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The street was empty. This wasn’t a surprise considering the ungodly time of night it was. Tommy had just gotten off of his work shift, the graveyard shift of course because the universe enjoys fucking him over. Technically, he got off of his shift an hour ago but nobody else had shown up for the next shift at the shitty 24-hour gas station he worked at. So he had to tide over the time (without pay because his manager could care less about an avian kid that just climbed out of a sewer drain) until his high off his ass coworker decided to show up.
His shift ended at 10 o’clock, last he checked it was 11:49.
Normally he would fly home, his wings spread and feeling the wind under his red and gold feathers. But now he was having trouble making sure his flight feathers wouldn’t touch the ground. It was a mighty endeavor, one that he hoped would end when he got to his shitty flat and flopped down on his thin, lumpy mattress and nest that consisted of two blankets and a stuffed cow that he had had since childhood.
The neighborhood that he lived in had a lot of bars, not that Tommy had been in any. Even the ones that don’t ask to see ID (which was a surprising amount) but now for some reason tonight he noticed them. Maybe it was because the bright neon lights were the only lights that he had seen that night that weren’t street lights (there was no moon or stars, it was too cloudy for that).
It also could have been the person that was stumbling around in the middle of the street.
A man in his mid-late thirties, with shoulder length blonde hair a few shades whiter than Tommy’s and wearing a long-ass cloak that dragged on the ground, the kind that you would see in a Renaissance Festival cosplay.
Another thing that was striking about the man was the atrocious hat he was wearing.
It was a goddamn bucket hat, green and white alternating stripes, and a wide brim that concealed his face in shadow.
He was wasted.
Toddering around in the middle of the street and bouncing off of the occasional sign or dumpster that was on the side of the road for pickup.
Man was fucked up.
Tommy hoped he was too drunk to find a car if he drove one here, the last thing he needed was to get behind the wheel of a car.
Tommy doesn’t know what the hell made him do it.
Maybe it was because he wanted to do something decent for another person that wasn’t himself in his short seventeen years of life. It also could have been just how pathetic the man looked when he bounced off a lightpost ten feet away from Tommy.
(The cape was a feather cape, it tickled a strange part of Tommy’s brain)
Tommy reached out and caught the man’s arm before he was laid out on the pavement.
“The fuck were you drinking and how much?” Tommy asked in lieu of a greeting.
The man giggled weakly, that was answer enough.
“You’re really shitfaced, do you by any chance remember your way home?” Tommy asked exhaustedly, he was supposed to be in bed by now. Karma better work as much overtime as he did.
“Do you remember where you live?” Tommy asked again, a little more forcefully this time. The man still swayed despite being held up by Tommy before slurring out, “4327, L’Manberg Avenue.”
Holy shit, this drunk fucker was really rich. Only the rich, bored people of the country could live on L’Manberg Avenue. Tommy never imagined stepping a pinky toe on that street let alone escorting a rich drunk to his house.
But now he was committed so he couldn’t back out.
L’manberg Avenue was nowhere near their current location, it was on the outskirts, yes. But it was on the fancy outskirts. With marble walkways, limousines, gold fucking statues, and gods knows what else. Or that might be true, Tommy had only ever heard stories, he had never actually been between the horrible work hours and the fears that he would be arrested on sight for looking at somebody's diamond encrusted toilet the wrong way.
They traveled in silence.
Correction: Tommy traveled in silence, the drunk giggled every time he tripped over a crack in the sidewalk, he sang half formed songs that he may or may not have made up on the spot, and he kept talking about his college-aged sons.
The reason why he was drinking.
“I’m so lonely.” he said, his voice held a deep pain that Tommy could relate with. The pain of not having a flock or having it ripped away after being so used to them being around. “I’m so goddamn proud of them for spreading their wings but why do they have to move so far away?” His voice broke off into a wet sob and Tommy felt his heart clench despite himself.
“That’s rough, buddy.” Tommy patted the drunk on the back, the drunk turned and enveloped Tommy in his arms. His face pressed into Tommy’s left shoulder, Tommy’s sleeve was getting wet. He allowed the man to cry, he sounded like he needed it (Tommy can’t remember how much he cried when his own flock left him and wouldn’t come back).
The cape that the man was wearing moved to, wrapping around Tommy in a semi-tight hug. The cape touched his wings and it sent a shock up his wings and directly to his brain, making him jolt.
That wasn’t a feathered cape.
Those were pitch black wings.
Now Tommy knew he had to speed up this side quest. He didn’t know if this guy was lucid enough to realize he was also an avian, he doubted it but better safe than sorry. One thing that was lesser known (more accurately: lesser talked about) about avians was how possessive they were, over family members and especially over chicks.
Another thing that wasn’t really talked about was how long avians lived, young avians were considered chicks until they were at least two hundred years old. The oldest avians were probably still alive, the biggest reason avians were few and far between was because of how long they lived.
That’s why adults were so possessive of their chicks.
Tommy blamed his exhaustion for not noticing sooner. He considered just leaving the man right there, but the thought of the man just stumbling around and into somebody with less than helpful intentions (ugh, when the hell had he developed a conscience?).
The man broke the hug and they kept walking, it took half an hour before they got to the outskirts of L’Manberg Avenue.
To call it a gated community was an understatement. The fence surrounding the community was less like a fence and more like a wall, all it needed was barbed wire circling the top and it wouldn’t look out of place in a prison yard.
There was a tunnel for cars to drive through, there was also a booth in the entrance. The security woman sitting in the booth looked bored out of her gourd, when she saw Tommy and the man she straightened up.
“Stop, state your business.” Tommy stopped and was about to respond when the man straightened to the best of his ability (which only made him slightly less hunched) and flapped his hand at the woman good-naturedly.
“He’s alright, Puffy.” he slurred. “He’s my son, I’m taking him home.” The man broke off into giggles and the woman, Puffy apparently, looked Tommy up and down. She spotted his wings and her eyes widened, “Alright,” she said a little breathlessly. “Get home safely you two.”
“Thank you, have a good night.” Tommy said briskly. He didn’t bother trying to argue the man’s claim of being his son, if it got him past security and made this end faster he wasn’t going to complain.
It was well past midnight now and the man now seemed to know where he was, which was a good thing because Tommy couldn’t remember his house number. The man let go of Tommy and made a beeline toward the biggest house at the end of the street, the place was massive. Tommy couldn’t see all of the details in the dark but he could see the glass dome that covered the massive building.
The man was moving better than he had been earlier that night. Moving in a semi-straight line with purpose, his wings were no longer dragging on the ground like they had been when Tommy had mistaken them for a cape.
Tommy didn’t realize that he had almost followed the man into his house until he was standing on the bottom step that led to the front door. The man was holding it open like he was expecting Tommy to follow him inside. Tommy stopped and took a step back and addressed the man.
“Have a good night, morning, whatever the hell time it is.” Tommy gave the man a two-finger salute and turned back to the street. He got two steps before arms and wings wrapped around him, trapping his arms to his sides and his wings to his back while obscuring Tommy’s vision.
“What the fuck!?” Tommy screeched, an almost bird-like shriek tore from his throat at the same time nearly butchering his words beyond recognition and understanding.
Tommy’s shrieks were ignored by the man who picked him up with minimal effort and dragged him through the front door of the house, Tommy only knew that they had gone through the door because he kicked the doorway as he thrashed.
“What are you doing?! Put me down!” Tommy’s shouts were met with an almost threatening coo. Tommy went stiff, it was the kind of sound his parents would make when he was throwing a tantrum as a child or didn’t want to get his wings preened when they needed to be. It was a sound that meant ‘if you stop fighting you’ll only get a slap on the wrist, if you keep fighting there will be consequences’.
Tommy didn’t want to see what kind of consequences this man would doll out.
Tommy was limp in the man’s arms, no longer fighting. Once the man put him down he would make a run for it. The man loosened his hold on Tommy for a moment and he saw a chance, he yanked himself out of the man’s arms and immediately crashed through the door the man had opened and into a large, dark room.
Tommy knew he was fucked the moment he tripped over a small cluster of pillows, the man had brought him to his nesting room. he crashed to the ground directly on top of his wings. Tommy gasped painfully, no matter how soft the floor mattress was landing on wings did not feel good.
The man seized his arms and yanked him up, Tommy squawked and flapped his wings violently hoping to either unbalance the man and fly over him or otherwise make him let go in order to get away.
The man didn’t give him a chance.
The man dragged him to the center of the nest room and held him down (he was strong when did he get so strong-). Tommy kicked him in the shoulder, the man snarled violently and Tommy’s brain did a backflip. He scrambled backward only for his ankle to be seized. A cold circle of metal closed around his right ankle, a shackle with a chain connected to the floor.
Tommy clawed at the chain knowing it was hopeless but not daring to believe it, where there’s a will there’s a way and all that. But another cuff snapped on Tommy’s other ankle and knew he was done. He still clawed at the chains and when the man grabbed his hands and pulled them away from the chains.
The man gently pushed him down to the floor, making Tommy lay down his stomach before sitting down beside him. The man set a hand on his wings and started to carefully spread them, Tommy tried to sit up only to be forced back down with a gentle hand on the small of his back.
A hand started to run through his feathers, gentle, kind, foreign, possessive.
Tommy knew he was done for, so he accepted his fate. He allowed the man to preen his wings, once he was done with one wing he moved onto the other. His eyelids were getting heavier, every blink getting slower until he could no longer keep them open.
~~~~~~~~~
Phil woke up with the mother of all hangovers.
In hindsight, going out drinking wasn’t the best thing to do in his grief of his sons being gone for so long and so far away. He had been very drunk, he remembered that much. He also had a really strange hallucination (dream?) about a boy with wings.
He must have found his way home because he recognized the nest room in his house. The thing he did not recognize was the boy who was under his wing. He pulled his wing off of the boy and revealed the red and gold wings from his dreams, or what he thought had been his dreams.
Phil had kidnapped a child.
Phil had kidnapped a child.
And he couldn’t bring himself to be upset about it.
Phil popped a couple of advil and waited to set in before grabbing his phone and dialing his oldest son’s number.
The phone rang four times before Wilbur answered, “Yello?”
Phil smiled, “Hi Wil, is your brother there with you?”
“Ahh man, am I not good enough for you?” Wilbur asked jokingly. “But yes, we’re both right here.”
“Hi dad.” Phil heard Techno say in the background.
“Hi Tech.”
“What’s new?” Wilbur asked lightly.
“You two have a new brother.” Phil said without much preamble.
Both Techno and Wil went silent, and then Wilbur took a deep, deep, deep breath.
“Dad,” he started, “we are literally a town over, you can fly twenty minutes to visit us, and we have only been gone for two weeks.”