Chapter Text
He was falling. Fallingfallingfalling can’t get up can’t wake up can’t feeling anything but the burning and the fire in his veins. Fire and ice and he’s tumbling through the air, limbs flailing, failing, wings beating behind him in frantic panic. It’s warm, but not hot, and it’s cool, but not cold, and it’s wrong because there is darkness around him when there should be light.
He can’t feel. The air and the darkness mean nothing. There is no wind or resistance, only movement and flurry. His feathers are straining to compensate and he tries to open every wing that he has-
-but he just keeps falling.
It’s deafeningly quiet. There are noises coming every which way. Screaming tears and painful whispers of his siblings as he falls away from them.
He hadn’t done anything wrong, he protests, he was just doing what he has always done. Working hard and being the shining example… and now he was Fallen and he was moving and the stars are stretched above and not below. His siblings call for him, because he wasn’t meant to fall, but they can’t reach him because he is beyond that. He is beyond being saved. He’s been pushed from grace and cannot think past the panic that the quiet suggests.
He shouldn’t feel anger, but the sibling that did this should not feel jealously, so perhaps they are both bad at what they are meant to be.
His feather’s brush his face as the wind finally hits him and he plummets into the world. He feels resistance as air brushes his wings and catches at him and, while he is still surrounded by the darkness, the stars are above him and he can see-
-just as everything goes black.
Connor McKinley’s day had been, well, awful. Middle of winter, he was late to class because of a faulty alarm clock, he missed important notes for the exam in two weeks, his co-worker called in sick and he had to go pick up her shift when he should be studying for the test he has tomorrow, a patron decided it’d be fun to accidently spill a glass of water all down his front, pay-day wasn’t until Thursday, he was out of everything save five day old stir-fry, and he’d smashed his toe onto a streetlight due to his apparent inability to be aware of his surroundings.
So yeah. His day had not been great. He’d go so far to say it had been one of the worst days of his life (if that day with his parents had never happened that is.)
So he was doing as he always did when the world decided to kick him while he was down.
He walked.
Not far, never far. It was probably not a good idea at all, what with it being the middle of the night in a secluded section of a park, but if anybody attacked him, Connor concluded that he’d probably just embrace death with open arms (until he got close enough to spray said attacker in the eyes with the pepper-spray he had on his person.)
It was calm, at night. There were no kids playing Frisbee or soccer and no picnics or loud, meaningless chatter. It was just him and the stars and the trees (and his pepper-spray.) No noise, or bright lights, just the moon and the sky and-
Somebody was screaming.
Connor’s head snapped upwards as what sounded like muffed agony hit his ears. Something snapped in his gut, and he went stiff, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end as something primal stirred in his belly.
Protect yourself. Something is wrong. Stand on guard. Something could be watch you.
His hand gripped the pepper-spray, and Connor whirled around as the screaming grew louder. It was then he noticed his feet were moving on their own accord – towards the noise, what on Earth was that about?! – and he barely registered that he was going into a slightly more secluded area of the park, surrounded by brush and tall oaks. The screaming turned into hysterical wails.
“Hello?” he asked, raising his voice but not quiet yelling, “hello? Is anybody there? Do you need help?” he hoped that if somebody was being attacked, the attackers might flee in fear of a possible witness. Probably poor judgement on his part, but his brain was both fuzzy and hyper-focused. Somebody needed help.
The wails petered into wet sobbing, but he heard no noises of people retreating. There was no fearful yelling, or the thumping of shoes as people fled. Connor’s feet ground to a stop and he glanced around. Perhaps somebody had injured themselves? But the noises didn’t sound like pain, rather they sounded distressed, and heart-breakingly sad.
He shook his head and blinked, forcing himself continue and push his way through the brush until he came across-
“... what?”
The ground was blackened in what almost looked like ash, following an intricate, swirling pattern like waves or ribbons or watercolour, and the sides of the trees facing the small clearing were stripped away in a perfect circle. The starlight bounced off any available leaf or branch almost blindingly, as if made of silver.
And then…
Then there was…
Connor didn’t know what he was looking at.
It was like looking at an optical illusion. His eyes kept bouncing from place to place as his brain hurried around, panicked, trying to make sense of the situation. It was man, he thought, lying on his back on the ground in front of him. His hair was brown – gold? – and it shone – glittered? – in the starlight. His limbs were long and eagle spread across the ground, and his skin was pale – tan? – and reflected the light every way it could. Around his head arched light, not that of the stars, but bright and warm like a million sunrises, and it was almost hard to look at. His eyes were closed in spite of the sobbing.
And there was the… well. Maybe he was more stressed than he thought. Because that… now, that wasn’t actually quite possible.
His brain was screaming that this was something strange and unnatural and that he should run very far away… or bow? Submit to something that obviously had more power than Connor had ever seen before. This man wasn’t human. Every single fibre of his being was stressing this fact. This was a perfect, inhuman stranger.
The thing?/man?/creature?/god?/monster? shifted and the light around his head flickered and dulled. Warm brown eyes slowly opened and he? sat up. Reality hit him as the thing in front of him rolled his shoulders, and his wings (all six of them!) shuddered and then rose to stretch in tandem with his? arms and legs.
Connor squeaked and the thing screeched in alarm as it whirled to face him, backing up against a tree. His instincts – the ones only moments ago yelling to run – told him to comfort, because this was a scared thing, and as inhuman as he was, apparently he was human enough.
“Hey, hey, now, you’re okay,” Connor soothed, palms forward, “you’re okay. Do… do you speak English?”
The thing (no, no, the man) looked as confused as he did scared and he whimpered.
“English? No?” Connor tried again, before sighing and shaking his head. He pointed at himself, “Connor,” he gestured to the man. He remained confused, and shivered. Connor looked at him for a moment more, before his eyes widened and his face flushed, “oh my gosh you’re naked, you’re very naked- oh my…” he shucked off his winter coat and slowly offered it to him. The man’s eyes flickered around Connor’s face, as if searching for something, before he burst into tears again. Connor recoiled, flinching back sharply, before his heart lurched, “hey, no, no, it’s okay, it’s… oh my gosh, what do I do, what do I do,” he mindlessly reached forward, and his hand brushed the man’s bare shoulder, causing him to screech again, and roll away from him. Connor flinched back harder than before, and he found himself on his back, elbows digging into the frozen ground.
Both were breathing heavy, staring at each other in alarm. Connor pushed himself up from the ground, snagging the coat from where it had fallen, and offering it again. The creature looked at it, and then at him, eyes tracing over his body in what seemed more like analysing than admiring, before his tense body relaxed a little and he slowly reached for the coat, staring at the sleeves in poorly veiled interest, before, staring at Connor all the while, carefully, almost fearfully, pulling it on. When it didn’t attack him, he relaxed even more and stared at Connor with similar interest. He tilted his head and let out a confused chirp.
Connor swallowed, “oh boy… what have I gotten myself into?”