Chapter Text
And this was the last stitch he had to make on one of the two wounds Quackity had left on his back. Now there were two rather long lines completely stitched across his polka dotted back, where his angelic wings had once been, and the rest of his wings lay on the tool tray next to the operating table.
He felt sick every time he looked at Quackity's lifeless wings on that tray.
Carefully, he bandaged the Mexican's back, then carried him, along with an oxygen tank, to a private room next to his office for when he didn't want to leave the reactor for work.
He placed the oxygen tank on the floor so she could tuck Quackity under the covers more comfortably. He covered him up and readjusted his oxygen mask; when he woke up, he would give him an injection for the pain, but for now, he would let him rest.
“Śpij dobrze, kochanie”(Sleep well, my love) I whispered to him, then kissed his forehead and left the room to return to the operating room.
He busied himself cleaning up as quickly as possible to avoid looking at what he'd done to Quackity, but then it was time to get rid of the wings. He grabbed them and threw them into the lava bucket in one of the nearby rooms. The wings were in a too bad a condition to be useful for experimenting; they had multiple badly infected, pus-filled wounds, since the harness straps hadn't allowed them to heal properly, not to mention that all of its flight feathers were burned off.
He started walking toward the room where he'd performed the surgery, then went inside, closed the door, and burst into tears.
I felt terrible for mutilating Quackity, but if I hadn't, he most likely would have died of septicemia. But I still felt terrible because I'd put it through this. There was a chance his wings would never grow back, but I knew they would regenerate completely. I'd seen with my own eyes how quickly he healed; this shouldn't be any different.
But what if they never grew back? Wings are incredibly important to winged hybrids, both physically and mentally. If anything happened to them because of me, I would never forgive myself.
When the fight that left my wings like this happened, I couldn't even look at Ewroon. I hated him so much that it took me a long time to speak to him again, and my poor mental health at the time didn't help me cope with what had happened. I absolutely refused to have the same operation I had just performed on the Mexican, because my pride wouldn't allow me to part with what was most precious to me, my wings.
When they were healthy, they were enormous black bat wings that almost dragged on the ground. They were so big even when I transformed into a bat, they were a little bigger than normal, which was very comfortable for sleeping since I could curl up in them. Now, when I transformed into a bat, the few times I did it anymore, I was unable to fly because of how damaged they were. I really missed the feeling of flying on clear nights.
But since I can’t do anything for my wings anymore, I can for Quackity.
I would do anything for him.
…
Hours passed, and Quackity finally began to wake up from the anesthesia.
I was in the lab making more iodine tablets when the sensor in the room where the winged hybrid was located notified me of a new movement.
I quickly got up from my desk and went to the room where I had performed the surgery to grab a syringe and some pain medication to give the dark-haired boy, since he would most likely be in a lot of pain when he woke up from the anesthesia.
Once I had everything I needed, I went to my bedroom, where the Mexican was.
Quackity was covered up to his head with the sheets, and I could hear him breathing with difficulty. I crouched down next to the bed where he was and I carefully uncovered him a little so I could see him. He was trembling and closing his eyes tightly.
"Quackity, what's wrong? Does it hurt a lot?" I asked, lowering my voice.
“Y...yes, and I’m very cold” the dark haired man replied, trembling.
“I’m going to give you some pain medication, and then I’ll get some clothes. I’d rather give them to you when you wake up so I can check your wounds without you having to move around so much” I said as I drew the liquid into the syringe and put the small bottle in my gown. “Can I have your arm so I can give you the injection?” I asked the hybrid.
With some difficulty, Quackity extended his arm. I held his arm carefully and slowly injected the medication. When I finished, I capped the syringe and put it in my gown pocket.
“I’ll get the things I need to treat your wounds and some clothes so you don’t get cold anymore, okay?” I told him as I gently ran my hand through his hair.
I got up and went to the operating room where I grabbed a tray and started putting in everything I needed to do the cure to him, since it had been a few hours since he'd left surgery and I had to check that the drains and wounds looked okay. Once everything was ready on the tray, I placed it on the table and went to the room where I changed my clothes and left my backpacks to grab a t-shirt, a sweatshirt, or something for Quackity.
I went over there and started looking in the drawers to see what I could give the Mexican. After rummaging around a bit, I found the sweatshirt that I was wearing the day the cruise ship ran aground on this island. It was quite big on me, and Quackity is shorter than me, so it's perfect because it won't bother him too much with the bandages. I grabbed it and went back to the surgery room to get the tray with the supplies for his treatment and headed back to the room where the duck was.
I went into the room, put the tray on the nightstand next to the bed, and threw the sweatshirt onto a corner of the bed. Quackity looked much calmer now than when I came in a little while ago, but he was still shivering a bit from the cold.
"I'm going to change your bandage before I give you the sweatshirt, okay?" I told the dark haired man.
"Please hurry, you're freezing me to death" the Mexican replied.
“It’s not cold in here, it’s actually quite nice” I said as I lay beside him in bed.
“The vampire that his normal body temperature is the equivalent of an ice bath said” the dark haired man replied sarcastically.
“Kurwa, pendejo” I muttered through gritted teeth as I pulled the sheet off him and took a first look at the large gauze pad stuck to his back. I'd chosen to use gauze so I wouldn't have to move him later, since I didn't want him to suffer any more unnecessary pain.
He was bleeding a little; two dark lines of blood were visible through the gauze. Then I checked the drains, which were quite full for having been in for so few hours. That must mean his body had already accelerated the healing process, one less thing to worry about.
I gently began to peel off the gauze, then set it aside and grabbed a smaller gauze pad soaked in serum. I started dabbing away all the dried blood from the wounds with light touches to minimize the pain.
The boy occasionally groaned in pain when I pressed a little harder on the wound, so I sped up the process as much as I could. When I finished cleaning all the dried blood, I disinfected the wound and emptied the drains to place a new, large gauze pad on his back.
“That’s it” I said as I put all the supplies on the tray. “Now I’m going to help you sit up so I can put on a sweatshirt” I said as I sat back down on the bed to hold him.
Between us, I managed to get him to sit up slowly to avoid opening the stitches. Then I started putting the sweatshirt on him without letting him raise his arms too much, and I rinsed him again, lying face down on the bed.
“I… I don’t feel any weight on my back” the boy told me.
“At first, it’s going to be hard to adapt since you lost a lot of weight on your back, and your center of gravity is going to be affected, but you’ll get used to it quickly, don’t worry, Kaczuszko” I reassured him.
“Are they really going to grow back? Or did you just say that to get me to agree to the surgery so I wouldn’t die from the infection?” the hybrid asked me.
“You have an incredible capacity for regeneration; obviously, they’re going to grow back, but you have to give them time. They’re not going to grow back overnight; it’s going to take months to be what they were” I told him as I lay down on the bed to be at his level.
“I can’t imagine living the rest of my life without wings” the Mexican confessed, lowering his head.
“For bird hybrids, wings are very important, both for social and biological reasons, but there are cases where they learn to live without them” I began, as the boy raised his head again to look at me. “For vampires, transforming into a bat is very important, just like wings are for you. Since my accident, I’ve only transformed a couple of times, and before that, I did it daily” I told him.
“But why don’t you transform more often?” he asked.
“Because I can’t do practically anything with that body. I can’t even glide with what’s left of my wings. Transforming would only help me hide better since I’d be smaller” I confessed sadly.
“Couldn’t you get prosthetic wings? Fit knows a lot about it because of his arm, he could help you” the darkhaired boy asked.
“I don’t know, but I doubt it. The damage is much more noticeable when I transform” I told him.
“Can I see?” he asked, sitting up slightly to the side.
I remained silent for a while, thinking about what to do. I felt very insecure and vulnerable transformed into a bat, but Quackity probably felt worse now. I had just cut off his wings, and he was in pain. It wouldn’t have been any trouble for me to transform for him.
“Okay, but please don’t mess with me, please” I asked him.
“I would never do that to you over something like this” the hybrid told me.
I moved away from him a little and with a pop, I transformed into a bat. Since I didn’t have functional wings after the transformation, I fell abruptly onto the bed. Then I got up and tidied my fur a bit before looking up at Quackity, who was staring at me with fascination.
In my bat form, I was about the size of a half-liter water bottle. My fur was entirely black, with some green tips from the radiation, and my eyes were completely glowing green. Only a few bones of my wings remained, but luckily I still had the claws on them, which were like my hands in this form, and some membrane on the upper part of my wings.
Quackity slowly sat up on the bed, letting out a few whimpers of pain as he did so, and then extended his trembling hands toward me, as if he wanted me to climb onto them.
"My God, you're so cute. Why didn't you show me you could do this sooner? It's incredible" he said, impressed.
I approached his hands and, and using my claws, I climbed onto them and sat down.
The Mexican lifted me into the air and brought me close to his face to get a better look.
“You even have tiny fangs, how cute” he said as he carefully placed me back on the bed.
I took a few steps back and transformed back into a human.
“Thank you for showing me, I really appreciate your trust in me” the long haired one said shyly.
“Thank you for not messing up with my problem” I replied.
After that, we sat for a while in comfortable silence, gazing into each other's eyes, until the Mexican broke the silence.
“Isn't this the sweatshirt you were wearing the day the cruise ship crashed?” the Mexican asked, pulling the collar of my sweatshirt up to his nose to smell it.
“How thoughtful” I replied, surprised.
“Since day one” he answered, pulling the sweatshirt down as he turned his head and looked up at me.
We gazed into each other's eyes for a while longer, until I noticed the dark-haired boy start looking at my lips. I immediately looked at his, then glanced up and saw that he was now staring intently at me. I slowly moved closer to his face until he decided to close the small distance between us with a chaste kiss on the lips. I lay back on the bed and ran my hand along the back of his neck to continue the kiss.
After a while of short kisses, we pulled apart slightly. Quackity kept looking at me.
"Are you okay?" he asked gently "You look paler and your dark circles are more pronounced than before. You don't look okay" he said.
"I've been up for many hours working, I suppose that's why" I replied casually.
"Stay and sleep with me now. I'm quite sleepy, and you clearly need to rest" he said while he looked at me with his tired eyes.
“But I still have a lot of work to do, I haven’t even finished making the new batch of pills for Haiper” I replied, rubbing my eyes with my hands.
The hybrid grabbed my wrists and made me take my hands away from my face. “I don’t care, take off your robe and we’ll go to sleep” he said as he grabbed one end of the robe and pulled it down.
“Okay, fine” I replied as I sat up to take off my robe and my black shirt, so that when I woke up, what was left of my wings wouldn’t hurt so much, and I threw them to the side of the room.
As soon as I got under the covers, the darkhaired man climbed onto my chest and buried his face in my neck.
“Kocham cię, Kaczuszko” I whispered as I kissed his forehead.
I settled in and loosely wrapped the remnants of my wings around us both, until I finally fell asleep.
…
Months passed, and I found myself in the same situation as the day Quackity awoke from anesthesia, both of us huddled together in my private room in the reactor, clumsily wrapped in wings. But there was one small difference, though, now it was me who was wrapped in someone else's wings, but truly wrapped, not like what I had tried to do with my own.
Three months passed before Quackity's wings had fully grown, and they were even more beautiful than before. After the accident, they hadn't been tying them up, which prevented damage to the feathers, making them appear larger and more striking. Now he truly looked like an angel.
During these months, Quackity spoke with Fit to see if he could make prosthetic wings for me so I could fly again in my bat form again. So far, he hasn't succeeded, all the prototypes have failed. But he continues working on it, hoping it will work. I also started transforming into a bat more often, but only with Quackity around. He would put me in the front pocket of his bib, when he was wearing it of course, if he didn't I would sit on his shoulder, and take me around to explore when I was too tired to walk around.
Aside from that, we used this technique to spy, since by hiding I could hear the information I needed firsthand without the duck having to give me a summary of what he'd listened.
Also in these months, we had formalized our relationship. After spending so much time together helping Quackity recover, we had finally put a label on what we had, and now we were practically living together in the reactor room that I used to only occasionally sleep.
Now I was in bed, burying my face in the crook of Quackity's neck while he stroked my hair and enveloped us both with his large, soft, golden wings.
"Wake up, I almost have to go see Roier and you won't let me out" the dark-haired boy whispered to me.
“Why can’t you stay here all day? I’m very comfortable” I complained, burying my head deeper and tightening my grip on the guy’s sweatshirt.
“I never thought I’d hear you say that. Are you a clone, are you?” he joked.
“Ja pierdolę, cancel your boyfriend subscription please, you’re pissing me off” I said, putting my hands to my face and sitting down on the bed.
The dark-haired boy gathered his wings behind his back and sat down on the bed, then placed his hand on my cheek and pulled my face toward his to kiss me.
“I’ll try to come back soon. Don’t hurt yourself working, okay?” the Mexican said.
“Okay” I replied, then grabbed the back of his neck and kissed him again.
The dark-haired boy pulled away and got out of bed to go to the bedroom closet and grab his clothes to change into before leaving. Meanwhile, I also got out of bed and started looking for my lab clothes that I had left lying on the floor the night before.
“I’m leaving, pa pa” Quackity said goodbye, then he put a cigarette in his mouth and grabbed the doorknob to leave.
“Pa pa, Kaczuszko” I said back as I buttoned my shirt.
These last few months I had felt very included and understood, all thanks to Quackity.
He wanted to tell him that the closest he’d ever felt to home was when he was with him, but he’s just too shy to admit it, so for the moment he made sure to show his love with him through small gestures and displays of affection.
I was a god and he was my angel.