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Smallishbeans has started a group chat with Grian, smajor1995, and SolidarityGaming.
Smallishbeans: hey
Smallishbeans: either of you busy right now?
Smallishbeans: jimmy’s at my place and he’s real out of sorts
smajor1995: joel i dont want to know what you two get up to after work
Grian: Why am I in this group
Smallishbeans: no like
Smallishbeans: after Grian left and we were heading back
Grian: Do you mean after I died?
Smallishbeans: no, after we all left the sim
Smallishbeans: jimmy started complaining about backpain so we went to my placeSmallishbeans: and he’s collapsed on the floor with a fever
Smallishbeans: his back is swelling too, like two big lumps
smajor1995: what
Smallishbeans: look i think he’s growing wings
Smallishbeans: i don’t know about avian stuff but like
Smallishbeans: can one of you just come over? i don’t know what to do
Grian: I’m on my way.
— — —
Joel put down his phone and let out a sigh. He’d just gotten Jimmy in the guest bed and gotten the shirt off and nearly gagged. The swelling on his back was pretty severe, red and purple like a bruise and hot to the touch. Joel had to admit he didn’t really pay attention when the others had talked about transformations like this. No idea how the wings got out (though at this point he could hazard a guess), what happened after, or what you needed to do to make sure the guy didn’t die in your guest bed.
Jimmy stirred, his hand aimlessly waving around and bumped into Joel. “…Wh… what’s … what’s happening?”
“Hey there big fella.” Joel responded, trying to hide the anxiety in his voice. “How are you feeling?”
“Mm … bad” Jimmy looked around the room. “Where are we?”
“My place. Lizzie’s away for a bit so I’m holding down the fort.” He waited for a response but Jimmy just nodded. “Do you want anything? Water? Ice?”
“Mhm, uhm, water yeah.”
Suddenly the lump on his left shoulder twitched and he muffled a scream in the pillow. Joel nearly fell out of his chair, knocking the thing over as he got on his feet. “I’ll g- I’ll get that water and some ice for your back. Uh, don’t go anywhere.” He grabbed his phone and, after a quick game of keep the damn thing in his shaky hands, he sent off a quick text.
Smallishbeans: bloody hell the thing just moved
Smallishbeans: please hurry Grian
Grian: Almost there
smajor1995: be there soon too
Joel fished around in the freezer for the last few ice cubes from the tray (Damnit, forgot to fill the other one again) when he heard a loud thwump hit the front door, followed by a knock. He opened it to reveal a slightly disheveled Grian, stumbling his way through the door and folding his multicolored wings back down so not to knock over anything.
“You could stand to have less breakables in your foyer Joel.”
“You could stand to be a little less clumsy when you fly.” Joel didn’t even try to hide the smirk. Grian huffed but he was smiling too. “Jim’s upstairs in the guest room.”
“How did his back look?”
“A little horrifying if I’m honest, like a bad zit. But like a really, really bad one.”
“Sounds about right. Depending on the size of the wing they can get pretty large.”
Joel went back over to the freezer and finished putting the ice in a bag. “Do you- is this how all avians… happen? Like just one day you sprout wings?”
Grian, after some wordless direction from Joel, grabbed a washcloth and thought on his answer. “Kind of? I don’t really remember when I got mine, it was…” he frowned, “‘bit of a mess of a time really. But I helped Pearl out when she grew hers, and Scott knows more about I think.” He fished a plastic container from the cabinet and filled it with cold water. “Come on, let’s not keep Tim waiting."
Joel lead him down the hall to the guest room, pausing for a moment to knock but then shaking his head and just opening the door. Nothing had changed, and Jimmy wasn’t exactly in a state to care about door manners.
“Hey Jim, Grian’s here now.” He offered tentatively, Jimmy only grunted in response. Grian set the water and washcloth down on the nightstand and took the bag of ice from Joel’s hand. With no warning he plopped it right on Jimmy’s back, getting a gasp and an ineffective swat in response.
“Gri- Grian what the heck?!” Jimmy stammered.
“It’s helping isn’t it?” Grian let himself be hit, Jimmy could barely even muster a punch anyway, and pulled up a chair to sit beside him. “Let’s get the fever taken care of.” He said, wetting the cloth and pressing it to Jimmy’s forehead. As he did they heard a knock at the door (devoid of any fluttering sounds preceding it) and Joel went to go let Scott in.
“You know when I think about it, it’s kind of surprising it didn’t happen sooner,” Scott said as they walked into the room. “He’s had that omen about him since our run with 3rd and Last Life. And always seems to… have some sort of hand in the end of the world. Though avian was… a bit of a surprise.”
“Y- … you’re just, salty that the doom prophecy was about me and fWhip… not you and.. Xornoth.” Jimmy stammered out. Joel gave a chuckle and Scott just rolled his eyes at them.
“What’s really funny is,” Joel started, “we sent him in to be the canary in the coal mine with that mansion and it still backfired.”
“Can’t even die when you’re supposed to, Timmy.” Grian said. Jimmy just grumbled into the pillow, something about being glad it wasn’t him this time, turning more pained when the right side of his back twitched. Scott took a step over to get a better look at them.
“Joel, you have a first-aid kit right?” He grimaced. “And, probably grab a bigger bucket of water and one of Lizzie’s hair brushes. And a towel. Bristle brush if you can.”
“Wha- are you serious? Scott, she’ll kill me.”
“Don’t exactly have time Beans, the wings are going to pierce the skin any moment.”
Joel wanted to argue but just sighed, muttering about getting the “blumin’ towel and the blumin’ brush and the blumin’ bucket” as he left. Scott gave a last “And the first-aid kit” which Joel barked in response to.
Scott sat on the bed next to Jimmy and sighed, airing out his own wings. “What a mess. I have enough birds to deal with with the Origin folk and now this.” Grian thought on that for a moment, he knew Phil was a corvid of some kind but not any of the others. Before he could ask, Jimmy’s back moved again. With a groan, Jimmy propped himself up on his elbows.
“Can, can you help me sit up?” He said under his breath.
Scott put a hand on him. “It’ll be better if you stay down.” But he kept moving regardless. Grian was about to add in when they both saw the first trickle of blood on the right side start running down Jimmy’s back. Not a moment later, the left side began to bleed too. Jimmy had gotten himself sitting up-right but immediately curled in on himself panting.
“Oh f- Joel! Hurry up!” Scott shouted at the door.
“I’m trying!” Joel came back flinging a ratty but clean towel in Grian’s general direction. “I only have so many hands and- JESUS CHRIST.”
With a sickening twitch, the left wing erupted halfway from Jimmy’s back, sending a splatter of blood across the bed. He sat back up with a scream, nearly keeling over sideways from the weight of the wing but Grian caught him. Scott acted quickly and grabbed the towel off the floor, laying it on the bed to catch anymore splatter, and the bucket from Joel’s hand so he didn’t drop it in shock. “Grian give him that washcloth to bite on, the next part’s going to be worse.”
“R-right.” Grian did as instructed. “Open up, petal, you heard the man.”
Jimmy managed to focus on Grian but as the wing pushed itself through again he whinced and bit down on the cloth, and nearly Grian’s fingers with it. The right wing finally broke through, all at once with a flair and Jimmy cried out against the washcloth. The wing nearly knocked Scott over but he stabilized his balance with his own. With a final spasm of Jimmy’s back, both wings stretched out to their fullest. He spit out the cloth and let out a scream before collapsing back onto the pillows in a heap, the pain too overwhelming to keep himself conscious.
When the air settled, the other three took a breath. Joel was the first to speak up. “Okay pardon me but what the fuck.”
“Boy grew wings.” Grian said in a tone way too matter-of-fact for the situation, sitting back in his chair.
“Well I can bloody well see that! But like,” Joel ran a hand through his hair, grimacing when he saw tiny bits of blood that landed on him. “that’s what you go through?!”
“Not always with this much…” Scott gestured around the room at the mess “of course he had to have large wings to start… but yeah it’s, this is it.” He motioned to Joel for the hairbrushes, which Grian then took and passed over from Joel’s hand since he was still a bit too shocked to register.
The two fellow avians started work on cleaning out the blood and muck from Jimmy’s wings, after a somewhat convoluted re-situating of said Jimmy back on his stomach (“Why did he even want to sit up? Did he think he was going to fly away??”). The wings occasionally twitched and flexed, but no more sounds of pain came from Jimmy. Joel changed out the water and brought more towels, but he was way out of his depth. The most he could really do in the moment was sit in a chair at the foot of the bed and just watch.
Grian broke the silence after while. “I’m not gonna lie, and I’m mad to admit it, but his feathers are quite lovely.”
Scott laughed as he moved the wing in the lamplight. “Canary yellow. It suits him.”
“That’s… That’s a bit cruel don’t you think?” Joel said, taking the brush from Scott’s hand and rinsing it out. “Universe literally telling him that he’s fated to die first.”
“Or cause problems.” Grian said. “It’s happened what, twice in a row?”
“Three times if you count the empires.” Scott added.
“Four if you count the hardcore.” Joel finished. “It’s like he’s cursed.”
“Or he’s just really really bad at this.” Grian turned to Joel. “Like, you and I thought keeping Scar alive was going to be the challenge.”
Scott gave Grian a look, “I thought you died today?” to which Grian responded with a “SHUSH” which they all chuckled at.
At some point in the evening Joel went up to put the kettle on for the three of them, and grabbed another brush from the closet (not as nice as Lizzie’s but it would have to do). Now with tea, a third set of hands, and some instruction from Grian and Scott, they all worked diligently to get the remaining gunk out of Jimmy’s wings. Thankfully Grian and Scott had done the brunt of the work, Joel just ended up working on the pinions and talking about birds (mostly just birds he’d seen in the area, and the one time an owl scared the life out of him walking home, which Scott found amusing).
After another two hours or so of cleaning and dressing the wounds on Jimmy’s back, he started to stir again. He made to sit up but a jolt of pain froze him in place with a groan.
“Morning, handsome.” Scott said putting down the brush. “Sleep well?”
“Everything hurts.” Jimmy muffled into the pillow. “Can’t move my arms without-“ the right wing twitched and he let out a whimper.
“Take it easy Tim.” Grian said as he started to clean up the space. “Best not to move for a bit, probably until the morning. Joel, you’ve got a sleep-in tonight, sorry mate.”
Joel shrugged, “It is what it is,” and stood up and got out his phone to take a picture. “Here Jim, you should see.” He held the phone down, pulled it back remembering to turn the display lock on, and then held it out again at an angle so Jimmy could see.
“That’s… wait.” He wiggled himself a little closer to the screen. “Those are… really coming out of me aren’t they.
“Ch’yeah” Joel laughed a bit, “they literally did. It was horrible.” Jimmy tried to laugh, and then experimentally move one of the wings but only got as far as flex before he seized up from the pain again.
“Timmy what did I just say?”
“Sorry, sorry.” Jimmy sighed and looked at the photo again. “They’re… yellow.”
“Astute observation Jimmy.” Scott said with a smirk.
“Did… were you expecting anything else?” Joel asked, only half-joking.
“Well I mean like, Grian’s a parrot-“
“Scarlet Macaw”
“… parrot. And Scott’s a…”
“An owl?”
“Right right. And your wings are all white with little… speckles and stuff. Mine are just, yellow.”
“Jimmy,” Scott started again, “do you know the old saying about a canary in the coal mine?”
“Well yeah, little bird that would die or get stressed out when there wasn’t enough oxygen in the air or something.” They all paused for a moment, Jimmy managed to roll himself onto his side with some difficulty so he could see their faces. Then he squinted. “Wait a minute…” Grian couldn’t hide the smirk on his face watching the gears turn in Jimmy’s head. “Oh… that’s me huh.”
“He figured it out fellas,” Joel said with a small applause, “proud of you Jim.” and punctuated it with a pat on Jimmy’s leg, in lieu of his shoulder. “Anyone want some more tea? Water? Uh.. seeds?” Grian and Scott both flared their wings at him, sending a small gust that pushed him further out the door. “Okay okay, point taken, bad joke.”
While they waited, Jimmy broke the silence saying “But seriously. A canary?” making the other two laugh.
“I think it suits you.” Scott teased. “Fits the golden retriever energy you have.”
“What would you have preferred Tim? Crows? Vulture?”
“Eh, he’s not really either of those. Though to be fair you aren’t much of a parrot yourself.”
“You aren’t much of a parrot yourself.” Grian mimicked back with a likeness that made Scott and Jimmy pause in confusion. Grian cackled from the look on their faces. “You should see yourselves. Oh it’s the best when I pull that on people who don’t know or forget.”
“That’s… evil.” Scott laughed. “How long have you been able to do that?”
“It took a lot of practice.” Grian said. “Speaking of, Timmy we’re gonna have to teach you how to fly huh.”
“Wait, I can do that?” Jimmy brightened up.
“Well not right away, you’re gonna be sore for a few days. And the wings will get a bit bigger which should help too.”
Joel came back with tea and some more cold water, though Jimmy’s fever had come down almost completely. The four of them talked a bit more, mostly about nothing, before Grian stood up to head out. “I’ll be back in the morning, Tim. See how everything is going.”
“I have to go back to Origins so unfortunately you don’t get to see this pretty face tomorrow.”
“I’ll try to keep the tears at bay, Scott.”
Scott snickered in response before making an “Oh!” and taking off his jacket. “Joel, do you still have that white tank top Lizzie gave you? The one with the low back?”
“It’s a workout shirt but yeah, why?”
“Jimmy’s going to need new clothes. or a bunch of holes cut in the shirts he already has.” Scott watched how long it took both Jimmy and Joel to put two and two together before continuing. “Look I know I would enjoy seeing Jimmy fly around shirtless as much as the next person but he does need to wear something.” He said as he put the jacket down on the chair. “And no complaining, I have like 5 of these.”
“You’re not getting any of my sweaters!” Grian called from the other room. “I have a brand to maintain.”
“Well uh, thanks I guess… ” Jimmy said, only now really starting to take this all in. “Thank you both, for helping me out with this. A-and Joel, of course. Thanks for uh, letting me crash here for the night.”
Joel sighed. “I mean what else was I supposed to do? I know next to nothing about Avian stuff so,” he shrugged “yeah that’s all I got. I’ll go get that shirt.”
“I’m leaving now!” Grian shouted from the entrance. “I’ll see you both tomorrow, try not to hurt yourself.”
“No promises!” Jimmy called back. “I’ll let you know if I grow a tail!”
“That’s not out of the question!” Grian said as he closed the door, and with a whoosh! he took off into the sky.
“Wait… what.” Jimmy muttered. Scott laughed and said it was a joke. Sometimes it happened but very rarely. It didn’t soothe Jimmy but close enough. Scott ruffled his hair and went back to the front of the flat, saying goodbye to Joel as he passed.
“At least they’re gone now.” Joel said, bringing back the shirt. “It’s like 1 in the morning now so I’m going to head to bed. Do… do you need anything else Jimmy-boyo?”
“No, I think I’m okay.” Jimmy tried to move one of the wings again but no dice (Okay fine I won’t try again).
“Well, if you do need anything just holler.”
Joel made to turn around but Jimmy said “Wait. Thanks, again. For all this.”
He smiled at that, a genuine smile. “No worries Jim. What are friends for.” Joel stretched out his arms as he set about cleaning up the rest of the room and putting the chairs back. “And thanks to you for the fresh nightmare fuel. I’m gonna have wings popping out of my eyes in my dreams I just know it.”
“Oh gosh,” Jimmy started but Joel laughed, cutting off any more worrying thoughts. He smiled, more to himself than anyone else, for the first time that evening.
“Alrighty, g’night Jim. Rest easy.”
“Night, king.” He could definitely feel the exhaustion creeping back. It’d been a long night, and the days ahead were gonna be who knows what level of crazy. Jimmy finally managed to move his arm without too much pain and pulled up the blanket around at least the front of his self. He looked back at the jacket and shirt on the chair, feeling his eyelids getting heavier.
As much of a pain in the ass they were, he was really grateful for his friends. More than he could ever express in words.
But still, a canary? Really?