Work Text:
Mew sighed happily. The last boxes were finally in his new apartment and it was everything he had wanted.
Away but not too far from civilization.
Only 2 apartments per floor and 3 floors total.
Top floor that gave him access to the rooftop.
Yeah, Mew was happy.
He quickly started to open some boxes while he talked with his mother on speaker phone, letting her know everything was okay.
“I’m so glad you got there safe, love.”
“I’m just a couple of hours away, Mae. Of course I’m okay.”
“Still, you’re my baby so you need to take care of yourself now.”
“I know. I will, don’t worry.”
“Did you greet your neighbors?”
“No, not yet. But I’m about to, I just got to the box with the treats you sent.”
“Good. Make sure to make a nice first impression and let me know how they are later, okay?”
“Yes, mae. Send my love to Jom and dad, too.”
“I will. Talk to you later, son.”
Mew grabbed the Playmore his mother had bought and set to go knock on the door across his own. A voice answered from the intercom.
“Yeah?”
“Hello! I’m your new neighbor and-”
“Not interested. Don’t bother me, don’t come asking for some sugar and do not call on my intercom ever again.”
Mew was so shocked he stood there with a confused expression for at least a minute. Shaking his head, he went back to his own apartment, not knowing that the angry and rude guy across the hall would be a part of his life for good.
‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵
For what Mew could tell, his neighbor never went out. He did see a lot of deliveries being done: Groceries, clothes, shoes, games. He recognized the brands when he sometimes caught a glimpse of the boxes and bags in the hallway.
He didn’t mind. He wasn’t about to tell anyone how they should live their lives so he didn’t bother to try and befriend him, Mew had told his mother as much and she agreed.
Things started to change when Mew realized he had an audience whenever he went to the rooftop to play some guitar. It was open enough that the sound wouldn’t bother his neighbors and he didn’t have a bad voice either. But, one of those nights, he thought he had heard a sneeze at his back and went still.
There’s something that tells a person they’re not alone, and Mew was sure he wasn’t. But he tried not to make whoever it was he had noticed, he simply kept on strumming the chords and sang. It kept being like this for a couple more weeks until he thought he had to do something about it.
Setting a recording with his voice, he went upstairs, set a speaker on the floor and linked it to his phone. He then went to the place he thought the other person might use to spy on him and waited.
Sure enough, not ten minutes had gone by and Mew saw him appear.
He was tall, with black hair and a huge trench coat on his back.
Knowing the ruse would be up soon, Mew decided to speak up.
“And who might you be?” His voice startled the other person so bad that he turned around, tripped and fell. “Woah, woah, easy there-”
“Do not touch me!”
“Okay, man I was just- Wait, I know that voice. Are you my neighbor?” Mew had a great ear for sounds, and he still hadn’t forgotten how the rude guy sounded like even after all that time.
The guy seemed on the verge of tears and Mew didn’t understand the reason. “I’m sorry for startling you, but I’ve felt a presence each time I came up here and I wanted to see who it was.”
“Not me! I just came today by chance!”
That was a complete lie, Mew knew. If he had been there by chance the guy would’ve turned around and left, not looked around trying to find where the voice was coming from.
“If you say so. Whatever, I don’t mind if you want to listen.” Mew crouched to take his hand and get him up when the other guy kicked him. “What the fuck!?”
“I said don’t touch me!”
“I was trying to help you up, you asshole! If you-”
And Mew's eyes were not seeing clearly. They couldn’t be.
Because suddenly, from the guy’s back a pair of wings came out.
Huge ass wings.
“Oh my God.”
Beautiful feathers were falling to the ground and the wings seemed to be stretching out, the same way one would do with their arms after a long day of work.
Mew quickly found himself on the floor, his neighbor on top of him, his hand on his throat.
“You will not tell anyone about this. You hear me?” He was trying to put up a brave front and failing miserably. Mew saw the tears, heard the tremble in his voice, the grip on his throat wasn’t even strong.
“I won’t.” He promised, because whatever this guy was, Mew wasn’t going to expose it. “Calm down, it’s okay. Listen to me.” He raised a hand to his face. “Really, it’s okay, I promise you, I won’t tell.”
The other guy huffed and put his wings back, his trench coat torn.
“You better not.”
‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵
Mew had done nothing else but think about his neigbor for the past two nights.
He had gone over the encounter in his head over and over again. Those wings were real, that much was obvious. He hadn’t been drunk and the moonlight had been enough to see those were as much part of him as his arms or his eyes.
Which, by the way, were gorgeous. After the initial shock, Mew had had the time to think about his neighbor’s extremely handsome face. Big eyes, slightly curved nose, plump lips and a blush that-
Yelling interrupted his thoughts as he came out of the elevator. He carefully approached the hallway to his door and listened.
“-you hear me!? You owe me, you freak! Open this goddamn door!” A guy was enthusiastically kicking and knocking and Mew’s neighbor door. “Come on, Tum, you know I love you, right? Just come out and we can talk about this.” He waited for five seconds to start ranting again. “Open up! You fucking erased all of my reasearch, motherfucker! I know it was you! I don’t know how but I know it so you need to give it back to me! Why can’t you see how good this is? We could be rich!”
“Excuse me, what the hell are you doing to my door?” Mew asked once he got to the other guy.
“Y-Your door?”
“Well, it is my door as long as I pay rent here, so yeah. Who are you? What do you want?”
The other guy eyed him suspiciously. “You don’t live here.”
“And how would you know that?”
“Look, stay away from this. I know you don’t live here.”
“Really?”
The guy shoved his phone at Mew and the latter saw a very blurry picture of his neighbor passing through one of the windows of the apartment complex. To be exact, from the rooftop to this same floor.
“Dude, that’s me.” Mew confidently said. “See that haircut? See my profile? Are you stalking me? Do you like me or something?”
The other guy was clearly nervous now, doubt being planted in his head. But, apparently, he quickly recovered. “You live here, you say. Prove it.”
“I have shit to prove to you, man.”
“Then I’ll stay right here waiting for the tenant to come out.”
Mew frowned.
He casually leaned over the wall and touched the intercom, praying his neighbor might be listening.
“So, all I have to do is go inside my apartment and you’ll leave? Because, quite frankly, I should call the cops on you right now.”
“Go right ahead.” The other man said while crossing his arms, smugly.
Mew breathed in and took out his card. He put his body to block the view to the other guy just in case his plan failed and tried to open the door.
The light, of course, turned red, but not one second later, it turned green and the locks coming off could be heard. He sighed and then turned to the other person, still carefully blocking the door.
“So? Happy now?” He could see the other guy was fuming. “Get out of this property.” Mew closed the door and stayed just inside the small entryway. Turning around he could see his neighbor crouching on the floor, topless, tightly gripping his head, clearly trembling.
Mew immediately put his arms around him, feeling, for the first time, his feathers.
“It’s okay, he must be gone now.”
“Y-You don’t know him.”
‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵
Mew brewed some tea while he watched the other guy, Gulf, sitting on the couch.
“Here you go.” He offered the cup and then sat down as well.
“Why did you do that?”
“Because the guy was screaming his lungs off, he clearly knows you have wings and wants to take advantage of it and I find you cute.”
“Shit!” Gulf exclaimed. He had burned himself after Mew’s last words. “Stop saying things like that.”
“Will do for now. Who is he?”
Gulf quickly explained ‘that’ was a mistake he made the year before. A guy he met whom he thought might help him remove his wings and in the end wanted him for some kind of lab rat.
“I gave him a false name and I escaped, but-”
“What do you mean escape?”
“He kinda kept me drugged and bound inside a house.”
“What the fuck? Why didn’t you-” and Mew stopped. Of course Gulf wouldn’t be able to put up a complaint or sue the bastard. That would mean he had to go out. “Sorry.”
“You catch up quickly.”
“I’m studying for my PhD, if I weren’t smart, that’d be a problem. So, I get why you’re being careful after escaping that bastard, why trust me?”
Mew saw the guy in front of him blush while looking anywhere but at him. “You didn’t tell anyone. If you had, there would be a thousand reporters around our apartment complex by the time I went to sleep that night.”
“I haven’t told anyone. Not even my family. I said I wouldn’t.”
“Yeah, well, how many people do you know would see a guy with wings and keep it to themselves.”
“Point taken.” Mew agreed.
“Why didn’t you?”
“None of my business and I am a bit scared of what you may do to me.”
“I don’t have magical powers, you know?”
“Gulf, you have wings, literal wings sprouting from your back. I have no idea of what you can do.” This made Gulf smile which, in turn, made Mew smile.
“Well, then...best if I leave now.”
“You can’t.”
“Huh?”
“Dim...he’ll be watching and then he’ll know you lied.”
“Are you serious?” Mew knew with one look that Gulf was serious. “What if I make a complaint to the cops? Under my name? I mean, this guy is stalking me, right?”
“That’s...one way to go. Yeah.”
“Then tomorrow. I’ll check if he’s still around and then file a complaint, yes?”
“...Okay.”
“Hey, I’ll do it on my own, I won’t use your name at all. I promise.”
‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵
The domesticity Gulf and Mew had found together surprised the younger male.
He had believed Mew would definitely snitch after that first night when they saw each other, but he hadn’t. Mew had gone out of his way to make sure Gulf knew it was okay to trust him; and so, a week after the incident with Dim, Mew had filed a complaint for stalking and had gotten an order that didn’t allow Dim to go within 100 feet from Mew, which was awesome.
They hadn’t slept that day, then Mew returned to his apartment, but later that night he knocked on his door with some crispy pork that made Gulf salivate with gusto.
Before Gulf knew it, two months had gone by. Mew was incredibly diligent in his studies, though he still found time to dedicate to his music.
And it was actually perfect. Gulf was a Quality Analysis engineer, a job that literally didn’t require him to meet anyone upfront, just virtual meetings and work chats were more than enough to get him money. He had 3 projects that paid well plus, he was a hacker on the downside. Never to harm others, but to see if there was any information about himself anywhere.
Dim had been right, Gulf had been the one to erase all of his information.
Fucker deserved it.
But back to more pleasant themes.
Mew had gotten Gulf a huge rain coat, like the one Bruce Willis used in ‘Unbreakable’; just one of the many movie nights they’ve had and now that saga was one of Gulf favorites. With it, Gulf felt better about going up to the rooftop to listen to Mew playing and singing, it brought him such peace and he still didn’t want to admit why.
“I’m home!” Gulf heard Mew call from the doorway. Listening to the shoes just falling in the entryway, he knew it wasn’t a good day.
“Hey, do you want something to drink?” Gulf asked.
“Yeah, bleach with rat poison on the rocks.” So, pretty fucking awful day. “Sorry, just want to take a shower right now. Did you eat dinner?”
“Yes, your share is in the fridge.”
“Thanks.”
While Mew was in the shower, Gulf started to think about what to do. It was usually Mew the one comforting him if he ever got hysterical, which was pretty often. He racked his brain and had still found nothing when Mew came out. Gulf saw him coming close to him, ruffle his head and then caress the outline of his right wing, before going to the kitchen.
Mew always did that, it was like his own way of saying ‘Hello’. He was very touchy-feely, Gulf knew, but he also realized Mew held back a lot because of him, not wanting Gulf to feel uncomfortable or freak out because of the wings.
Which, quite impressively, Mew didn’t even think twice about. For him, Gulf’s wings were simply another part of him, same as his arms or his legs. He even knew to move his head or stay low whenever Gulf wanted to stretch them inside the apartment, it was instinctual already.
Thinking it couldn’t hurt to try, Gulf stretched his wings and sat on the rug on the floor, waiting. Mew came back with a bottle of water and sat on the couch, ready to surf for something on the television.
“Um...Mew?”
“Mmmh?”
“Would you mind coming here?”
“Had a bad day?” Of course Mew would immediately try to see what was wrong with him when clearly he was the one in the wrong mindspace.
“Just come, please.”
“Okay…” Mew stood up, then crouched before Gulf, but before he could pat his head, Gulf quickly hugged him and then closed his wings around them, like a cocoon of feathers. “Oh...wow…” It was the first time he'd done this, and he didn’t know how or if it could help Mew, but Gulf knew Mew loved his feathers. “Your wings are so beautiful. I mean, every part of you is, but they have this shine to them...” Gulf breathed in when he felt Mew accommodating against his chest, hugging back around his waist, eyes raised to see all he could.
Wait…
“Did you just call me beautiful?”
“Yeah, why? I always do.”
“No. I mean, yes, you do, but…” Gulf had always thought he was referring to only his wings.
“You are beautiful, Gulf. Not only do you have a kind soul and an amazing set of wings, but you’re incredibly handsome. Your lips are a thing of wonder...I swear, Helen of Troy has nothing on you. Wars should be battled for the right to kiss you.”
Gulf’s wings lowered at Mew’s words and the older man disentangled himself from Gulf.
“I’m sorry...I guess I’m worse than I thought, confessing like that. I’m just going to go back to my apartment tonight. Just forget this and-”
He quickly cut his Phi’s speech with a kiss.
“Are-” Mew gulped and took Gulf’s face in his hands. “Did you mean it?”
Gulf had liked Mew from the first time he listened to his singing voice, it didn’t hurt that he had a great face, but right now, he couldn’t care less if Mew was missing an eye. Mew’s heart was the most incredible thing about the man.
But the main reason why Gulf had been holding back was himself. What kind of future could there be between them? He had wings! He couldn’t go out for a drink, to a simple walk! He wouldn’t be able to meet his family, his friends, to put it simply, Gulf wasn’t going to be able to lead a normal life. He had known that from the moment his wings had started to grow, so he also accepted the fact he would have to die alone.
But now?...
“P’Mew, are you sure?” He asked, because Gulf was willing to go back being just his friend if he could still keep him in his life.
Mew knew what Gulf was talking about, he had a front row seat to his everyday life and he knew that apart from him, Gulf only talked with his parents through Line and no one else. He couldn’t imagine how incredibly lonely it must have been for him.
“Yes, I’m sure.”
‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵
Mew had had sex in his life. Good sex, bad sex, mind-blowing sex, painful sex, uncomfortable sex…
Nothing could’ve prepared him to what sex with Gulf would be like.
Not only were they freaking compatible at every level when they finally fell onto the bed, but for obvious reasons, the missionary position was out of the question. So three weeks after their first kiss, Mew found himself lying face up on the carpet while Gulf rode him with abandon, his wings on full display, quivering and moving all around them as their climaxes reached peak. It was amazingly beautiful.
“Blessed the Indians for the Kama Sutra…” Mew exclaimed after trying something called ‘Patty cake’. Gulf laughed about it and kinda pushed him with his wing as he drank some water.
“Shut up.”
“Hey, so I’ve been thinking...I know this might be too much and you can say no, but I was thinking about you meeting my family.” Gulf immediately tensed. “I know about your concerns about it, but I can make them sign a legal document that says they can’t talk about anything they see when they set foot inside our home if that’ll make you feel better.”
“What would that accomplish? I’d still be the man with wings that can’t have a normal life.”
“That leads me to part two. The reason I want you to meet them is because my parents are planning on retiring and going to live in the middle of nowhere. Literally. There’s a house my great-grandfather left when he died and they’re planning on using it now. It’s huge and I may have mentioned I met someone that had a particular condition that prevented him from leaving an enclosed space, ever. They were fine with giving us part of the place.”
“But, P’Mew...do you really think your parents will be okay with their only son living as a recluse? What about your classes? Your friends? Your life!”
“I can take online classes and still finish my PhD, already asked. I have friends I can still go out with from time to time as I do right now, and my life would be immensely better with you in it.” Gulf seemed to be thinking about it. “Besides, I’d like for you to have more human interaction. I know you have online friends, but that can only get you so far. What if something happens to me? What then? Where would you be? Your parents will outlive you and I won’t sit here thinking about you being alone for the rest of your days.”
“...Let me think about it, please.”
“That’s all I ask.”
‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵
It took Gulf half a year to finally accept to meet Mew’s parents.
The meeting had gone much better than expected. Mew had given them 10 minutes to ask anything and everything they wanted about Gulf’s wings and then he asked them to never mention it again unless it was to praise them. The younger man understood now how Mew was such a kind soul when the first thing Mew’s mother asked was ‘Does it hurt at all? Are you okay, dear?”.
That was the moment he knew it was okay to trust them too.
They all moved to a remote location where Gulf even went out and flew sometimes, whenever it was dark with a new moon, he felt freer than ever.
Jom joined the gang as the loudest person ever. Gulf really enjoyed talking to her whenever Mew wasn’t available due to his studies. They would bake sweets and she had a mix of natural essence oils that did wonders for Gul’s feathers whenever winter came.
Mew’s love for Gulf only grew as years went by.
Gulf’s love for Mew was infinite and simply one of a kind.
Many years later, when Jom’s grandchildren came to live in the property, they always made sure to go visit Mew and Gulf’s tree. Both of their ashes had been mixed with fertile soil and seeds. A huge tree with flowers as white as Gulf’s wings rested in the back garden of the house.
“Grandma, do you think they’re together now?” Her eldest asked Jom as they made their way back to the house.
“Oh, I’m sure they are. After all, Mew always said that their love was meant to fly through the skies…”
