown.
“Because,” Jimmy explained, “when you don’t hear any animals, that means something scared them away, city girl.”
Pearl frowned. “I’ve lived here for, like, six years!” she complained.
“You’ve been gone for much longer than that,” Jimmy snapped at her and immediately regretted it. He never wanted her to feel bad for leaving them alone. He knew she’d gone to Hermitopia to pursue her dreams, and who was he to stop her?
Pearl stopped in her tracks, and something soft entered her gaze.
“Anyway,” Jimmy quickly said before she could respond and cleared his throat. “Most animals are more used to relying on their instinct to figure out if they’re in danger than humans or hybrids. When it comes to predators, but also when it comes to storms.”
Pearl eyed him for another moment, then she looked around. “Then what does this mean?’
Jimmy grew silent, listening to the sounds of the forest, flitting his eyes around to see if he caught any movement. It was almost like the world held its breath. Waiting. For what, he didn’t know, and that’s what he told her. “All I know is we gotta get the hell outta here.”
“It’s getting dark anyway,” Pearl noted with a quick gaze to the sky, and Jimmy’s stomach dropped.
“We left at half past two,” Jimmy pointed out, and Pearl frowned. “I don’t know if you remember, but it doesn’t get dark here that early, ever.” He winced at his biting tone, and Pearl’s red feathers bristled in indignation.
“Dude, what’s your problem?”
Ugh, great. Jimmy closed his eyes to take a deep breath, then said, “we can talk later, but we should get out of here before whatever spooked all the animals gets us.”
Pearl looked at him for a moment longer, then she nodded. “Fine. Let’s.”
They walked back faster than they got here, and the more time passed by, the more antsy Jimmy got, and it didn’t help that they didn’t even seem to get closer to the natural sounds of the forest. At this rate it seemed quite possible that they walked towards the danger.
The sky had turned a deep purple now, and Jimmy cursed his urge to go outside and enjoy the weather, and that they had decided to walk so far. They were probably about ten minutes from the edge of the forest now, and a five minute drive from his place. If whatever was going on didn’t find them until they got to his car, they would be safe. Probably.
He glanced up again and thought, if they’d been safe at home, this could have been a pretty sight, but stopped in his tracks when he saw the light. He thought it was the sun at first, but he hadn’t seen the sun since he realized the sky had dimmed. Maybe it had just been hidden, but there was something off about it.
Like the fact that it was too small, but rapidly got bigger and brighter, moving way too fast in the sky.
“Why did you stop?” Pearl asked, and Jimmy looked down to find her turned towards him, then her gaze turned up, finding that bright light in the sky.
“Oh, a shooting star!” she explained and stepped towards Jimmy. Then she frowned as she went through the same realization as he had earlier. “Why’s it getting bigger?”
“I hope it’s not coming this way,” Jimmy said and hurried to catch up with her, cursing that they’d gone off the paths because they always used to, knowing these woods like the back of their hand. If it weren’t for the underbrush and branches and roots littering the ground, hidden under snow and dead leaves, he would have made a run for it. Still, he was working up quite a sweat.
They hurried along for what felt like forever but probably was only a minute or two until he could feel a strange staticky feeling in the air, making his hair and feathers frizz, and when he looked over at Pearl he could see she wasn’t doing any better. And that was when he caught the bright ball of light from the corner of his eyes again, startled at how low it seemed. At least, so it seemed, they were running away from it.
He told Pearl how close it was, and she fell over a branch hidden in the snow trying to turn around. She squawked and landed on her ass, catching herself on her hands before her head could slam on the ground. That would have been bad.
Pearl inspected the scrapes on her hands, and Jimmy asked if she was okay.
“I’m fine,” she waved. “Didn’t even break skin.”
And then several things happened at once.
Jimmy tried to help her up, there was a sudden cacophony of noise that he couldn’t process before a wave of hot, humid air hit him and toppled him over, sending both him and his cousin to the ground. Smaller branches fell down all around them, and a bigger one fell way too close for comfort. And the ground was shaking, keeping Jimmy from getting up for a solid five seconds.
“What the actual fuck?” he exclaimed when he finally was able to get back up again. “Did I hurt you?” he asked, reaching out a hand to help her up again.
“You pushed your elbow into my ribs but I’ll survive,” she responded and took his hand to be pulled up, then she looked into the direction they came from, and Jimmy followed her gaze. Branches that hadn’t been there before were strewn around the ground, disturbing the snow. There was the faint smell of burnt wood and sap in the air, being carried to them in wafts of warm, humid air that was way too hot for the winter attire they were dressed in.
“Hey Jimmy,” she asked, and when he turned to her he found a conspiratory glint in her eyes. “Wanna go on an adventure?”
“We should probably call emergency services,” Jimmy pointed out and Pearl pouted.
“You’re no fun, Jimmy,” she complained, and he winced at that. Here they were, one awkward conversation that had been part argument into their reunion, and he’d done nothing but antagonize her. Besides, if the danger had been from the meteor impact(?), it was probably safe again. Just to be sure, he gazed back at the sky that had already noticeably brightened again, with no weird light sources in sight. Good.
“Call first, then adventure?” he suggested.
“You can call on the way,” Pearl countered, and he could see the excitement in the way she shook her hands before hurrying ahead. He followed behind more slowly, pulling out his phone and already dialing the number, but the call didn’t connect. Weird, they weren’t so far away from civilization that there wasn’t any signal here. In fact, he’d used his occasional walks in this forest for calling with a friend or family more than once, so there definitely was a signal supposed to be here.
With a sigh, he slipped his phone back into his pocket, then sped up so he wouldn’t lose Pearl.
By the time he caught up to her, she stood with her jacket over her arm at the edge of a crater that reminded him of the creeper holes he occasionally found around here, except this one was a lot bigger. The smell of burning wood permeated the air, steam and smoke wafting into the sky. Trees were smoldering red, and the humidity in the air seeped into his clothes, making him sweaty and light-headed like he stood in the too-hot shower for too long. There was no snow left here; it must have—what was that fancy word he’d learned in chemistry like one and a half decades ago? Sublimated?—, and what’s been further away had turned into small, steaming rivulets.
Jimmy stepped closer, to see what was it that had caused the crater, what was capturing Pearl’s attention.
When he stepped next to her, he spotted a big black something, possibly charred from its tumble through the atmosphere. It had a spiky texture, something that looked like feathers, if it wasn’t for the fact that they wouldn’t have survived the friction of such a long fall. Not to speak of the immense velocity and altitude a hypothetical feathered creature would have to reach to burn up and cause such an impact. Besides, no creature would have shattered upon impact like this thing did, with lavender light seeping through the cracks.
And then he saw what Pearl held in her hand. A feather, deep black with a purple shimmer to it, too big to belong to any bird he knew of. There were a few more floating around and dotting the ground that he had thought to be ash despite the site. Well, he thought, giant ash particles were easier to wrap his head around than a feathered creature falling from the fucking stratosphere without burning to a crisp.
Then, the cracks in the creature began to mend themselves.
“What the fuck.”
That seemed to shake Pearl from her stupor, and she stepped closer. “We should probably check if it’s okay.”
Jimmy just raised his eyebrows. “Or we should call a professional, Pearl, we don’t even know what it is—”
Pearl didn’t listen to him, instead knelt on the ground, reaching out to the creature. As soon as she touched it, a black wing jutted out, shoving her backwards. She fell onto her ass for the second time this afternoon. The creature—no, the man—that was revealed when its wings unfurled belonged into the dead of night, where the strange and fantastical seemed a lot more probable. It had six wings for starters—six!—and wore black clothes consisting of a tank top and wide trousers with silver jewellery. Its hair was shimmering of gold that reminded Jimmy of the sun or the stars, and its eyes—
Its eyes were littered over its body and wings, some hovering around it, and they all opened at once, gaze zeroing in on Pearl, who squawked in terror. Jimmy wanted to stand in front of her, shielding her from the gaze of this thing, but he stood frozen, as though his feet were rooted into the dirt.
The creature—the man, the biblically accurate angel?—didn’t attack her, though. It jumped back, its black eyes that had no whites, but were littered with stars and purple swirls, widening in shock. It stared at Pearl, and then the black seemed to fall off its wings and sclera, and its extra wings and eyes turned into dust. When the transformation was done, a seemingly normal avian with red, blue and yellow wings sat in front of them, with dirty blond hair and black eyes that seemed less like their own universes but more like voids now. There was still something about him that was not quite human, but it was easier to think of him as a person now.
And then, as if this transformation was too much for the creature to handle, he collapsed onto the ground.
Chapter 2: Discussions and Distractions
Summary:
“I—I think I’d tell you my name too, Pearl, but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten what it is.”
“Oh,” Pearl just said, not really knowing what to say to that. She glanced away in thought, then looked back at the man. “Would you like me to give you a new name until you remember yours?”
The man tilted his head in thought, glancing away briefly. Then he looked back at Pearl. “What do you have in mind?”
“Grian?” she asked. “It means ‘sun’ in Irish.”
The angel tilted his head, pursing his lips as he thought. “Grian,” he sounded out slowly, and then again. “Grian, Grian, Grian.” His eyes focused on her, and his gaze was kind of unsettling. “It’s a good name, I’ll take it.”
OR:
Grian wakes up with no recollection of anything. Pearl hangs out with him.
Notes:
Thanks to my sibling for pointing out some grammar/spelling errors <3
ft. Post Master Pearl Lore, I Guess xD
I think unless I write ahead A Lot, I'll post a chapter a week, meaning mondays (European time), except for when I don't have a chapter pre-written
ETA: oops. forgot to set the publishing date for today whoops
Chapter Text
Their way back to Jimmy’s car seemed to take forever, what with the avian stranger slung over their shoulders. They had decided against leaving him in the forest, and after checking him for any external injuries that might have gotten worse if they decided to carry him and finding none, they were now transporting him to their car. While he wasn’t exactly heavy, he was still a lot of dead weight, even between the both of them, and if Pearl’s clothes hadn’t been damp with sweat before, they absolutely were now.
If it weren’t for the man hanging over her shoulder, Pearl didn’t think she’d believe what happened to her this afternoon. It was like a scene from the movies, she thought, an angel fallen from the sky, kicked out of heaven. Because that was the only thing she thought the man could be: an angel, with six wings and dozens of eyes, even though his color scheme didn’t seem particularly angelic. That was one of the reasons she’d argued against calling an ambulance, even though Jimmy hadn’t seemed thrilled about it. It wasn’t like their phones had signal either. An aftermath of the angel fallen, Jimmy had mused.
Jimmy, in general, didn’t seem too thrilled about this situation. Pearl couldn’t fault him for it, with the sudden supernatural turn their reunion had taken.
By the time they’d arrived at the car, the air around them had gotten so cold that Pearl worried that they were going to get sick, and they hurried to get the fallen angel into the car, and then themselves. Pearl sat down with the angel, just in case he woke up and panicked, and Jimmy pretty much turned the car on as soon as he was in the driver’s seat. Pearl sighed at the warmth that started to spread in the car.
They didn’t talk on the way home, Jimmy focusing on the road and Pearl looking at the man next to her. His skin looked pale and clammy, brow furrowed in pain, or maybe a nightmare? His wavy hair was messy, and red aural wings were poking out from underneath it. It was strange, she thought. One moment he was all black wings and eyes, the next he seemed to have copied her after only one look. Maybe he didn’t want people to know he was an angel, she thought, using the first person he saw to create a cover. Though, he had seemed so out of it, maybe he hadn’t even noticed he did it.
Pearl was so entranced in the looks of the angel, she only realized they’d reached Jimmy’s house when the engine turned off. She jumped, then unfastened her seatbelt and left the car. While she started maneuvering the angel out of his seat, Jimmy unlocked the front door, then returned to shoulder his other arm. He and Pearl slowly inched to the front door, and by the time they scooted through it sideways, Scott stood in the door to the living room with his phone in his hand, frowning at them.
“Why are you carrying an unconscious stranger into our house?” he demanded.
“Uh,” Pearl said and blinked. “He collapsed in the woods and we didn’t just want to leave him behind?”
Scott narrowed his eyes, not very convinced. “Why didn’t you bring him to the hospital then?”
Pearl exchanged a gaze with Jimmy. Uhm …
“He asked not to,” Jimmy improvised. “Said he’s afraid of doctors and such.”
“Yeah,” Pearl backed him up. “That. And he’s not injured badly.”
Scott looked at the angel, then Pearl, then Jimmy. “He’s your responsibility,” he said and trotted back into the living room. Then Jimmy signaled for them to go up the stairs and sit the man into the office chair for now.
“I don’t like lying to Scott,” Jimmy said while he pulled out the couch they had here for guests to sleep on.
“You could have told him the truth,” Pearl said, and Jimmy turned around to frown at her.
“Do you really think that?” he asked. “What did you want me to say? ‘Hey darling, this man just fell from the sky and he’s probably an angel and we can’t bring him to the hospital because who knows what they’re gonna do with him?’”
Pearl frowned. “If you put it like that …”
Jimmy sighed. “Look, let’s just get him layed down and then … I don’t know, maybe I’ll talk to him.”
He put the angel’s arm back around his shoulders, then they carried him over to the couch and lowered him down on it. While Pearl worked on getting him more comfortable, Jimmy went to leave.
“Good luck,” Pearl offered.
Jimmy took a deep breath, then made his way back down to the living room where he found Scott frowning at his phone. He sat on his usual place on the couch next to him, not sure how to start.
“Have you seen the purple sky while you were out?” Scott asked and looked up. “And that meteor? Apparently it came down right in the woods near where you went.”
Jimmy made a face. “It was freaky,” he said. “Like, suddenly everything went quiet and it got really dark, but there were no stars.” He glanced at Scott to find him looking right back at him, now turned to face him fully.
“Tell me the truth, Jimmy. Who is that man?”
Jimmy didn’t know why he thought for a second that Scott wouldn’t see through his lies. That man knew him better than he did, himself, sometimes. But there was no accusation in the way he said it, only curiosity.
“It’s true that we found him in the woods,” he admitted. “When we went to find the meteor. Only it wasn’t a meteor.”
Scott tilted his head in askance. “So you’re saying it was him?”
Jimmy nodded. “I don’t think he’s human.”
Pearl spun in the office chair, checking social media now that she had wifi. There were a lot of posts about that strange weather phenomenon and so-called meteor, much speculation, but nothing conclusive. Not a lot of experts had gotten the chance to respond to it, and the ones who did had no idea what caused it, but they were investigating.
Yeah, Pearl didn’t think they would guess that it was a man falling from the sky. Something … inhuman, fantastical. They would probably think it was some debris, or a an asteroid that they’d overlooked, completely vaporized upon impact. Without the proof that was lying on the couch, there was no way they would be able to guess what that meteor had truly been.
She sighed and listened to the quiet voices sounding through the floor, too quiet to understand any word they said. She wondered what Scott thought about the angel, but she would find out soon enough. For now, she would give the boyfriends some privacy.
She got lost in her phone answering Gem’s message if she was okay and missed the moment the stranger opened his eyes. The only sign that he’d awoken was a panicked trill that escaped his throat. She looked up to find him standing up, backing against a wall with wide eyes. They were still black with a purple hue, but with their current shade they could almost be mistaken for very dark brown eyes in the right light. He made some more noises, chirps and squawks mostly, but some more human noises mixed into it as well. If it was supposed to be a language, it was none she’s ever heard before. If it was supposed to be a language, it was none she’s ever heard before, though it did remind her of the dialects that some more isolated avian communities possessed—without the need of the dialect having to be spoken or understood by none-avians, they often used some sounds exclusively to avians.
“It’s okay,” she said, dropping her phone into her lap and lifting her hands to show him that they were empty. “My name’s Pearl. I’m not gonna hurt you.”
The stranger’s eyes flicked around nonetheless, finding the window that was closer to him than her, and backed away from her until he stood in front of her. He turned to open it but quickly looked back over his shoulder with spooked eyes, as if he’d forgotten that he only had two eyes left. He fiddled with the handle, then looked back at it when it didn’t open the way he wanted, before quickly turning around to Pearl again, as if afraid that if he didn’t look at her, she’s gonna attack him.
“Hey,” she said quietly and slumped in the chair to make herself look smaller, less intimidating. “You’re okay, I just … you took quite the tumble in the forest there and I just wanted to make sure you weren’t seriously hurt.”
The stranger considered that for a moment, then he said, “I’m not,” and crossed his arms. “Now let. Me. Go.”
“I can open the window for you,” she offered even though she wanted him to stay, to figure him out. She hadn’t expected him to speak English, for one, copying her accent perfectly. “Or the front door. Whichever you prefer.”
The angel’s gaze flicked to the door, then the window, then back to her.
“I—,” he said hesitantly, his face scrunched up in thought. “Pearl.”
“Yes?” she asked maybe a bit too excitedly, sitting up straighter fast enough that the motion disturbed the phone in her lap and it clattered to the ground.
“You good up there?” Scott called, and the angel winced, his eyes wide.
“Just dropped my phone,” she called back, not daring to look away from the man, fearing that he would just disappear if she did.
It got quiet again and the angel bit his lip. “Pearl,” he repeated, eyeing her carefully.
This time, Pearl measured her response. No quick movements, she reminded herself and nodded.
The man frowned and scrunched up his nose in thought. “I—I think I’d tell you my name too, Pearl, but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten what it is.”
“Oh,” Pearl just said, not really knowing what to say to that. She glanced away in thought, then looked back at the man. “Would you like me to give you a new name until you remember yours?”
The man tilted his head in thought, glancing away briefly. Then he looked back at Pearl. “What do you have in mind?”
Pearl thought for a moment and played back their first meeting. The man had looked like a little sun in the darkness that had settled over the world, so…
“Grian?” she asked. “It means ‘sun’ in Irish.”
The angel tilted his head, pursing his lips as he thought. “Grian,” he sounded out slowly, and then again. “Grian, Grian, Grian.” His eyes focused on her, and his gaze was kind of unsettling. “It’s a good name, I’ll take it.”
A smile spread on Pearl’s face. She was glad he liked it. “Nice to meet you, Grian,” she said and reached out her hand.
Grian eyed it skeptically, then looked up at her before he stepped closer and took it. “Nice to meet you too, Pearl.”
“So, Grian,” Pearl asked once he sat back down on the edge of the couch. “How are you feeling?”
The man took a moment to think about it. “You said I fell, right?” he asked, and when Pearl nodded, he continued, “I don’t feel any pain anywhere. I think.”
“You think,” Pearl echoed, and Grian nodded.
“My head feels weird, but I don’t think it hurts. It might be the missing memories?”
Pearl tilted her head in curiosity. “Do you remember anything before you fell?”
Grian thought for a moment before he scrunched up his face in pace and lifted his hands to clutch at his hair. “It hurts.”
Pearl got up to sit in front of him on the floor. “It’s okay if you don’t,” she said. “You don’t have to remember now. Not if it hurts you.”
Grian was quiet for a bit, but the pained expression didn’t vanish from his face. “Can you distract me?” he asked with a small voice.
“’Course,” Pearl said and thought for a moment. “So, I’m currently working in Hermitopia, that’s about, like a hundred-ish miles from here? And what I’m doing is I’m currently working on overhauling the mail system because about ten years ago when I started there, it’s totally gone to shit. Like, you’re lucky if you get your important mail in time to send a response before the deadline’s over. And packages also took forever. Especially if you wanted to ship something within the county, it would be a lot more efficient to just deliver your mail and packages yourself, which of course would raise shipping prices a lot, because no one actually wants to do that if they can pay someone else to do it, and it lead to some third party services rising in popularity, which is actually not great either, because we’re a federal agency. It’s not really a good look, and besides, who knows how secure their services actually are? There’s been quite a few of those companies that snooped in the mail and sold the info to other companies.”
Grian looked at Pearl, watching her, not looking quice as pained anymore. “That … doesn’t sound good.”
“Yeah, it’s real shitty. So do you know what I did?”
Grian raised his eyebrows. “What did you do?”
“So there’s this guy I know,” she explains. “My friend Ren introduced me to him when I complained to him about the situation. Said he might help. Actually, I still don’t know his name,” Pearl realized. “I just know he goes by Doc. He’s a—actually, I don’t know what he does either, but I know he’s good at hacking. So I asked him if he could help me. I didn’t even know what he was gonna do, and I didn’t really care as long as he made the mail system safe again. And so Doc hacked into the servers of the mail service and published proof that the head of the HPS was embezzling the funds it got from the government and was also involved in the selling of customer data. I don’t even know if that asshole actually did it,” she said with an amused smile on her face. “I wouldn’t put it past Doc to fabricate evidence that holds up in court.
“But Doc’s apparently part of a network of hackers that expose corruption, and he was already working on writing an exposé on him so my request made him finish that even faster, and I’m pretty sure he pulled some strings so that I could rise through the ranks faster after that. Like, immediately after a bunch of people were let go for being involved in it, and that’s when I got offered a managerial position in the branch I delivered mail part-time from.”
“Huh,” Grian said. “And what are you doing now?”
“Well, about a year ago I was promoted to the manager of the HPS,” Pearl explained proudly. “So now, after I worked on optimizing the Magic Mountain branch, I’m implementing the things that have worked well on a larger scale, and things have improved a lot since Doc’s little exposé. Like, the mail’s getting to its recipients within two to three business days, same with packages, and while there was a lot of suspicions of the HPS’s security afterwards and calls to privatize the post service, there hasn’t been a scandal about sold customer data since. And now I’m working together with two highly skilled redstone engineers to make mail delivery even faster.”
“Huh,” Grian said, looking like he didn’t completely follow, but at least he didn’t seem in pain anymore, so mission accomplished. “That’s neat.”
“Right?” Pearl asked. “I’d tell you more about the redstone, too, but to be honest, I don’t really understand all the technicality. I’m trying to learn more about it by making a game with it, but I haven’t really mastered it yet.”
“What kind of game are you working on?” Grian asked, tilting his head.
“It’s Wordle,” she said, then added, upon seeing his confusion, “it’s like a word game, wait, I’ll show you.” She picked the phone up off the ground, then sat next to Grian on the couch and showed him how to play.
Chapter 3: Cousin Adoptions
Summary:
Pearl was quiet for a moment, then she said, ”If you wanna watch along I wouldn’t mind if you sit in my nest.”
Grian raised their eyebrows. Nests were for flocks, not strangers you’ve only met today.
“You don’t have anyone,” Pearl explained at their silence. ”No flock, nothing. So I don’t mind if you join mine for now.”
That … felt scary. Grian couldn’t understand how she could even consider letting someone new into her nest, someone she hadn’t known for months or years. The concept felt so foreign to them, he thought, it was likely it took forever for them to accept anyone as friends, let alone flock, someone he would let inside their nest.
OR:
Pearl decides to adopt Grian. Plus some powers shenanigans.
Notes:
Due to Watchers not having a concept of gender, Grian refers to themself with gender neutral pronouns. (He doesn't mind other pronouns tho)
Also: i added another one of my inspirations to the, well, inspirations. I didn't initially because, well, I didn't really know how to incorporate the inspo it gave me (besides the amnesia) but now i figured it out. Also I added some tags!
Chapter Text
Grian didn’t like Wordle.
It definitely was due to the fact that somehow, none of the words they suggested were five letters long, and when Pearl spelled the words out to prove it, they were convinced the letters she used did not correspond to any word at all. Meanwhile, when Grian spelled them out, she was convinced that some of the letters weren’t even letters.
“Maybe it has something to do with the fact that earlier, you made some sounds that I couldn’t understand as words, and after you heard me speak, you suddenly spoke English,” Pearl guessed, and Grian frowned.
“You’re implying I switched from one language to another,” they noted. “I didn’t though.”
“Huh.” Pearl frowned. “Maybe it wasn’t consciously? I slip up, too, sometimes.”
Grian bit their lip in thought. “I don’t really … I don’t think I know I speak more than one language.”
“You sure?” Pearl asked, something calculating in her gaze.
“Pretty sure,” they responded, frowning when a laugh escaped Pearl’s lip.
“Apparently you speak Portuguese, too,” she grinned.
Grian blinked. “What?“
“Can you just emulate any language you’re hearing?” Pearl wondered.
“But I’m just speaking English!” they protested.
She shook her head. “That was Irish,” she corrected him. Then she tilted her head in curiosity. “Wait, do you actually just hear the word for ‘sun’ when I call your name?”
Grian frowned. “When you say Grian, I hear G-R-I-A-N, right?” And then they spelled the way ‘sun’ sounded to them, a trill followed by a group of letters.
Pearl frowned, then tried to emulate the sounds, not quite successfully. “But those sounds don’t come together to say ‘sun’, right? If you put them together.”
“Wait. Say ‘sun‘ again,” they asked, and when the word had left their lips, they realized the shape their mouth made was not a familiar one.
Pearl did as asked, then they asked her to say their name. Now that they actually paid attention to the words, they actually realized that they sounded completely different.
Weird.
“So do you just have an auto-translator in your head that adapts to whatever language the person you’re talking to is speaking?”
Grian frowned. “Maybe. So I’m currently matching your language?”
“Yeah. We’re both speaking English.”
“Huh.”
They were both quiet for a moment, then Pearl gazed at them. “Is it, like, related to the fact that you changed your appearance when you looked at me after you first collapsed?”
“Huh?”
“I mean … me and my cousin, Jimmy, we found you not long after you collasped, and I think you woke up for, like, two seconds because you opened your eyes, looked at me, changed your appearance, and then fell back asleep.”
Grian made a face. “Changed my appearance how?“
“Well,” Pearl said and hesitated, then pulled out her phone, closed the Wordle App and put it with its back facing them. Then she showed them the screen, a confused avian with wings like Pearl’s looking back at them.
“Are you saying that’s me?” Grian was sure they’d never seen that face before.
Pearl nodded. “And before that, you, like, had six wings and a lot of eyes that were completely black and purple, no whites. And your wings were black, and your hair looked like it was glowing.”
Grian tried to imagine what that looked like, and Pearl squawked in surprise as she was shoved to the side by a black wing.
“Just like that!”
Grian frowned and looked down at themself, startling upon finding eyes on their arms and hovering around them. They hadn’t even noticed the way their view had changed, almost like seeing out of these new eyes was second nature. Their eyes widened as they stood up and spread their wings, spotting six of them, black, and bright golden hair fell into their eyes. They looked at Pearl, all forty(?) of their eyes wide, and found themself looking back at them from the screen she held up to them. This time it was showing them like they were now as they prodded at their face, wings and hair.
This reflection felt more like themself than the photo Pearl had shown them earlier, but something about it didn’t feel right. They felt watched, suddenly, and goosebumps traveled up their skin. The only extra eyes in the room were their own, but something in them told them to hide away before something bad happened.
Grian watched as their reflection turned back into the them Pearl had shown them before that. Red wings, two eyes, non-glowing hair. It felt … safer, somehow, even if they couldn’t explain how. They just knew that being that was dangerous. They still couldn’t shake that feeling completely.
They were startled out of their thoughts by a knock at the door and stared at it with wide eyes. Pearl just got up, though, like it wasn’t a big deal, and opened it to reveal a man with antlers growing from under his bright blue hair. He was about the same height as Pearl, without them.
“Scott, what’s up?”
“Me and Jimmy are ordering dinner,” the man at the door, Scott said, and glanced at Grian. “Do you and your friend want anything?”
“Ah, right,” Pearl said and opened the door more before pointing to Scott. “Grian, that’s Scott, an old friend of mine. Scott, meet Grian.”
Scott frowned at Grian for a moment as though he was trying to figure them out, which made the avian’s anxiety skyrocket again, then he smiled. “Nice to meet you, Grian. What do you want for dinner?”
Grian blinked, then looked at Pearl for help. “I’ll … uh, I’ll have whatever she’s having.”
Pearl looked at them with her eyebrows raised and an amused smile around her lips. “Anything you can’t or won’t eat?”
“Uh … not that I know of.”
“Then let’s just keep it simple,” she said and clapped her hands. “We’ll have some pepperoni pizza.”
“Okay,” Scott nodded. “I’ll go order then. D’you wanna come downstairs or are you gonna stay up here till it arrives?”
Pearl looked over at them. “What do you say? Do you need some more time before meeting new people?”
Grian nodded quickly. The idea of being around more people, having them look at them, felt dangerous.
“Alright then, see ya later,” Scott said and gave them a little wave before he left and closed the door behind him.
Grian sat down and stared after him until the sound of his footsteps stopped and they could hear him talk to someone else downstairs. Only then did they avert their eyes and let out a sigh of relief.
“So,” Pearl said and sat down next to them and—oh no, she was looking at them.
“So,” Grian echoed, not sure what she expected of them.
“You just copied Scott’s accent,” Pearl noted, and Grian frowned.
“Didn’t notice there’s a difference,” they mumbled.
“Scott’s Scottish and mine’s mostly Australian, I think,” she said.
Grian hummed a response and then looked away.
“You okay?” Pearl asked after a moment of quiet.
They nodded. “Just tired.” They weren’t quite sure how to explain to her what was going on inside of them, nor were they sure they even wanted to share.
Pearl was quiet for a bit, then pulled out a laptop. “Do you wanna watch something?”
Suddenly, Grian forgot how to breathe. Their eyebrows twitched, then they glanced at her. “Watch?” they asked quietly, not liking how small their voice sounded.
“You gotta speak English with me, Grian,” Pearl said, and they frowned. They thought the switching languages thing was automatic, so why had they reverted to a different one just now?
They blinked for a moment, unsure of themself, then frowned. What was the word Pearl had used?
“Watch what?” they tried again after clearing their throat.
Pearl shrugged. “I don’t know, a movie or a show or something.”
Grian’s frown deepened as they watched her open the laptop and hit a button that illuminated it, showing a photo of her and a ginger deer-hybrid, arm in arm and laughing at the camera.
“Who’s that?” they asked.
“Oh that?” A soft, loving smile spread on Pearl’s face. “That’s Gem, my girlfriend. Maybe I could introduce her to you someday?”
Grian nodded, even though the thought of meeting more people turned their stomach upside down.
“So,” Pearl said. “Any suggestions on what to watch?”
Grian shrugged. “Dunno, I’ve … never watched much.” At least when it came to … whatever Pearl was planning to watch. Either that or they forgot.
Pearl watched them for a moment, then she decided, “I’m just gonna put on some YouTube, I still haven’t gotten around for nesting for the night, anyway.” She got up to grab the desk chair and placed her laptop on it, then tapped away at it.
“Nesting?” Grian echoed, more so she kept talking than because they didn’t understand. They knew what nesting was, at least. Nesting was familiar.
“I live further away,” Pearl explained and hit play on a video, then turned down the volume. “I hope some Stardew‘s okay?—Anyway, Jimmy always keeps some nesting material around in case family decides to cross the night. I doubt you’d like a night away from home without a nest,” Pearl added and glanced at them. Then she opened the top drawer and grabbed a pile of blankets from it that she chucked at Grian.
They squawked as they tried to catch them. “Warn a guy next time!”
“Sorry,” Pearl winced, then dumped some pillows next to them. “We could ask them later if you could use the couch in their living room for your nest, otherwise we could maybe build you one on the floor and pad it a lot?” She scrunched up her face in thought. “I doubt that would be comfortable though.”
“Floor should be fine,” Grian declared. “I’ve had floor nests before.” They weren’t sure how they knew but the concept definitely wasn’t foreign to them.
“Alright,” Pearl said. “Then you’ll get most of the blankets, just so you can get a bit more comfortable, that okay?”
Grian nodded and dumped a few of the blankets on the couch, then took a seat on the floor under the window. They started by laying the two thicker blankets down first, then they heaped some of the smaller ones around the edge, forming a little wall. Then they added some pillows and tried lying down in it before making some adjustments.
It was a lot smaller than they were used to. They didn’t actually remember their old nests, but they knew they’d been big enough for them to stretch out completely and still not hit the walls, the floor soft and fluffy. In this nest, they had to curl up to fit comfortably, and they could still feel the floor through the blankets. It wasn’t comfy but it would do. It wasn’t like they had to spend all day in the nest, either.
Grian spent some time curled up in their nest, making sure it was good enough that they wouldn’t spend all night trying to rearrange it, and listened to the quiet voice that came from the laptop. They could hear Pearl, walking around the couch and rustling with blankets and pillows. It was strangely domestic, for a stranger, but Grian found they didn’t really mind.
“You falling asleep there?” Pearl asked after a while, and then there was the noise of a body falling into blankets and pillows. Grian looked up to find her smiling in amusement.
“Just getting comfy,” they responded.
Pearl was quiet for a moment, then she said, “If you wanna watch along I wouldn’t mind if you sit in my nest.”
Grian raised their eyebrows. Nests were for flocks, not strangers you’ve only met today.
“You don’t have anyone,” Pearl explained at their silence. “No flock, nothing. So I don’t mind if you join mine for now.”
That … felt scary. Grian couldn’t understand how she could even consider letting someone new into her nest, someone she hadn’t known for months or years. The concept felt so foreign to them, they thought, it was likely it took forever for them to accept anyone as friends, let alone flock, someone they would let inside their nest.
They wanted to answer, but the anxiety was like ants in their veins, so they pulled a thin wall-blanket over themself to hide, instead.
“That’s okay,” Pearl said. “I’m not mad if it’s too soon for you, or you decide that’s something you don’t want at all.”
Grian frowned at that, fighting the temptation to look at Pearl, see what kind of expression was on her face when she said it.
But they didn’t look, instead hiding under the blanket until a knock at the door disrupted the atmosphere.
He heard footsteps, then an opening door. “Yeah?”
“Dinner’s here,” a voice said that Grian didn’t think they’ve heard before. “Where’s Grian?”
“Hiding in his nest,” Pearl said. “Grian, wanna eat something?”
Grian didn’t answer for a bit. They didn’t think they were hungry, and they weren’t really in the mood to meet new people. They just wanted to be curled up in their nest where no one could perceive them, with Pearl watching something quiet in the background—or better yet: alone in their nest with no one around, not even Pearl.
Still, they probably shouldn’t just hide away after these strangers had gone through the effort of picking them up in the forest and taking them home, without even knowing them. And if they were honest, they were curious about who these people were, even if they didn’t want them to perceive them.
“Fine,” they grumbled and kicked the blanket away. It was only Pearl waiting for them now, smiling when she saw them emerging from their blanket coocoon.
“Yeah?” she asked, excitement settling on her face. Grian just nodded and sat up, rearranging some of their feathers that had gotten into disarray from lying down carelessly, then stood up to join Pearl at the door.
“Let’s,” Grian said, and she smiled.
“Let’s.”
Dinner was an awkward affair.
After Grian had been introduced to Jimmy—they still winced internally when they remembered that they’d called him Timmy—, Scott and Jimmy had told Pearl what they’d been up to in the year and a half since they’d last seen her. Pearl responded in kind, telling them about the measures she’d taken to modernize the Post Service, and telling them about her and Gem’s plans to move in with each other.
Grian listened but didn’t speak, just working on decimating their pizza. It wasn’t the first time they’d eaten this, they noted with surprise, but they couldn’t remember where they had it before. It didn’t really matter, anyway.
“Grian?”
Grian looked up, suddenly all eyes on them. They didn’t like the way it made them feel, made their skin crawl. They hurried to swallow their bite, then asked, “Yeah?”
“We’re just wondering where you could stay,” Pearl explained, “since you don’t remember anything.”
Grian nodded. Okay, that made sense. They didn’t know them, so they had no reason to just offer them to stay. They hadn’t really expected that to be the case either, though they did think that it would probably make things easier if they could stay.
Not that they wanted to, anyway.
“It’s a little cramped here,” Jimmy explained. “We probably could make space for you here, but it’s probably gonna be a tight fit.”
“Besides, it seems like you’ve already taken a liking to Pearl,” Scott added.
Grian blinked. Okay, they didn’t want them here. That was fine. But where were they going with this?
“I’ve also got some experience with roomies,” Pearl explained then. “And I texted a bit with Gem since we wanted to move in together soon, and she’d be fine if my cousin stayed with us for a bit.”
So … Jimmy was moving in with Pearl and Gem? And Scott stayed here? And then what? It didn’t seem like it was to make space for Grian, and they wouldn’t want to kick Jimmy out anyway—
“That’s you, by the way.”
“Huh?” Grian asked, completely confused now.
“Well, I can’t exactly tell people I just randomly found you in a forest,” Pearl elaborated. “And you copied my wing pattern. You could absolutely pass for my cousin.”
Grian blinked. “What?”
“I mean your hair is somewhere between brown and blonde like mine, you’re a parrot as well, and I can just tell people you’re from my dad’s side of my family.”
Was that what Pearl meant when she said earlier that she wouldn’t mind if they joined her flock? Was she already thinking about it then?
“Uh,” Grian said, wide-eyed and unsure what to say. It would be rude to refuse, right?
“If you’re not comfy with the family part, we can figure something else out,” Pearl said after another moment of silence.
Grian blinked. “No, that … That’s fine, actually.”
A wide smile spread on Pearl’s face. “Cool, welcome to the family then.”
And just for tonight, Grian allowed themself to believe that they could have this.
Chapter 4: Night-time Conversations
Summary:
“Why’re you even up yet?”
Grian wrapped his hands around his mug and shrugged, staring at his reflection. “Can’t sleep. ’sides, I like stargazing. Reminds me of home.”
“Yeah?”
He nodded slowly. “I … don’t know more than that, though. Just—it reminds me of home.”
“That’s fine,” Timmy said and smiled. “You don’t really have to remember anything.”
“I guess.” Grian glanced at him. “Just … it feels weird. Being so sure I’ve done this before, but not being able to know.“
OR:
Grian and
JimmyTimmy bond.
Notes:
After a comment from Abby_Wolf reminded me that I forgot to include a scene where Gem learns about Grian, I smashed out a ~850 word scene about it in one hour. This was the longest chapter yet even before that scene. So enjoy your 3.8k word chapter, yall! Also we have out first Scott pov!
Honestly originally this chapter started with the roof scene and had another scene at the end (that I moved to the beginning of ch5) bc I realized too late that I wanted a Gem POV and a Scott POV—especially Scott's reaction and opinion about Grian. You'll see why. It's probably something they'll talk about at some point but yeah :3
Chapter Text
Not long after dinner, Pearl retreated to the office to make a phone call. She had already texted Gem about her, well, ‘cousin’ staying with her for a bit but with everything, she hadn’t quite gotten around to discuss the stay with her in-depth.
She sat down in the office chair, moved the keyboard aside, and then plopped her own laptop in its place. After booting up Discord, she hit the call button on Gem’s contact. It rang a few times, then Gem’s face appeared on her screen.
“Hiiii,” Pearl greeted her with a smile.
“Hi Pearl, how are you doing?” Gem asked.
Pearl paused to actually check what her body was trying to tell her. With everything that’s been going on, she had barely had a chance to really listen.
“I’m … good, all things considered? Today was a lot. First this weird weather phenomenon, then my cousin needing to get away from some stuff, and … I think Jimmy’s mad at me too.”
“You think?” Gem asked, raising her eyebrows.
Pearl shrugged. “I don’t know why, he’s never said anything ‘till now, but …” She frowned. “It seems like he’s still not over me leaving.”
“What’d he say?”
“We were taking a walk just after I’ve arrived,” Pearl explained. “He seemed really absent during it, like he didn’t really want to hear what I had to say. And then …” She frowned. “Then he noticed that something weird was going on. Everything was quiet, the sky got all dark and … while we were figuring out what we were gonna do, he was just so mean. Made comments about how I wouldn’t know how to act or what to do because I’ve spent most of my life in cities, and not here.”
Gem scrunched up her nose. “Yikes.”
“Right?” Pearl asked. “He even told me he was fine with me studying in Hermitopia. I thought we talked it out! And like, I know I should have visited more but if it bothered him that much, why didn’t he say something?”
“Seems like he wasn’t quite honest.” Gem noted. “I’d say you two talk about it before you come back so that it won’t get worse. You’re not gonna be able to resolve this without talking.”
Pearl sighed. “I mean, he did say that we should talk about it later. Just …” she bit her lip nervously, taking a few breaths to gather the courage to speak out the doubts that had filled her head to the brim ten years ago, and threatened to drown out her reason now. “What if he hates me? For leaving?” As much as Pearl wanted to believe that that wasn’t the case, she’d moved around enough to know emotions could be messy when one of your closest friends moved away. When she left for Hermitopia ten and a half years ago, her friends had been mad at her, and Jimmy had been slowest to forgive her. At least she thought he’d forgiven her, he’d said he did.
“Pearl …” Gem said gently, her face twisting in compassion, and they both were quiet for a bit. “It’s his right to not forgive you, of course,” she said eventually. “But if he really doesn’t forgive you, it is his responsibility to communicate that, especially because he already said that he’s fine with it. You’re not a mind reader.
“Sure,” Gem added. “Maybe you could have done things differently, but you’re both adults. So if he doesn’t communicate, that’s on him. You did your best to resolve the conflict, to make it up to him. The ball’s in his court, now.”
Pearl let that settle in, then sighed. “You’re right. Thanks, love.”
“I’m always right,” Gem joked, and Pearl had to laugh. “So, what’s this about your cousin?”
Pearl paused and gathered her thoughts, going over the story she had made up in her mind. “His name’s Grian,” she explained then. “He’s the son of my dad’s sister, lives in England currently. He, uhm … he’s kind of sick? I don’t know what he has exactly, just that everyone really babies him even though he can still do most things, and he’s really sick of it, so he asked if he could stay at my place for a bit.”
“You never mentioned him,” Gem noted, and Pearl’s heart stopped for a moment.
“Ah, yeah, we were never really close,” she explained quickly. “Since Dad had long left the UK by the time he was born, we only met on the few trips we took there, but he found my Insta and decided to reach out. We’ve been texting all afternoon and then he asked me if he could stay with me for a bit, he’s not sure how long yet.”
Gem hummed. “And you’re fine with that?”
Pearl nodded.
“No people pleasing?”
Pearl paused and thought for a moment. “Maybe a little?”
Gem groaned. “Pearl—”
“I know,” Pearl interrupted her. “He just doesn’t really have any other place to go, and if I notice it gets too much I’ll make him get his own apartment, promise.”
“Fine,” Gem relented. “But if you let him cross your boundaries too much, I will call you out on your people-pleaser-iness.”
Pearl nodded. “Deal.”
Scott didn’t return to his room until he had made sure Pearl and Grian were back in their room. It wasn’t like he didn’t trust them to be alone in his and Jimmy’s home, but … he didn’t trust Grian to be alone in his and Jimmy’s home.
Maybe it was the fact that he was a stranger, but Scott wasn’t so sure about that. Even if he had people over that only knew Jimmy, not him, Scott was usually fine with leaving them alone for a few minutes if need be. And Pearl and Jimmy had brought him home, even if he was a stranger to them too. And Grian seemed quiet, and … well, that was it. Just quiet. Didn’t talk unless spoken to, but he was attentive nonetheless.
Maybe that was what unsettled Scott, that he was watching quietly, like what was happening around him had nothing to do with him. Or maybe it was because Scott knew he wasn’t human. How had Jimmy described him? A fallen angel. Six black wings and excess eyes, with golden hair that almost looked like a halo. The description he’d given didn’t reflect how Grian looked like at all. After just one look at Pearl, he’d shapeshifted into something simpler, more familiar, more safe, even if his eyes were still an unnatural purple. And it had been freaky how, during their earlier conversation, Grian’s accent had switched from Australian to British to Scottish depending on who he responded to, a perfect imitation of those he had copied. It didn’t even seem conscious.
He was the perfect manipulator, Scott thought. Effortlessly shifting appearance and way of speaking into something the people around him would deem safe. Watching, quietly, never saying what he thought.
And Jimmy and Pearl had accepted him into their flock. Just like that. And Jimmy had even asked him earlier, while they were waiting for dinner, if Scott would be alright with Grian staying. And now, after dinner that only seemed to confirm the bad feeling that had settled deep within his stomach, he was glad he told Jimmy he wasn’t comfortable with that … that creature staying. He didn’t exactly like that he was staying with Pearl, either, but anything was better than Grian staying here, tainting the safety of his home.
Scott sighed as he made his way upstairs, stopping in front of the office door to listen and make sure Grian was actually in there, then he made his way across the hall to the bedroom.
Jimmy had already turned off the light, but his phone still illuminated the room when Scott entered. He looked up, then, and smiled at his boyfriend. “Hi. How was the hangout?”
Scott shrugged and flopped down onto the bed like a starfish, draping half across his boyfriend. “Hangout-y. How’s TikTok?”
“Ah, yes,” Jimmy responded. “Certainly TikTok-y. Sent you some stuff.”
Scott struggled for a moment trying to pull his phone out of his pocket without disturbing his position too much, then gave up and sat up, freed his phone, and curled up into Jimmy who put his own phone down at that. It was their little routine now—Jimmy scrolling TikTok before bed, claiming it helped him sleep (despite Scott insisting that the blue light of his phone would have the opposite effect), and showing some videos of cute animals and some corny couple-y stuff to his boyfriend.
Jimmy watched Scott’s reactions to the stuff he had sent him, and the deer hybrid could slowly feel the anxiety seeping out of him, chased away by calming videos and his boyfriend’s presence. Still, a sense of uneasiness prevailed. He couldn’t get Grian’s otherness out of his head.
Scott waited until the video he was currently watching was finished before hitting pause and turning to face Jimmy. “By the way, did you and Pearl talk about how long they’re gonna stay yet?” If so, it hadn’t happened verbally.
Jimmy winced at that. “I meant to, but then Grian—I just totally forgot.”
“It’s okay,” Scott responded even though it was decidedly not. “Pearl told me she’s got time off for a week, and I gave my okay that she could stay this long if you’re also okay with it.” He hesitated, then said, “Though we’ll have to see if that’s still her plan now that Grian’s around.”
“True.” Jimmy bit his lip, and he’s got this look, the one he always got when he wanted to say something but didn’t quite dare. “Are you still okay with her staying that long now that Grian’s here too, though?” he asked, and Scott knew that it wasn’t the thing what he was afraid of saying, only a distraction.
Scott considered that for a moment, then settled for a half truth. “I don’t know him well enough to be fully comfortable around him, but he’s your cousin now. And you know that your family can stay here anytime.”
“Technically he’s only Pearl’s cousin,” Jimmy pointed out, and Scott was kind of glad he was still distracted by what was eating at him to notice the cop-out.
“So? You seem to like him, and it’s not that much of a stretch,” Scott argued. “I mean, you wanted to invite him to live with us.” Then he tilted his head and watched closer now. “Now, wanna tell me why you’re trying to distract me with semantics?”
Jimmy groaned, then looked away, frowning. It took a while until he opened his mouth, a while that Scott spent watching him. The way his hair was breaking out of the hold of his hair gel, the way his brown eyes flicked around the room as he mentally weighed his options.
“Fine,” he said then and ran a hand through his hair, displacing it even more. “I’m—I don’t think I like Pearl being here.”
“Is it ‘cause you’re mad she didn’t make more effort to stay in touch?”
Jimmy shrugged. “Yeah, pretty much. I wanna be mad at her but I don’t think I can stay mad at her if she’s actually here.”
“Well, you could tell her that you only want her to stay the weekend,” Scott suggested. And in that case, Grian would leave sooner, too.
“I don’t know,” Jimmy said hesitantly. “She already thinks something’s up, and if I tell her I want her to leave on Sunday, she’s probably gonna ask, because technically I told her we would talk, just … later.”
Bummer. Scott raised his eyebrows at Jimmy. “She’s probably gonna do it anyway if she’s staying for the week, too.”
Jimmy groaned and rolled away. “Don’t remind me!”
Grian greeted the morning outside, the cold wind in their face. They liked the quiet of it, the stars having not quite faded from the february night.
It reminded them of home, wherever that was.
It saddened Grian, even though they didn’t even remember home. Even though they didn’t remember what of this clear winter morning reminded them of it.
They didn’t really think about it too much. Didn’t want to get a headache, for one, but they had a new home now. Even though they didn’t think it would be forever.
Grian sighed and shoved these useless thoughts away. They were a new person now, not that they knew what that entailed. What use was it to dwell on the past if they couldn’t remember it?
They laid back and wished they’d brought some blankets from inside, but on the other hand they didn’t want to wake Pearl. It was still early, after all, but even in a tank top and barefoot as they were, they weren’t cold. They were used to temperatures much colder than this, despite the snow coating the landscape around. The warmth radiating from the roof under them made their perch nice and warm. They could almost fall asleep like this …
Almost. If it weren’t for the fact that there were way too many thoughts in their head that didn’t make any sense. And so they just lay here, staring into the universe and hoping the universe didn’t stare back. That was, until the window next to them opened and Grian jumped out of their skin.
“What are you doing up here at—” Timmy interrupted himself and stared at his phone, then stared at Grian with even wider eyes, “—four in the morning?”
Grian blinked. “Stargazing?” They tried.
Timmy eyed their bare feet and shoulders. “You’re gonna catch fucking death, wait here.”
His head vanished, and Grian frowned, then shrugged and stared back up into the sky. They didn’t know how much time had passed until Timmy opened the window back up again, pushed a small basket and a bunch of fabric into Grian’s arms, and climbed out of the window himself, closing it behind him. Then he grabbed the blankets out of Grian’s hands and plucked a fuzzy sweater out of their depths, followed by a pair of big fluffy socks.
“Put them on,” he ordered and pushed them back into Grian’s hands, taking the basket in return.
“Okay?” Grian said slowly, but complied. Timmy wore similarly warm clothes. Maybe the people here were simply more susceptible to the cold, they thought.
“Good,” Timmy explained, then gave Grian one blanket and tucked the other one around himself. Then he gave them a hot water bottle from the basket too, and once Grian had placed it underneath their blanket, Timmy produced a thermos bottle and two cups from the basket as well. He filled the first cup with something that smelled like peppermint and handed it to Grian, then repeated the same for himself. “Pearl’s gonna kill me if you get sick the first night you’re here.
“I’m fine,” Grian insisted, but Timmy just gave them a Look.
“If you’re gonna stay out here, I’m gonna make sure you’re not catching a cold,” he said and shrugged, then took a sip of his tea. “Why’re you even up yet?”
Grian wrapped their hands around their mug and shrugged, staring at their reflection in the tea. “Can’t sleep. ‘sides, I like stargazing. Reminds me of home.”
“Yeah?”
They nodded slowly. “I … don’t know more than that, though. Just—it reminds me of home.”
“That’s fine,” Timmy said and smiled. “You don’t really have to remember anything.”
“I guess.” Grian glanced at him. “Just … it feels weird. Being so sure I’ve done this before, but not being able to know.“
“Have you done this before?” Timmy challenged. “Sitting on the roof with your, what? Second cousin? Cousin of your cousin? Is there even a proper term for it?”
Grian laughed. It was a small thing, more an exhale over a smile than anything, but they laughed.
“I’ve never sat on a roof drinking tea with my … Timmy before, that’s true.”
Timmy blinked at them, then his mouth fell open. “Your what?” Grian was still trying to understand what they did wrong when Timmy lightly punched their shoulder, not enough to spill their tea. “My name is Jimmy!”
Grian frowned at him. They had gotten Timmy’s name wrong earlier, but … “I’m pretty sure your name was Timmy.”
Timmy gasped in shock. “You called me Timmy earlier, but that is not my name!”
A mischievious smile spread on Grian’s face. “You sure about that, … Timmy?“
“Oh my god, I hate you,” Timmy exclaimed and shook his head, then quickly glanced back at them. “Not actually though.”
Grian just grinned at him, and Timmy groaned.
“You’re never gonna stop calling me Timmy, are you?”
Grian just shook their head, and then they both enjoyed the silence while each sipping on their tea. Grian was kinda glad now that Timmy had joined them. Staring out into the universe while having an existential crisis was a lot nicer if one wasn’t alone. Besides, even though Grian hadn’t been exactly cold before, curling up around a hot water bottle while clutching a mug of steaming tea was better than just sitting here in a tank top and pants.
“Say,” they started up again after a bit, glancing at Timmy. “Don’t you wanna go back to bed soon? It’s, what, four AM?”
Timmy shrugged. “You woke me up anyway, and I have plenty of time to sleep in anyway. Besides, I haven’t stargazed in years, it’s actually kinda nice for a change.”
“I don’t know.” Grian bit their lip. “It is kinda boring.”
Timmy raised his eyebrow. “Says the guy I caught stargazing in the middle of the night.”
“That’s because I like stargazing,” Grian argued. “I just think staring into the sky for like an hour is probably boring for some people.”
“Probably,” Timmy agreed. “I don’t think I have the patience to do it often, but that makes the few times I do it even more special, don’t you think?”
Grian shrugged. He wasn’t wrong.
Then they did a double take. “You said I woke you up?” they asked and turned around quickly, spilling some tea.
“I think you just bumped against the roof a few times? I’m not the heaviest sleeper. Besides,” Timmy added, “I often wake up once or twice a night. Most nights Scott kicks me in his sleep.” He scrunched up his face. “He pretends he doesn’t, but where else am I getting these bruises from?”
The corners of Grian’s mouth curled up in amusement, and they had to hold back a laugh. “As long as you’re getting enough sleep.”
“I do,” Timmy confirmed. “I’m a light sleeper, but usually I get back to sleep fairly quickly. Sometimes I don’t even remember being awake, actually, just wake Scott up to complain and go straight back to sleep, and I only know that that’s a thing because he lectures me in the morning, because he can’t fall back asleep as quickly as I do.”
This time, Grian giggled. “That’s what I would call karma.”
Timmy joined their laughter. “You’re not wrong there.”
When Pearl woke up the next morning, she could almost forget something had happened in the first place.
Almost.
The moment she’d first set eyes on Grian was seared into her memories. This weird, black, feathery thing that would unfold to reveal what she might almost be fooled into believing was a man. A weirdly skittish, yet trusting angelic carricature of a man. Even in this room, or downstairs in the living room, he seemed just slightly to the left of where a normal person would be. His weird knack for languages was a part of it, but so were his eyes that couldn’t quite fit into a human color scheme, swirling purple with the emotion he so desperately wanted to hide. They didn’t have a pupil, not really. Sometimes it might seem like there was a black void in their centers but it wandered, sometimes scattering completely into purple.
It was freaky, making sure that Pearl couldn’t quite forget that the being she was dealing with wasn’t quite natural. And even now, just after she woke up, the part on her that was running on instinct made her sit up and check that Grian was still where she expected him to be, not a threat.
His nest was empty though. So was the rest of the room. Did he go downstairs for breakfast already? Pearl pulled out her phone to check the time. Ten AM, not impossible.
She took her time getting up and ready, and then she made her way downstairs where she found Scott nursing a cup of coffee.
“Morning,” he mumbled and looked up.
“Morning,” Pearl responded, grabbed cup from the cupboard and poured herself a cup from the pot on the table, then added some milk and sugar. “Fell out of bed?”
“Jimmy woke me up last night,” Scott complained. “Said I kicked him, which I did not, and then he left me all alone. And then I couldn’t get to sleep for another half an hour and he woke me up again when he came back into bed all cold.”
Pearl raised her eyebrows. “Wow. Rude.”
“Right?” Scott exclaimed, then looked at her. “How’d you sleep, Pearl?”
Pearl shrugged. “Could be better. Had to share the nesting materials with Grian so mine wasn’t super comfy. But considering his was on the floor, mine actually might have been a lot more comfy. Have you seen him by the way?”
“Grian?” Scott shook his head. “I thought he’s still asleep.”
“Check the roof,” said a half-asleep Jimmy from the door. Pearl hadn’t even noticed he’d come in.
“The roof?” Pearl echoed. “Why would he be on the roof?”
“He likes stargazing,” Jimmy shrugged and plopped down next to Scott, dropping his head on his boyfriend’s shoulder. “Why did you leave me?”
“You left me last night,” Scott countered, but Pearl wasn’t really listening anymore. Stargazing? It must have been bright outside for like three hours at this point. But just like Jimmy had said, he found a bundle of blankets and red wings curled up on the roof, eyes closed, breathing softly.
With his eyes closed, one might almost think he was human, Pearl thought. There wasn’t really anything telling him apart from any other macaw avian—still, there was a sense of danger lingering about him, telling her that this man was something more than met the eye. Something ancient and dangerous, like he could disintegrate her with a snap.
The logical part of her didn’t think Grian was dangerous. Even as scared as he’d been upon waking up, he’d never attempted to harm her. He was part of her family now, because he didn’t have anyone else. He was part of her flock now. It didn’t matter, shouldn’t matter that she had plenty of time to overthink it as she was falling asleep, and now that she woke up. So she climbed up on the roof using the dresser underneath the window as a stepping stool, sat on the window sill, and reached out her hand to gently shake Grian awake.
Grian jumped when her hand touched his wing, whipping around to her with fear in his eyes, jolting backwards before recognition settled in them.
“Pearl!” he exclaimed. “You startled me.”
“Why were you sleeping on the roof?”
Grian blinked. “Uh. Fell asleep while stargazing,” he said and stuffed the things scattered around him in the basket. “Why, what’s up?”
“Breakfast,” Pearl explained. “Wanna come down?”
Grian blinked, then nodded, following her inside and down the stairs into the living room where Scott had prepared the table, dragging a sleepy Jimmy around with him.
Pearl could see a hint of a mischieveous smile on Grian’s face before he called out, “Morning Timmy, you sleep alright?”
Jimmy took a moment to react, half asleep as he was, and then he glared at Grian. “I was hoping you forgot about that overnight.”
“Whatever do you mean, Timmy?” Grian asked sweetly.
Jimmy just pointed at him with narrow eyes before declaring, “I’m disowning you.”
Grian feigned a shocked gasp. “You’re disowning me? Timmy, I’m wounded.”
Pearl scooted up to Scott, frowning at the pair. “What’s going on?” she whispered.
Scott shrugged. “Not sure, but it’s entertaining.”
Grian’s eyes locked in on them, and Pearl was reminded of the moment he first looked at her, all, like, two dozen eyes of his.
“I’m glad you find it entertaining that I’m being disowned,” Grian deadpanned, and that’s when Jimmy doubled over cackling. Now, Grian focused his attention on him. “And you.”
Jimmy stopped laughing and tried to be serious for just long enough to listen to what Grian had to say, but not very successful. His silence was broken by a snicker every now and then.
“Why do you think it’s funny to disown your cousin, huh?” Grian accused, pointing at him. “Pearl, tell Timmy it’s not okay to just disown your cousin.”
“Wha—” Pearl gasped and looked between Grian and Jimmy. “You’re my cousins, you’re not even related to each other.”
Without even looking at each other, Grian and Jimmy turned fully towards Pearl and dropped their jaws. “She did not just say that,” Jimmy said.
“No, I think she did,” Grian responded and looked back at him. “Can you believe her?”
“We’re definitely related,” Jimmy explained and nodded, as if that decided it. “By blood. That’s where you got your good looks from.”
Grian turned to him and raised his eyebrows. “From you? Keep dreaming, Timmy.”
“This is a fever dream,” Pearl whispered weakly.
“Can you even disown your cousins?” Scott wondered.
Jimmy considered that for a moment, then pointed at Grian and declared, “I’m writing you out of my will.”
“Not if I’m writing you out of my will first.“ Grian crossed his arms.
Pearl looked at Grian, then at Jimmy and back before throwing her hands in the air. “It’s way too early for this, I’m going back to bed.”
She went back upstairs to the sound of their laughter.
Chapter 5: Get in Loser, We’re Going Shopping
Summary:
Grian nodded. “So my full name is Grian Moon, then?” they said, focusing on how the name felt in their mouth. It seemed good enough.
Pearl started laughing, suddenly. It startled him. “Sorry,” she said after a moment. “I just realized I named you ‘Sun Moon’.”
Grian let out a startled laugh, and Timmy called over from where he and Scott sat on the other couch, “What about a star-themed middle name? Then you’re the entire night sky.”
The corners of their mouth curled upwards. That was actually silly enough for them to be completely on board with it. “Whatcha got in mind, Timmy?”
OR:
Grian is a femboy (gender neutral) and
JimmyTimmy is a menace.
Notes:
the date is kinda random ngl. only after i posted the first chapter did i realize i could have set the day xelqua got kicked out as grian's irl birthday, and they could have gotten their bday from that. oh well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
oops im kinda late bc im sick today and was out all morning to get a sick note to my place of employment and then i fell asleep, oops
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
After a small bout of anxiety about Pearl leaving that was quickly soothed by Timmy and Scott, they started eating breakfast. Scott half hung around Timmy’s neck as he explained what they wanted to show Grian around here, and Timmy told them about their friends—”it’s mostly us and Martyn now, but Lizzie and Joel often come by as well, maybe we can invite them to dinner some day and introduce you.”
Grian was content to just watch, honestly. They might have gotten a bit more comfortable around them, especially around Timmy, but they were still wary. Of what, they weren’t sure. Either way, they were glad their new family gave them space to quiet down and open up at their own pace. It helped that Pearl told them yesterday that Grian couldn’t remember anything, because how could they tell them about themself when they got a headache when they tried?
Of course that was a problem they would have to address at some point, but for now it was a blessing in disguise. And they weren’t even sure if it was good memories that would await them—maybe there was a reason they forgot.
It didn’t take too long for Pearl to return. Grian perked up when they saw her, a visual reminder that she was not mad about the jokes earlier.
“I saved you a seat,” Grian explained, patting the seat next to them, and she sat down with an amused smile.
“I thought you would want to sit to your new best friend Timmy,“ she said and raised her eyebrows at her cousin while she plated a piece of toast for herself.
“Not you too!” Timmy groaned.
Grian laughed. “Well, sure, but you’re my cousin.”
Timmy gasped. “I’m your cousin too!” he protested, and when Grian looked, really looked, they found that Timmy looked amused, not mad.
“Yeah, but Pearl was my cousin first,” Grian declared then and poked out their tongue at the canary.
Timmy whipped his head around to Scott. “Can you believe them? The nerve.”
“Uh-huh,” Scott responded, surpressing a smile. “Very rude.”
“You’re laughing,” Timmy deadpanned. “Grian’s playing favorites and you’re laughing.“
“You’re my favorite though,” Scott tried, but Timmy just pouted.
“That’s just not the same.”
“Why’s that?”
“I’m your boyfriend, that means I’m automatically your favorite,” Timmy argued.
“So,” Scott asked, “Just because you got competition for your status as Grian’s favorite cousin that doesn’t matter anymore?”
Timmy hummed. “Maybe a little. As a treat.”
Scott grinned in satisfaction. “That’s better.” Then he pressed a kiss to Timmy’s lips.
“Gross,” Pearl commented. “Go get a room.”
“We live here,” Timmy countered in the same beat that Scott responded, “Oh, so now you’re homophobic.”
Pearl rolled her eyes at them. “Yes, yes, we’re all homophobic here, however there’s a more pressing matter at hands.”
“Oh?” Scott asked.
Grian startled when Pearl put her arm on the back of their chair. Somehow, they’d completely forgotten they were part of this conversation, not just a silent watcher from afar. “Grian needs a new wardrobe,” she declared. “Unless you want him to keep stealing your clothes.”
“Right,” Grian said. They hadn’t even thought about that. “Are we gonna do that today?”
Pearl nodded, “Yeah, I’d say so. You need some proper winter clothes after all, if you’re gonna hang out on the roof. And maybe we can get some more stuff for your nest that we can take with when we go home.”
“Sounds good.”
Grian and Pearl took their time getting ready. Timmy and Scott chipped in with some money for the visit to the local thrift store—“My pay is not good enough to get you all kitted out in a normal store,” Pearl had declared—, and Timmy had also supplied some shoes for Grian that were about three sizes too big for their small feet. They had to wear about five pairs of socks so they didn’t slide around in them uncomfortably. Pearl also wouldn’t leave without them wearing a thick winter jacket, a scarf, gloves, and a hat—all borrowed from Timmy. Even though Grian had protested that they didn’t need them, they didn’t mind the cold. But Pearl seemed to have her mind set on taking care of them, even if they didn’t need it.
“Alright,” Pearl said, looking up after adjusting their scarf. “One thing before you go. Your eyes are kinda unnaturally purple.”
Grian blinked. “Huh. What color are eyes supposed to be?”
Pearl pursed her lips. “Brown, blue, green and grey are most common. With how dark yours are, I think shifting the hue to brown might be enough.”
“Okay,” Grian said and frowned, focusing on trying to change the color of their eyes without actually seeing them, and then Pearl burst out laughing.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Wait,” Pearl said and pulled her phone out, giggling as she took a photo. Then she showed it to them, and … well, Grian saw the issue. Instead of shifting only the purple in their eyes to brown, they’d done the whites, too. They were about the color of Pearl’s hair now. Even the veins in them were a dark coffee brown without a hint of red.
Grian started laughing too, then tried again. “This better?” they asked, and this time Pearl nodded.
“Now your eyes look normal. If a bit sparkly.”
Grian tilted their head. “Is sparkly bad?”
“I don’t think it’s as noticeable as purple eyes, or brown whites,” Pearl pointed out and pulled the keys out of her pocket. “Let’s go?”
After the fifteen-minute car ride to go into town, Grian firmly decided that they didn’t like cars. The way avians were meant to travel was to fly with the wind in their feathers, not stuck in a stupid metal box.
Pearl, so it seemed, was amused by their suffering. She also insisted that they would need the car if they wanted to carry all the stuff they were getting for Grian home.
“Not if I carry everything in my arms,” Grian insisted stubbornly, and Pearl just laughed and walked ahead to the thrift store.
It was a quaint little shop, with cozy wood panelling on the walls, and a few plush armchairs next to a standing mirror next to the changing rooms. Facing towards the entrance was a wooden counter that looked old and worn, with an equally old lady standing behind it, her silvery hair pulled up into an elaborate bun. She looked up from her work as they entered with the ring of a bell.
“Good day,” she said with a smile that was only slightly staged. “What can I help you with today?”
“Uhm, my cousin here has come to visit me, but his luggage got lost during the flight,” Pearl lied. “So we kinda need an emergency wardrobe for him.”
“Alright, just let me know if you need help with anything,” the woman said, and Pearl steered Grian to the right side of the shop.
“Do you know your size?” she asked as she looked through the selection.
Grian just shook their head, putting back the hoodie they’d been looking at. Not their style. They pulled out a dark blue shirt next, but it didn’t really appeal to them either.
Grian and Pearl were almost completely down the rack with Grian only having agreed to try on one item when Pearl pulled out a baby pink hoodie.
“Why’s this in the men’s section?” she muttered, but before she could put it back, Grian snatched it out of her hand. Pearl stared at them for a moment, tilting her head in thought.
“It’s cute,” Grian explained. “I like it.” They inspected it further and grinned with glee when they discovered that it had cat ears. “I’ll be right back,” they said and bounced over to the changing room, excitedly pulling off his scarf, gloves, and hat, as well as Timmy’s sweater. Then they put on the white backless dress shirt which had been their only find before the hoodie, and then the hoodie on top. The dress shirt was only a bit too small, but the hoodie reached down to their mid-thigh, sleeves covering their hands when they were just hanging down. It didn’t have any wing-holes but it was wide enough that their wings weren’t uncomfortable, and maybe they could cut some into it later. They looked into the mirror and pulled the hood over their head, carefully tucking their headwings away.
Then they pulled back the curtains to show Pearl the fit.
“You do look cute,” she noted, and Grian couldn’t help but giggle. “Then I’ll be taking this,” they said and moved to go back to where the hoodie had caught their eyes. But then they realized that the clothes in this section of the store looked a lot more appealing at first glance. They pulled out a purple sweater and found it covered with swirls and star, showing it to Pearl. “Wouldn’t this be perfect?”
“I think it would fit your eyes,” Pearl said quietly, and Grian beamed. “Wait,” Pearl said then. “Let me check the size of what you’re wearing first.” She beckoned them to turn around and looked inside the back of their hoodie. “L, alright. What does the sweater say?”
Grian inspected the tag. “It’s M.”
“Considering the L is quite big on you it should still fit, but you should still try it on. You never know with women’s sizing.” And in the basket it went.
By the time they left the thrift store, Grian had scored about five different hoodies and sweaters, three dress shirts in different colors, two skirts, and three pairs of jeans, as well as a white winter coat paired with pink gloves, scarf and hat that Grian put on before even leaving the store. The cashier had looked at them weird upon checking out, but Grian couldn’t bring themself to care. Too happy were they with their choice of clothing.
They left the store with a spring in their step, carrying two bags in one hand.
“Grian?” Pearl asked quietly, and they turned around to her. She looked a bit hesitant, a small frown knitting her eyebrows.
“What’s up?”
“I like the clothes you picked,” she started. “They’re very cute. I just wondered, uhm …” She quieted down, looking away, and Grian tilted their head in question.
“Yeah?”
“Is the way we refer to you okay? Grian and he?”
Grian blinked, frowned, then blinked again. “Yeah? What other way would you refer to me?” It was their name and the third person pronoun, there literally wasn’t any other way to refer to them if she wasn’t gonna drop the pronoun and just use their name.
Pearl smiled though, like that answered her questions. “Alright then, thanks.”
“You’re welcome?” they asked, still confused. But they didn’t get to ask another question because they reached the shoe store and Pearl lead the way inside.
By the time they reached the car to put the last purchases away, the dull greyness of this winter day had started fading into night. The sky wasn’t clear enough for stars, not by a long shot, and the weather forecast predicted rain.
“Alright,” Pearl said and shut the trunk. “I’d say that was a good haul.” They’d gotten a nice pair of black lace-up boots for Grian, a touch feminine with small heels, and after that Grian had raided the make-up aisle of the local drug store. They’d also gotten him toiletries, a new phone—an old, cheap model because this entire shopping spree was already expensive enough, despite the thrift store being really affordable—, some tights to go with his skirts, and a handful accessories. It was more than Pearl planned on spending, even with Jimmy and Scott’s contributions, and used up a few hundred dollars from her savings that was meant for decorating when Gem moved in, but … well, Pearl couldn’t bring herself to be upset when she saw how happy Grian was with his new wardrobe. Maybe she could have borrowed him some clothes until he’d earned some money, considering how feminine his style was, but … well, that was something to talk about anyway.
Pearl plopped down in the driver’s seat, Grian sitting down next to her. She instructed him to put on the seatbelt because he’d plain forgotten earlier, then tightened hers.
“Today was really fun,” Grian exclaimed, practically vibrating in his seat.
“And expensive,” Pearl reminded him. “We’re not gonna be able to do that regularly.”
“That’s okay,” Grian said. “I’ve got a lot now, I don’t think I need to go shopping for a while.”
Pearl was quiet for a moment, not sure how to word this. She chewed on her lips and glanced at how happy Grian was. She didn’t want to burst that bubble.
But Gem had said she’d kick her ass if she got too people-pleaser-y (or something along those lines, anyway), and Pearl thought it would be better to not even start being a people pleaser with Grian. That would make being firm with him easier in the long run, she knew that from experience. Not that that made it any easier.
“So here’s the thing,” she blurted out before she had any more time to overthink this. “I’ve spent quite a bit of my savings today, and I’ll need to cover some costs for you going forward if you live with me so—” She took a deep breath. “I’d appreciate it if you got a job when we go back to Hermitopia.”
Grian glanced at her, not at all upset or even a slightly dampened mood. “Of course,” he said. “That would just be fair.”
Pearl breathed a sigh of relief. So that was taken care of, too.
By the time Grian and Pearl arrived at Timmy and Scott’s house, the sky was almost completely black, with only a small sliver of light on the horizon. Pearl helped Grian the bags inside—they had to admit that they were too many to carry in flight, even between the two of them—, then once they were plopped down next to their nest, they shooed Pearl out of the room to get changed. They wouldn’t mind her presence when they changed, but Pearl had done the same with them last night when she got ready for bed, so they figured it was just a social norm to change in separate rooms.
Grian changed out of the winter gear they were wearing, then put the clothes they’d been wearing since yesterday into a pile next to his nest. Timmy’s sweater found a place with the rest of Timmy’s clothes that they had borrowed for the outing.
Then they went through the clothes Pearl had gotten them today and picked out a thin sweater, the cat-ear hoodie, some leggings, a black skirt and some fluffy white socks with paw prints on the soles. Then they fished the box with their new-old phone from one of the bags and went downstairs to find Pearl who had promised to set it up with them.
“You were right,” Scott said to Pearl pretty much the moment Grian opened the door. “He is a femboy.”
Grian was not sure what a femboy was, nor did they care. Instead they just plopped onto the couch next to Pearl and pulled the phone out of the box. “So how do I set this up?”
They watched as she tapped on the screen, selecting options that meant nothing to them while Scott and Timmy were watching something on Timmy’s phone in the background. Then she turned around to them.
“We need to make an e-mail for you now,” Pearl explained. Upon their confused reaction, she explained, “You’ll need it to use some apps, especially ones that let you talk to other people. It’s like an online mailbox.”
“Sure,” Grian shrugged.
“Usually you would use your name for the first half of it. I’d say you get my last name because of the way they’re passed down. Technically it’s plausible you have a different one because according to the cover story you’re the son of my dad’s sister, but it’s not that far-fetched that we share one. So let’s do grian.moon for the first part.”
Grian nodded. “So my full name is Grian Moon, then?” they said, focusing on how the name felt in their mouth. It seemed good enough.
Pearl started laughing, suddenly. It startled him. “Sorry,” she said after a moment. “I just realized I named you ‘Sun Moon’.”
Grian let out a startled laugh, and Timmy called over from where he and Scott sat on the other couch, “What about a star-themed middle name? Then you’re the entire night sky.”
The corners of their mouth curled upwards. That was actually silly enough for them to be completely on board with it. “Whatcha got in mind, Timmy?”
Timmy didn’t even react to the nickname, instead tapping on his phone for a bit. “How about Astra? Stella’s a girl’s name …” He scrolled some more. “Then there are some names of stars, like Lyra, or Sirius, or Vega. And a long list of names that would probably be strange for a white-looking man.”
Grian hummed. “I don’t think I like Sirius. Not sure about Stella and Vega, either.” They tilted their head and tried out their full name with both Lyra and Astra, and after a few minutes of deliberation—and being watched by Pearl, Timmy, and Scott—, they decided on Astra.
“Grian Astra Moon,” Pearl repeated, eyes twinkling with amusement. “Want me to use that glorious full name for your e-mail, then?”
Grian grinned. “Please do.”
She asked them to type in a password then—“Not your full name, as funny as that may be,” Pearl warned—, one that they needed to remember, and they needed a good few minutes to settle on one, slapping on some numbers and symbols at the end. They scribbled it down on the post-its that were lying on the coffee table and stuffed it into a pocket.
“You better memorize that,” Pearl instructed, then did some more taps and pulled up an app. “I’m gonna give you some essential apps. Discord ‘cause that’s what I mostly use for messaging, WhatsApp ‘cause that’s used by a lot of people too, Firefox ‘cause Google Chrome sucks, and Spotify ‘cause me and Gem have a subscription and I can add you to our plan once you sign up. The rest, we can see about later.”
Grian nodded, took their phone from her and signed up to the apps, set their nickname as ‘🌞⭐🌙’ in both WhatsApp and Discord, and the account name in Discord and Spotify as sunstarmoon because Pearl recommended not to use their real name, “in case you make some online friends,” whatever that meant.
Then they got added to two group chats, one on either platform, both called ‘Cousins (and Scott)’, that had both four members in total. On Discord, Pearl, Scott and Timmy changed their names to their actual first names—well, Timmy set his to ‘Jimmy’ but Pearl changed it to ‘Timmy’ which got a groan in response.
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Cousins (and Scott) |
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Cousins (and Scott) |
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This is the beginning of the Cousins (and Scott) group.
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22 February 2025 |
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Timmy only Grian is allowed to call me that :( |
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Pearlo Timmy |
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Scott Timmy |
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🌞⭐🌙 Timmy |
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Timmy I hate all of you
Except for you Grian |
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Message Cousins (and Scott) |
Grian giggled at the special treatment as Scott called out a complaint and slapped Timmy’s shoulder, then sent everyone a friend request after Pearl showed them how to. She then showed them which number on WhatsApp corresponded to whom, showing them how to save them. Of course, Timmy got saved under ‘Timmy’ here, too.
Grian spent some time to figure out the camera app to make themself a profile picture, and Pearl took some photos for them, too, as well as sending them the ones she already had. Then they set a profile picture for the few apps they had before working on personalizing their Discord a little. When they were done, it looked a little like this:
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🌞⭐🌙 sunstarmoon • idc About me Nice to meet you! Member since 22 Feb 2025 |
Notes:
the pfps are placeholders for now, i havent managed to draw them any in time for the post
Chapter 6: A Long-Needed Conversation
Summary:
He’d thought she would be over it by now.
Just like she would think he was over it. After all, hadn’t he told her that he forgave her for leaving so suddenly? All their friends did, and it seemed like he was the only one still holding a grudge, even up until she left. And then, because they hadn’t talked in months at that point, Jimmy had gotten scared. Scared that she would leave him behind, leave for the big city and never return. And then he had broken down and told her he forgave her, lied to her so she wouldn’t abandon him. And for what? It still happened after all. All because he was so stupid, because he couldn’t be honest.
Jimmy closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then he looked at her. “I’m sorry for lying to you.” He bit his lip, gathering the courage to say the words he had sealed away deep inside for almost eleven years now, coming to terms with the fact that it would hurt her—but staying silent might hurt her even more. So then he opened his mouth to say, “I still haven’t forgiven you.”
OR:
Jimmy and Pearl finally talk.
Notes:
This chapter was so difficult to write, them talking about it literally made me anxious as if I was the one in their position lol. Maybe I projected a bit too hard with this one
edited some html on my phone on the fly bc i didnt have access to my laptop at the time so if u see it being wonky: no u dont. also this made me realize i shouldnt post new chapters that introduce something with a workskin that hasn't been previewed on mobile cuz i noticed the page divider being cut off and the discord embed being too wide, also the pfps not being scalable with the font size. speaking of: i'm working on the pfps now, the first one is almost done, i havent really been able to work on them much due to being sick but!!!! i will finish them. working on them made me realize how much i missed digital art so i might make some more illustrations for air!!! ive also sort of started on an animation, you can find updates for that on my discord server.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
When Pearl said she wanted to talk that night, when Grian had already gone upstairs to explore the depths of the internet without anyone watching over his shoulder and Scott was already getting ready for bed because he had work tomorrow, Jimmy could feel his stomach lurch.
It wasn’t that he expected or hoped she’d forgot, just …
If he wasn’t a coward, he might have admitted that was what it was. But he was, and he didn’t, instead asking her what was up, pretending he wasn’t hoping another creature fell right from the sky, crashing right into this house so he wouldn’t have to hold this conversation. But the universe, despite giving him a cousin, didn’t favor him.
“You said we’d talk later,” Pearl pointed out, and Jimmy kept himself from groaning at that. “It’s later now.”
“It’s later, indeed,” he grumbled, then sighed. “Honestly, I don’t think it’s that bad though. We don’t have to talk about it.”
Pearl just glared at him, and that was the moment he realized she wouldn’t let him get away without an explanation. “I’m like ninety percent sure not talking is the entire reason why you’re holding this grudge in the first place,” she countered and … well, she wasn’t exactly wrong.
“Possibly,” Jimmy confirmed and looked away.
“Possibly?” Pearl repeated, louder. “You told me you’ve made your peace with me leaving. You told me you forgave me for not telling you earlier. So why the hell have you had not a single nice thing to tell me since I arrived? It’s like you don’t even want me here!”
“I didn’t ask for you to be here,” Jimmy snapped, and immediately regretted it when it gave Pearl pause. And he certainly didn’t like how small she sounded when she spoke.
“I thought you would be happy to see me.”
Jimmy looked away because anything was better than to see the way Pearl looked at him now. He wasn’t sure how he had felt when he opened the door, he just knew he wasn’t happy. Shocked, more like. He’d been too stunned to speak, not knowing what to say to the woman that had pushed into his home while explaining that she had the week off and wanted to catch up.
“I wasn’t expecting it is all,” Jimmy responded, hesitant to say what he really felt, what Pearl certainly didn’t want to hear.
Pearl was quiet for a moment, then said, with a harsher tone, “You weren’t happy to see me then?”
Jimmy’s heart stopped for a moment, then he hurried to say, “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t not say that.” Pearl sighed. “Can’t you just be honest for once?”
Jimmy winced. If he was honest, then … what? Pearl would know that he was mad at her, and she would probably decide it wasn’t even worth it to get back in touch with him then. It wasn’t like he had made any real effort to reach out to her after he’d realized that she’d stopped texting first. Yes, maybe a message for her birthday and one for Christmas, but that was it. What if she came to the conclusion that he didn’t want her in his life and left him behind all over again?
They sat in silence for what felt like hours but was probably only a few minutes at most. Then, Pearl stood up, and Jimmy’s eyes snapped to look at her, wide with fear. So this was it, huh? Her leaving.
“If you don’t wanna talk, I can’t force you, but …” Pearl looked away. “I just … We can’t fix this if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”
“Wait,” Jimmy said before she had an opportunity to leave, reaching out and grasping her hand. When she looked at him in surprise, his stomach lurched. He hadn’t thought any further than making sure she stayed now.
“Yeah?” she asked and turned back around to face him, not yet sitting down.
“I may be an idiot,” Jimmy said because while his fear didn’t quite let him say the things he’d rehearsed in his head probably a million times by now, he had to say something.
“You are,” Pearl confirmed, a surprised chuckle escaping her.
Jimmy frowned, looked away for a bit, then steeled himself and looked into her eyes. There was confusion, guilt, and fear in them.
Pearl didn’t suddenly stop caring about him, he realized. She wouldn’t be afraid of what he had to say, then, or gone through this whole ordeal of planning with Scott to take time off the same time Jimmy had, just so she could come here and surprise him. He knew she hadn’t been doing well after she broke the news of her move and her friends hadn’t talked to her for weeks after. He’d thought she would be over it by now.
Just like she would think he was over it. After all, hadn’t he told her that he forgave her for leaving so suddenly? All their friends did, and it seemed like he was the only one still holding a grudge, even up until she left. And then, because they hadn’t talked in months at that point, Jimmy had gotten scared. Scared that she would leave him behind, leave for the big city and never return. And he couldn’t bear that thought, so he had rang at her door until she opened, demanding to talk even though he felt far from ready. And then he had broken down and told her he forgave her, lied to her so she wouldn’t abandon him. And for what? It still happened after all. All because he was so stupid, because he couldn’t be honest.
Jimmy closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then he looked at her. “I’m sorry for lying to you.” He bit his lip, gathering the courage to say the words he had sealed away deep inside for almost eleven years now, coming to terms with the fact that it would hurt her—but staying silent might hurt her even more. So then he opened his mouth to say, “I still haven’t forgiven you.”
Jimmy’s words were like a punch to the gut. Even though Pearl had expected it, she gasped, and she had to sit down because it felt like she was falling. She broke Jimmy’s grip and sat down, curling her knees to her chest and wrapping her hands around them, white-knuckled. Her talons were digging into her palms, but that was good now. Grounding, now that the pain inside her was matched by the outside. She took a few deep breaths, trying to slow them, and suddenly Jimmy was fussing over her, telling her to look at him, telling her to breathe.
Suddenly, Pearl unwound her arms from around her, remembering a grounding technique she had learned back when her mental health took a nosedive about eleven years ago. She tapped her thumbs to the tips of her fingers; index, middle, ring, pinky. Then the other way around. She repeated that a couple of time, then continued the pattern on one hand while reversing it on the other hand. It took a lot of focus to not stumble and sync both hands back to the same pattern, and she could feel her flattering nerves start to calm down. Her breaths were longer and deeper now, and the feeling of falling was … while still there, it felt less present. Less overwhelming. Less all-consuming.
She took a moment to gather the courage to look at Jimmy again, see the guilt and worry warring on his face. “I’m okay now,” she said, then made a face at the lie that had slipped out of her without a second thought. “Or, well,” she corrected herself, “at least I’m not on the way to a panic attack now.”
Jimmy winced and looked away, and the emotions on his face were softening. And because Pearl was his cousin, because they were friends for years, she knew that was not a good thing, so she tutted at him. “Eyes on me, Jimmy.” He didn’t listen, not at first, so she tried it again, now firmer.
His eyes slowly dragged across the space between them to meet hers, and Pearl forced a small smile, only for a moment. “There you are. I …” She looked away briefly but then focused her gaze back on him. “You might have hurt me but … Thank you for saying it.”
Jimmy’s eyebrows pulled together, confusion furrowing his expression as his eyes searched her face. “Why are you thanking me? I haven’t forgiven you.”
“Jimmy,” Pearl said gently and placed one of her hands on his, discarding the grounding technique because she could use this to ground herself, too. “Jimmy,” she repeated and squeezed it. “It’s out in the open now. When you told me you forgave me, I believed you, and why wouldn’t I? I thought we were fine now, so I acted like we were. But we weren’t—aren’t—, and so acting like we were fine just destroyed us further. Because we couldn’t talk about it, we had to hide it, and it was eating us from the inside.” She smiled tentatively. “But now it’s out in the open, that we’re not okay. Now both of us know. So we don’t have to act like we’re fine now. We can actually address this.”
“I guess you’re right.” Jimmy quieted down, looking away.
“Why don’t we start at the beginning?” Pearl asked. “What was going through your head when I told you I was moving?”
“I thought you were joking at first,” Jimmy said after a moment. “But then I realized you’re not and I just—I wondered why you only said something two months before we graduated. Like, we’ve been talking about college all year and you never thought it important to mention you’re going away, even if it’s only two hours away. And that just pissed me off. Because we all planned to go to college together, we made so many plans, and you knew all this time that you wouldn’t actually follow them.”
Pearl opened her mouth to say something, but Jimmy didn’t notice, barreling on. His voice was louder now, more agitated. “And then you didn’t even put in effort to stay in touch! I mean, sure, you texted lots at first, at least in the group chat, and then it just got less and less, and I know you were busy, but so were we! And you barely visited, and even when you did you spent most of your time meeting Lizzie. And then Lizzie met Joel, all because of you, and then she decided to move away too, and now Martyn got sick of third-wheeling so it’s basically just Scott and me now, and I’m sick of it. And now that I just met Grian and started getting along with him, you’re taking him away, too.”
So Pearl’s feeling had been right. Things had never been the same after she’d told them wouldn’t go to uni with them, but she thought that it was only Jimmy that was suffering because of her decisions. But she never even realized that she was the reason their friend group fell apart. She’d worried about it, sure, when her anxiety got the better of her, but she’d always thought it was just her trauma talking. And now … She had been the reason Joel and Lizzie met in the first place. If it wasn’t for her, Lizzie wouldn’t have moved to Hermitopia, and then Martyn wouldn’t have been third-wheeling, and then their friendship wouldn’t have broken apart. It really was all her fault, wasn’t it? Why hadn’t she tried harder to stay in contact? Why had she decided to study in Hermitopia in the first place? She genuinely couldn’t remember anymore.
“I’m so sorry,” she forced out, burying her face in her arms so Jimmy wouldn’t see the tears silently streaming down her face.
“Wait,” he said then, sounding shocked. “Are you crying?”
“Am not,” Pearl lied, but she couldn’t stop a sob from shaking her. “I—I’m just so sorry, Jimmy, I’ve been a terrible cousin.”
“Pearl … Pearl, no,” Jimmy stammered, then he hesitantly wrapped his arm around her which made her jump, knocking her head against his chin.
“Ow,” he complained, and Pearl sat up hurriedly, staring at him with wide eyes, holding the hurting spot on her head.
“Oh my god, are you okay?”
Jimmy made a face. “I’ll live,” he responded, and then he looked at her and started laughing.
“What?” Pearl asked, taken completely aback.
“Just, this,” he explained and spread his arms, still chuckling. “The entire situation. We’re both worried the other one’s gonna hate us but we still worry about each others so much, even when we literally just hurt each other.”
Pearl made a face. “I don’t understand what’s so funny about that, though.”
“I’m not sure, I just … the headbutt was so unexpected, and the way you looked at me after—I don’t know, I was so worried when I realized you’re crying, and then you fucking headbutted me, and then you looked at me like your biggest concern was that you didn’t, I don’t know, break my jaw, even though I just made you cry—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh at you.”
Pearl let out a chuckle. “You know, it is quite silly when you put it like that.” She tried a hesitant smile.
“I guess it’s a good sign for me though, that you worry about me despite everything,” Jimmy pointed out. “Means you can’t be too mad at me.”
Pearl frowned. “I … I don’t think I’m mad at you, really,” she explained then. “Maybe I am, but I’m mad at myself more.”
Jimmy frowned at her. “What? Why’s that?”
Pearl just gave him a Look. “Because I broke our entire fucking friend group apart and I didn’t even notice?”
Jimmy paled at that, his eyes widening. “Wha—That’s not what I meant!”
“It’s what you said,” Pearl snapped and felt the tears burning in her eyes. “And you’re not even wrong! I hurt people, I leave them, that’s what I do. It’s always been that way.”
Jimmy just stared at her, stunned. “I—no, I didn’t mean it, I mean … yes, I had that thought way more often than I would like, but it’s the kind of thought you have when you’re really not doing well, but when you’re okay you’re aware it’s not true.”
Pearl just glared at him. “You don’t have to lie to me to protect my feelings.”
“I’m not!” Jimmy sputtered. “Genuinely. I said it in the heat of the moment, because everything I’ve kept locked inside bubbled to the surface. I promise you that’s not what I actually think. It’s very well possible that Lizzie might have met Joel somewhere else, or that Martyn would have naturally drifted away even if you’d stayed. It was an unfortunate series of events, it’s not your fault.”
Pearl just looked at him with something akin to desperation in her eyes, and she just slowly shook her head. “I’m sorry, Jimmy, I—you’ve lied to me for so long, I don’t think I can believe you.”
When Pearl went back upstairs, she hesitated in front of the office before deciding against entering, heading to the window to the roof instead. Maybe some company could be nice, but Pearl usually prefered to be alone when she got like this.
When she opened the window, she found that the roof was occupied already. Grian sat there, phone in slender fingers that were red from the cold, holding a steaming mug in the other hand. He looked up upon the creaking of the window, smiling at her before his face fell. “Have you been crying?”
Pearl wanted to be alone, that was why she’d come to the roof in the first place, and there was something about Grian that strengthened her fears and anxiety, convincing her that she would always ruin everything—
But she was already here, and while she prefered to be alone when she got caught up in her own head, she knew that being around people helped. So, after some hesitation, she pulled herself through the window and sat next to Grian, closing it behind her.
“I should have guessed you were on the roof again,” Pearl said instead of answering, then plopped her head onto Grian’s shoulder. “This okay?”
Grian nodded and put his phone in the pocket of his hoodie before wrapping an arm and wing around her back, tucking her into his side. Pearl would have thought that his skin would be cold after sitting in the cold for god knows how long, but he was unnaturally warm, like a human furnace. Now that she thought of it, she could remember he’d been even warmer when Jimmy and her carried him to the car.
“How are you feeling?” Grian asked. “If you wanna talk about it.”
Pearl frowned, thinking about it. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to tell him about the entire thing with Jimmy, afraid he would leave her too if she did, so all she said was, “I had a small fight with Jimmy, I don’t really wanna talk about it. I … feel afraid, I guess? And guilty. But mostly numb.”
She saw Grian nod from the corner of his eyes, like he knew what that felt like. “I don’t think I’m a stranger to numbness,” he said. “It … feels familiar, like an old friend. Which, uh, isn’t actually a good thing from what I can tell about emotions.”
“Yeah,” Pearl agreed. “I’ve been going numb for a long time now, I think. Not sure there ever was a time I didn’t do it, just … ever since I started actually confronting my emotions instead I noticed that the times I go numb just make me worse at it. Like—” she paused, not sure how to phrase it.
“—Like your emotions overwhelm you more easily ‘cause you’re not used to them,” Grian suggested, and Pearl nodded.
“Yeah. That. Which is really annoying when I actually want to try to deal with my emotions in a healthy way for once.”
Grian nodded, then asked, “Do you know what helps keep you from going numb?”
“Movement,” Pearl said. “But you’re too comfy. Like a heater.”
Grian moved around a little so he could look at her more easily, then asked, “What about physical sensations? Cold?”
Pearl shrugged. “Never tried those. Besides, it’s cold around me now, but I think talking to you helps more, actually.”
Grian was silent for a moment, then, “Can I try something?”
Pearl shrugged. “Go for it.”
Grian moved the arm he had wrapped around her then, touching his hand to the back of her neck. Then it suddenly dropped by about thirty degrees—Celsius, the only correct way to measure temperature; she never warmed up to using Fahrenheit—while the rest of Grian’s body temperature stayed warm.
Pearl sqawked and shivered at the sudden cold. “What are you doing?”
“Is it working?”
Pearl frowned. “I don’t think I can quite tell yet.”
“Then just let me know when you want me to stop.”
Pearl nodded. “Will do.”
They sat in quiet for a while, watching the neighborhood, and Grian sipping on his tea. It was quiet, a small layer of nearly undisturbed snow that had fallen from just after they returned until about an hour ago covering the world. Some windows along the street were lit, but it was late enough that some people had already gone to bed.
Pearl watched along on the TV in one of the lit windows. It was some football—soccer—game, but she had no clue who was playing.
“So,” Grian broke the silence after a while, “I was wondering about something.”
“Yeah?” Pearl asked and directed his attention back at him.
“I haven’t really thought about it at the moment but I’ve been thinking about what you said when we left the thrift shop.”
“About your gender?” Pearl asked, and Grian tilted his head.
“See, I didn’t realize that that was what you were talking about. I didn’t mind the way you refer to me so I didn’t say anything.” Grian furrowed his brows. “So, what kind of genders do humans have?”
Pearl blinked at him, taken aback. Reminded again that he wasn’t human. “Uh. That’s … not really that simple,” she said, and Grian shrugged with the shoulder that wasn’t being used as a headrest.
“I have time.”
“Okay,” Pearl responded. “So, for a long time people thought there were only two genders, men and women. Men impregnating women, and women carrying the babies, and it was determined who’s what depending on the genitals they were born with. The idea of those two genders being the only option was perpetuated especially by colonialism and Christianity. Actually, there’s intersex people, too. Those have some mutations that cause them to be born with features that aren’t quite one or the other. And then there’s trans people,” Pearl explained. “They don’t feel like the gender they were assigned fits to them so they transition to a gender presentation that feels more them. Some of them are women, some of them men and some of them are neither. And that’s why I asked you about the pronouns too.”
“Huh,” Grian said, “I don’t really notice a difference about third person pronouns to be honest. Well, other than singular and plural, that is. Can you repeat the options for me?”
Grian watched the way Pearl’s mouth shaped the words as she explained the most common options, repeating after her. “I’m using she/her,” she explained then. “So does my girlfriend. Scott and Jimmy use he/him, but you’ve been using their correct pronouns so far. I guess your weird language thing is helping with that.”
Grian nodded. “Must be, because the language I’m perceiving only has one singular third person pronoun. You could say it’s refering to everyone as they/them.”
“How about you then?” Pearl asked. “Do you have any preference or do you just not care about your pronouns because they all sound the same to you anyway?”
“I don’t care,” Grian said. “It’s not like I have a gender, anyway.”
Pearl looked at him perplexed. “You don’t?”
Grian shook his head. “I think what would best describe me is probably intersex? Except I don’t really have any genitals.”
Pearl scrunched up her face in confusion. “How do you use the bathroom then?”
“I do have the holes for that,” Grian shrugged one-sidedly. “Just nothing around them, though I could probably change that with my shapeshifting.”
“You can still be intersex and a man or a woman though,” Pearl pointed out. “The way your body looks doesn’t have to go hand in hand with how a body of your gender typically looks.”
Grian was lost in thought for a bit, taking a few sips of his tea, and then he said, “I don’t really feel any strong way about my gender. And, like, the style I would be most happy with would be just cute, but I don’t think that ties into my gender.”
“I’m a woman,” Pearl explained then. “After meeting Cleo—she’s enby just like you and uses she/they—I’ve decided to fuck around with my gender expression and pronouns a bit in case I’m not actually a woman, but I’m utterly and completely cis. Cis meaning my gender identity is the same as the one that was assigned to me at birth.”
Grian hummed in thought. “Would that mean that an intersex enby person can also be cis?”
Pearl blinked. “I guess that probably varies from person to person. While identities usually have a clear-cut definition, not everyone follows them strictly, so I guess there might be some intersex enbies out there who do consider themselves cis.”
“So if I was born with the gender markers I have now, which is to say none, and my gender is also pretty much non-existent I could call myself cis?”
“Probably.”
Grian and Pearl sat with each other for good part of the night, cuddled up together on the roof. Pearl had advised him to put his cold hand away at some point, which had then settled on her shoulder, warming her.
When Grian finished his tea, he went back down to the kitchen to fill a thermos can so Pearl could have some too, and she missed his warmth by her side. She pulled out her phone to text Gem.
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Gem <3 |
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Gem <3 Hi pearl, how's it going? Have u talked to jimmy yet? |
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23 February 2025 |
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Pearlo Yea hi it didn't really go that well? I mean it was'nt like I didn't expect it, but he did in fact not forgive me Also apparently its my fault that lizzie left too, and thar martyn drifted away too Jimmy tried to tell me it isn't but its kinda obvious. Besides he's the one who said it first Grian's been cheering me up a bit tho. They landed earlier tody bc they really just wnated to get away from their family His luggage got lost tho so we went to a thrift stoer to get him some stuff for now, and some other stuff Some other stores I mean (Also they use any pronousn) She's getting along really well ith jimmy which I'm glad they get along Jimmy immediately adopted them as his cousin too |
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@Pearlo |
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Gem <3 I'm gonna kick his ass |
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Pearlo Gem |
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Gem <3 WHAT He deserves it |
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Pearlo Also fem *gem Bw proud of me I told grian to get a job and he said it would only be fair
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Gem <3 Fuck yea!!! |
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Message Gem <3 |
Pearl looked up when she heard the window squeak open. Grian handed her the thermos, then climbed out on the roof.
“Hey,” she asked as he poured himself a cup. “I was just talking to Gem, wanna meet her?”
Grian glanced at her, a smile on his face. “Sure!”
“I can make a group chat,” Pearl suggested. “Or I could ask her if she’s free to call.”
Grian shrugged. “Whatever she prefers.”
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Gem <3 |
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Pearlo Grian came back and I offered to introduce you to him. I was thinking of making a group chat (which I'm probably gonna make anyway), but we could call too |
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Gem <3 Actually i was about to go to sleep, how about you make that group chat and maybe i'll text a bti tonight and then maybe we could call tmr or sth
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Message Gem <3 |
Pearl created a group chat and invited both Grian and Gem to it.
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The Sun, the Moon and the Stars |
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The Sun, the Moon and the Stars |
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This is the beginning of the The Sun, the Moon and the Stars group.
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23 February 2025 |
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Pearlo 1:43 AM Hi |
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Gem <3 Hi |
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🌞⭐🌙 1:44 AM Hi Gem, nice to meet you OMG, are we all me here? |
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Pearlo Grian’s the sun, I’m the moon and you gem are the stars. Bc gemini yk? nO |
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Gem <3 You 2 Lol How r u doing |
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Pearlo Grian's name means sun star moon fyi
Like their irl name
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🌞⭐🌙 1:44 AM Good, hanging out with Pearl. I just brought us some tea. How about you? |
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Gem <3 WHO CAME UP WITH THAT
Oooh what kind I'm good too, probably gonna sleep soon |
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🌞⭐🌙 1:45 AM Peppermint. Timmy gave me some to try and it's nice |
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Gem <3 Wait whos timmy? |
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Pearlo My cousin |
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Gem <3 JIMMY???? |
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🌞⭐🌙 1:45 AM That's what I said ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Gem <3 Youre a weird one |
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🌞⭐🌙 Life is too boring to not be weird ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ |
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Pearlo How would you know |
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🌞⭐🌙 Rude wHY IS DID THAT BECOME AN EMOJI |
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Gem <3 Skill issue |
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🌞⭐🌙 Rude : ( |
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Pearlo Lol U can turn that off in settings |
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🌞⭐🌙 :( Yay ☆*: .｡. o(≧▽≦)o .｡.:*☆ |
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Pearlo hOW DID U FIND THOSE |
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🌞⭐🌙 Tumblr
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Gem <3 Omg you have a tumblr?? |
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Pearlo SINCE WHEN |
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Gem <3 We can be mutuals im geminitay |
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🌞⭐🌙 Sunstarmoon, following you now I haven't posted anything yet tho, I only made it today Only've been lurking so far Idek where to start lol |
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Gem <3 I can give you a crash course tmr if u want
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🌞⭐🌙 Yay! |
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Gem <3 Ok I think i'll go to sleep now its almost 2am Good night pearl, good night grain GRIAN Stupid autocorrect
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Pearlo Night gem! |
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🌞⭐🌙 Good night, Gem, and thanks for the help! |
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Message The Sun, the Moon and the Stars |
Notes:
Pyrite made fanart for this fic!! Look at how adorably happy Grian is in this <3
HaymeXD on Chapter 1 Sun 10 Aug 2025 09:28PM UTC
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nachtwaechterin on Chapter 1 Mon 11 Aug 2025 07:43AM UTC
Last Edited Mon 11 Aug 2025 07:43AM UTC
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nachtwaechterin on Chapter 2 Tue 12 Aug 2025 09:15AM UTC
Last Edited Tue 12 Aug 2025 09:15AM UTC
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