Chapter Text
Ethan sat on the edge of the winged palace that was suspended in midair, looking out at the world below. How long had it been since the winged had taken him and made him their own? Sure, he could go back, but they wouldn’t accept him like this. They thought of the winged as monsters, as fundamentally changed from the shifters that ran the world below. It hurt to think about it like that, but it was true. He’d seen it with his own eyes, felt it when he first tried to go back down. Luke had pulled him back to the palace before the shifters could kill him. But Percy hadn’t been among them, hadn’t been there.
He took a deep shaky breath and closed his eyes. Percy showed up as clear as day with his ocean eyes and dark casual hair. Ethan could even see his panther form, and in a flash he could see the moment Percy saved him, slinking toward him in his shifted form. He’d been so done with everything that he’d been more than tempted to walk into Hybrid territory and let Fate be done with it. Only Percy had stopped him, had saved him and given him a reason to keep fighting on. He strongly suspected the other boy didn’t know just what he had done for Ethan. It seemed a just irony that Ethan would end up with the winged by saving Percy.
Living here was his reality, now. It wasn’t awful. In fact, it was probably the place he felt most at home- not that he would ever tell anyone, especially not Luke, who was their leader. If Luke found out, he’d never let it go and would start throwing an arm around his shoulder. Ethan didn’t want to deal with Luke hanging out, with him-
“There’s a new winged you need to see,” Luke announced behind Ethan, interrupting his train of thought. Ethan’s eyes flew up, and he jolted around to see the older boy standing awkwardly with another bruise decorating his left cheekbone that emphasized the scar on his face. Normally the bruises weren’t so prominent. The only reason Ethan even knew about them was because his boyfriend, Alabaster, was the one who ended up patching up the winged leader. His boyfriend, who was crushing on Luke, was responsible for using his magic to heal Luke from his abusive boyfriend. It should annoy Ethan more, but he couldn’t work up to that level of annoyment. He was still hung up on Percy after all.
“You need to see Alabaster. That bruise looks pretty bad,” Ethan told Luke, keeping his voice calm. He didn’t even want to know how bad the other boy looked under his clothes. Alabaster had him there for a couple patch ups, and Ethan had had to resist the urge to go hunt down the bastard who did that and break a couple of his bones.
Luke winced, touching his cheek like he just remembered it. Ethan hid the kernel of anger for the man who was abusing their leader under a layer of a numbness. It was always easier when Alabaster wasn’t around with his magic.
“He was just really bad this week,” Luke replied vaguely, shifting his weight as his gaze dropped from Ethan’s. Some days it was hard to remember that Luke was the boss of the winged when he seemed so much more vulnerable than them.
Ethan blinked as he realized that at some point he’d gotten to his feet and stood in front of Luke. He didn’t miss the way Luke flinched when Ethan gently touched the spot. Ethan snorted, a hot burst of hate burning in his chest. “He’s really bad every week. You need to stop going back.”
“I love him,” Luke whispered, and Ethan could hear the tears in his voice. There was no doubt that his boyfriend had no real love for him after everything Ethan had heard; he just used Luke to further his own ambitions.
“Al loves you,” Ethan whispered as some sort of comfort as something to bring him back.
Luke’s eyes snapped up to him, narrowing in suspicion. They swept over Ethan as if trying to figure out where he needed to step next, what Ethan already knew. Ethan just sighed and shook his head as he pushed back down the bubble of anger. It wasn’t worth it; he just hadn’t wanted Ethan to know. For all Ethan knew, he’d done it for the same reason Ethan had told him.
“Why’d he come to me, Luke? He didn’t choose me.” It was a chance that might not pan out, that maybe it wasn’t true, but Ethan knew it was from the way Luke shifted guiltily and changed the subject abruptly. “We should go see the new winged.”
As he turned to go, all the layers of numbness Ethan’d been burying the anger away evaporated. “You’re just going to walk away like that? I deserve an answer, Luke! You were the one that tore me away from my life, from Percy.” Ethan felt the heat of embarrassment as he whispered the last part. Tears were pricking at his eyes, and hastily whipped them away.
Luke froze but didn’t turn around, didn’t let Ethan see his face. He let the echoes hang in the air long enough that Ethan wondered if he’d ever get the truth, and then Luke calmly replied, “You needed someone, Ethan. We thought we’d lose you. And I was aiming for Percy.”
Ethan rolled his eyes as Luke ducked back inside the palace that housed all of the wings; they weren’t welcome anywhere else. He hurried after the blonde intent on not letting this conversation go. “So you used his crush on you against him? And why Percy?” He’d asked the last question so many times that he knew he wouldn’t get an answer.
“I gave him something to distract him from it,” Luke hissed back like ice starting to crack in the spring. He sped up his pace so that Ethan had to scurry after him. He knew it was just another tactic to avoid Ethan responding to it. It hurt to think that Ethan was just supposed to be a distraction to Alabaster, but maybe Luke thought it cut both ways. After all, Ethan hadn’t made it any secret that he still had a crush on Percy.
Luke slid into the side door of an infirmary where the few healers that had worked. On the white sheeted bed laid an unconscious winged that Ethan hadn’t seen before. He could be recovering from the surgery that gave him wings if he chose it like some Hybrids did… or Alabaster who had been a rare non-shifter before the surgery… or he could be recovering from being changed by another winged. Luke would be the best nomination for that.
The new winged was small and scrawny with black marks smeared on his skin that looked like grease. His hair was wild and curly, and his ears looked slightly pointed. He looked like a fox or a coyote shifter from a place that was normally outside of their range.
“Where’d you find him?”
Luke looked at him with a soft smile. “That’s the weird thing. He was outside the cove- the one people say lead to the underworld. He was looking for something or somebody. I don’t know if he was a shifter, but he held a fire in his hands, an orange flame. He could be what we’re looking for Ethan. He-”
A soft whoosh cut him off, and they turned to see Alabaster landing in the room, folding his wings back with a grin. “I just got through stalking your crush for a while. Apparently he’s joined a pack of wolf shifters, and I think he’s screwing the alpha- or the alpha’s screwing him.”
Luke turned the wrong way, and Alabaster got a full look at his face. Ethan could tell by the panicked look on Luke’s face that he hadn’t meant to do that. Alabaster screwed his lips together in disapproval before in a deadly soft voice declaring, “I’m going to kill him. Back me up on this, Ethan.”
“I’ve stated that before, but you always remind me that he won’t actually tell us who it is,” Ethan shot back, and Luke blushed bright red. A spark of satisfaction surged through Ethan as he turned back to Alabaster. “In the meantime do you wanna see the new winged Luke brought home?”