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Waking up that morning, the first thing Tommy noticed was the back pain.
A mild ache had spread over his back, making it hard to move, Reaching a hand behind himself to try and massage his back, his hand bumped into..a bump? Two bumps? Two long, vertical bumps had made themselves home between his shoulder blades. Giving the area a light press, a sharper ache flowed out from the site.
Don’t press mysterious bumps, got it.
~~~
He was an hour into his stream and his back pain had gone from “this hurts” to “oh fuck this shit is painful”. Forcing a grin onto his face, he flicked his camera to fullscreen to finish up his stream. “Alright, I think I’m going to end now, thank you boys for all the primes! Go and say hi to Eryn for me!” Sending his chat to raid Eryn, he quickly hit the “End Stream'' button on his Streamdeck and let himself whimper as a burning sensation began to spread through his back.
Stumbling out the door and back to the main house, he made his way to his bed, collapsing onto his stomach.
What the fuck was going on?
When a shard of agony tore between his shoulder blades, he couldn’t help but let out a scream. Tears pricked his eyes, and he felt the sensation of liquid flowing down his back, filling the air with a rusty scent. Reaching his figure to his shoulder blades, they came away red, covered in drying blood.
“Hello? Tommy? Are you ok?” A voice came from underneath him. Looking down, his phone displayed that he was on call with Wilbur. “ Tommy, are you ok? I heard you scream.”
“He-eyyyyy Big Dubs.” Tommy winced as his voice cracked, “Must’ve butt dialed you or somethin’.” Uh, sorry about that.” With a shaking hand, he reached out to hang up- instead, he landed on the camera button. Panic ran through him as Discord loaded his camera in.
“Tommy, are you okay? What’s wrong with your back? Is that blood?” Wilbur’s voice was full of rapidly rising concern as he noticed the crimson liquid soaking his friend’s shirt.
“N-no, I just had an accident with, uh, food dye. Yeah, red food dye! No need to worry at all!” Tommy forced a chuckle out, immediately regretting his decision when the action jostled his back.
“Tommy, why is there a giant lump under your shirt?” Wilbur continued to question.
“A giant wha- holy shit!” Tommy had craned his neck around to look behind. Something was obviously straining under his t-shirt, something very…feathery?
“Tommy?” Wilbur’s voice called out from his phone.
“Oh, uh,” he’d forgotten he was still on call with Wilbur, “I’m going to uh, hang up now. C-call you back later. Bye.”
“No, To-.”
As soon as the call had ended, he carefully pulled of his t-shirt, now soaked with blood, and discarded it to the floor. Turning around, his jaw dropped.
There were fucking wings connected to his fucking back.
He stumbled out of his bed and across to the bathroom, staring at himself in the mirror. Giving the new appendages an experimental stretch, he rubbed his eyes. When wings still continued to protrude from his back, he raised a hand and slapped himself. The wings stayed.
Tommy didn’t know much about birds but the multicoloured spread of feathers coming from behind him indicated a parrot of some kind. His primaries, primary coverts, and secondaries were coloured a rich azure, glinting in the fluorescent light that illuminated the bathroom. His secondary coverts were a bright bumblebee yellow, with green edging the tips where those feathers met red. His marginal coverts were pigmented a loud candy red, the bright colour sure to commandeer attention from anyone who caught a glimpse of his wings.
He gave them an experimental flap, still exploring his control of the protrusions. His right wing clipped something, sending it tumbling to the ground. He turned around to retrieve what had fallen- however, he’d forgotten to tuck his wings back in. His left wing swept more items off the sink counter, pushing bottles of product and soaps as well as a cup of toothbrushes tumbling to the ground in a ruckus.
“Tom! Are you okay up there?” His mother called across the house.
“Yeah! I’m fine, don’t worry about me!”
Tucking his wings in he turned to face the mirror again. This was a rather interesting situation innit?
~~~
After carefully placing everything back onto the shelves and changing into a clean shirt, he sneaked across the house, making his way to his streaming studio.
He paused for a moment, letting the soft blue of the walls calm him down and slow his still rapidly beating heart. After a moment, when his breath wasn’t coming in ragged gasps and his heart had calmed to a more steady beat, he ran his fingers through his blonde curls, planning his next course of action.
What would he normally do if something wasn’t right? Call Wilbur. Would Wilbur think he was a freak of some sort? But wings are fuckin’ cool! Is calling Wilbur an option?
Deciding ‘fuck it, this isn’t helping’, he sat himself down in his chair and powered on his PC. Once the screen illuminated, he entered his password and quickly navigated to Discord. Scrolling through his DMs, he clicked on Wilbur’s icon and hit the call button.
Oh fuck, was this a good idea? Maybe he should hang up now, blame it on a butt dia-
“Hello? Tommy? Are you okay?”
“Wil, oh my god. Wil, I have fuckin’ wings. Wil, I’ve got wings, you gotta believe me, I can show you-” the words burst out from his mouth.
“Tommy.” WIlbur interrupted.
“Wilbur, I’m not lying, you have to believe me.”
“Tommy, I believe you.”
“You- you do?”
“Tommy, you’re- I’m- we’re all hybrids.” Wilbur explained.
“What do you mean, “we”?” Tommy asked, a new curiosity in his voice.
“Phil, Tech, me, and now you, Toms. We’re all hybrids.” Wilbur elaborated in a tone that sent a rush of comfort flowing through Tommy.
Tommy didn’t respond, still processing Wilbur’s words.
“Hey, I’ll invite Phil to the call, he’s an avian just like you. Is that okay?”
Tommy nodded through his facecam (then realizing it was off and instead settled for an affirmative hum) and typing could be heard from Wilbur’s end, soon followed by the Discord ringtone.
“Hello?” Phil’s voice rang through the call. “I heard we have a new hybrid amongst us.”
“Hehe, Among us.” Tommy absent-mindedly mused. “Hey Phil, I have wings now.”
“Oh? Well, let’s see them, mate.”
Hesitantly, he turned on his camera and watched the blurple dots rotate around each other.
His camera loaded in and he shylu stood up from his chair and turned around, spreading his wings on full display, carefully making sure they didn’t bump into anything.
“Aw, Tommy, they’re wonderful!” Phil gushed, admiring his pseudo-son’s plumage. “It’s definitely a parrot of some kind.”
Tommy gave them a small flap, letting the colourful feathers catch the light.
“Your hybrid features are much nicer than what I got,” Wilbur snorted. “I’ve got a fucking tail and floppy ears.”
Turning back around, tucking in his wings as he plopped himself back into his chair, “What hybrid are you, Wil?” Tommy asked.
“I’m a lamb hybrid, means I have a ball of fluff for a tail and ears that are practically impossible to hide. It also means I bleat when I get excited or happy and, I, uh, headbutt people.” Wilbur explained, a hint of lighthearted annoyance in his tone.
“I’m a crow, chat would go wild if they found out, Crowfather is real.” Phil flicked his camera on, showing off his ebony wings, the dark surface shining in the LED light. “Can’t fly though and neither will you be able to. These wings aren’t big enough, however they still look pretty sick. Work as a great fan on hot days at least.”
“Wait, so I can’t fly with these fuckers?” Tommy gaped at his camera.
“Nope, sorry mate.” Phil confirmed, before laughing a little. “I mean, you probably could if you tried hard enough.”
Tommy pressed his palms into his eyes, “So what do I do with these? I can’t just fuckin’ show up on stream with fuckin’ wings!”
“Bird binder.” Phil hummed.
“Bird binder? The fuck is that?” Tommy exclaimed, letting his hands fall to his desk with a thud .
“It’s like a shirt that presses your wings to your back. Uncomfortable but effective, I’ll send you the website, it’s pretty hard to find on your own considering hybrids aren’t a common thing.” Phil offered.
Tommy nodded. “So what’s The Blaaaaade?” He asked, dragging out Techno’s nickname in a dramatically grand fashion.
“He’s a boar hybrid, so it fits right in with his character.” Wilbur chuckled.
Tommy hummed, “So four outta four SBI, innit?”
The VC erupted with laughter, and Tommy grinned. He leaned back in his seat, letting his wings stretch out.
At least he wasn’t alone with this crazy shit.