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It had been a long day. Long, chaotic, and busy. Too many twists and turns, fights and arguments, and too many confusing situations. Blink was exhausted. He was used to his days being filled with the occasional delivery conflict, a client getting pissed at him for whatever reason, or having to narrowly avoid another run-in with the Vixens. But today had been something else entirely.
A human falling down the hole into Reclaim? Too many encounters with the Vixens for Blink to be comfortable with, especially his encounter with Aeon. This new job delivering to the Inventor. And everything else that decided to happen today and go wrong.
Blink was tired. For being a courier, he wasn’t used to this much running around and avoiding danger. Especially not with the annoying thing that had been following him around that decided to call himself Troy.
He was ever thankful when Runt made the executive decision to call it a night and refused to take “no” for an answer. She seemed a little winded as she said that, her pace slowing to a mere drag. Blink would admit to being a little worried about her, especially with how much younger than them she seemed ( Not that Blink could tell how old Troy was). But whenever she caught him looking at her with any sort of concern, she would glare at him and insist that she was fine.
Thankfully, Runt allowed the two of them to crash at her place with her uncle which wasn’t that far from where they were in the city which meant that when they picked up the mission in the morning, they wouldn’t be that far off course. And Blink was more than happy to take a night to recharge and recuperate. They needed to agree on a better plan after all, so it would be a good idea to settle down somewhere.
Hopefully, they would be able to get a good night’s rest as well. Blink was only running on a few hours after all, and the lack of sleep had been catching up on him. He was ready to call it a night. Well, he was actually ready to call it a night a few hours ago, but then everything that happened to go wrong, went wrong.
The promise of maybe having someplace safe to stay for the night was a blessing for Blink, who had been on and off the streets with various places to sleep the past few years.
However, almost as soon as they got to the weird, stilted house, Runt disappeared to another corner of the room that had been curtained off, leaving Troy and Blink to talk with Uncle Threestrings. They could still hear her coughing from the other side of the room, and occasionally Uncle Threestrings went to go check up on her to make sure she was alright.
As they talked, the old bird thought that he recognized Blink, although Blink didn’t remember ever having talked to him before. He played them music on his banjo and talked a lot about Runt and the other rats that always came by his house. Blink made small talk and tried to keep Troy from interrupting too much, although the two of them got along weirdly well.
But in the end, Uncle Threestrings was nice enough to talk to and even gave them whatever blankets and pillows he could spare for the night before providing some small food and drink. It wasn’t a lot, but Blink had seen and eaten worse and he had expected to receive less hospitality from the crow on such short notice.
Troy surprisingly ate with no complaints, shoveling the slightly soggy nut bread into his mouth like he hadn’t eaten in days. Which very well may have been true. Anyone hungry enough would take whatever food they could get. Blink knew what it was like.
And finally, after all that, they were left relatively alone (as much as they could in the small hut) and allowed to settle down for the night. Unfortunately for Blink, Troy kept following him around like a lost puppy and never really left him alone for very long. It was almost funny at first (keyword: almost ), but now it was even less so.
But Blink didn’t have the energy to try and argue with him, so he just left it alone, resigning himself to the fate of being stared at by those wide, weirdly bright green eyes while he started to arrange the provided blankets into a meager nest. Even if the feeling of eyes on the back of his head made his feathers stand up straight, and he could tell that Troy was staring at him with something to say. But he just waited for the other man to say something first.
Typical for what Blink has seen of Troy so far, he was only able to keep himself quiet for about a minute or two.
“What are you doing?” Troy asked suddenly, not moving from where he was sitting a few feet away from Blink, a rough, scratchy blanket held in his hands. He squinted at Blink and tilted his head to the side, his green eyes boring into his soul.
Blink bristled, his feathers fluffing up a little bit. He stilled, staring down at the pathetic nest that he was trying to build up around him. It worked a little better when there were more blankets, but Blink had done it with less. He just needed something vaguely nest-shaped to satiate that growling part in his brain that he always tried to ignore.
“Getting ready for bed,” Blink tried to play it off, answering as vaguely as possible, hoping to throw Troy off enough that he got bored of the topic and dropped it. He didn’t really want to have to explain the whole nesting thing to someone who didn’t experience it, especially not to a human. Explaining it to other hybrids was bad enough.
“But like…” Troy leaned back a little bit and stretched his legs out in front of himself, “Why are you doing all that? Normally I just like, y’know, throw the blanket over me and call it a day.” Troy flicked the blanket in his lap for emphasis, bringing it up over his waist and laying back a little bit, his eyes still trained on Blink. “Easy, see?”
“Well… It’s different,” Blink wasn’t the best at skirting conversations away from a topic he didn’t want to talk about . And he didn’t think that Troy would actually listen to him if he told the other man to just go to bed and ignore it.
“It seems like a lot more work,” Troy shrugged and let out a huff of breath, crossing his arms in front of his face.
Normally Blink didn’t care about what others thought about him. He knew that he was a bit of an outcast and he was very good at distinguishing when people didn’t like him and had grown to ignore it. But when Troy looked at him with that kind of dismissive, confused yet kind of judgemental look, Blink felt his feathers bristle. He just met this guy, why did he even care what Troy thought of him? He could think that he was a freak for all Blink cared.
But, like he normally did, Blink found himself rambling.
“It’s like… It’s kinda like a nest…” Blink hated this conversation, he wished that there was an easier way to explain it without making it sound weird, “It’s a bird thing y’know… Like it makes me feel calmer when I’m trying to sleep and it’s more comfortable.”
Blink expected Troy to just look at him with even more confusion written all over his face. Or he honestly expected to get laughed at for something that must have sounded crazy to Troy, an uplander, a human. Just like everything else down here sounded crazy and absurd.
Blink kept telling himself that he didn’t care about what Troy thought about him. Because Troy was just a human. An annoyingly snobbish uplander that didn’t care about anyone down here.
But to his surprise, Troy’s eyes widened with what looked like understanding. He made an “ooh” sound and nodded thoughtfully.
“Oh, why didn’t you just say that in the first place,” Troy nodded and rubbed his chin as if he knew exactly what Blink was talking about. Which was the last thing that Blink expected from an Uplander. “Y’know I used to do stuff like that when I was younger. It just kinda felt right. Not so much anymore though because when my dad caught me… I really got it handed to me, you know?” Troy’s face morphed into an odd sort of smile, and then he grimaced and looked away.
Then he added with a small voice, “Got smacked for that one… don’t even know what I did wrong.” Then he laughed again as if that was the most normal thing in the world to just say to someone. And when he looked back at Blink, he was still smiling.
“What?” Blink asked, baffled.
“Just sayin’, I know what it’s like man, and like if you need to do…” Troy made a wide gesture to Blink and the mound of blankets that he was attempting to create, “All that then, like, man I won’t stop you.”
Blink just continued to stare at him, baffled at what he was hearing from the human. Maybe he had misinterpreted something that Blink said somewhere and there was a miscommunication. Blink couldn’t think of any way that Troy might understand the feeling or even make anything similar to a nest when he was human .
Did humans do that? Was this just another strange human thing? What was that comment about his father?
Troy looked down at his lap, finally prying his wide eyes away from Blink. He was trembling minutely and he clutched the blanket in his lap with a grip so tight that Blink could see his knuckles turning white.
What situation had Blink just gotten himself into?
He almost felt bad for Troy… but at the same time, he was convinced that there was a miscommunication.
“You’ve made nests before?” Blink questioned, not sure if he wanted to ask any more about that second comment Troy made.
“Oh, yeah, all the time before bed when I was a kid,” Troy nodded and smiled again, forcing himself to look up at Blink. His voice sounded a little strained when he spoke, and there was something deeper in his voice, something a little more guttural and choppy. “Whole bed and blankets, a nice comfortable setup. It was really nice… It felt safe… Those nights were the best that I had ever slept.” He paused for a moment.
“I don’t think I’ve ever slept as well as I did when I was curled up in a nice nest,” Troy fidgeted with the hem of the blanket on his lap, twisting the fabric around his fingers and staring down at his lap.
Blink had been uncomfortable with the staring, but now that Troy was talking to him without looking directly at him, it was almost even more uncomfortable . He was just starting to get used to the way that Troy seemed to stare into his very soul whenever he was talking to people. But right now, Troy almost looked ashamed.
Although he hated to ask, Blink would’ve felt bad if he didn’t. Troy just emanated the feeling of a kicked puppy, and Blink was unfortunately very receptive to kicked-puppy looks.
“Do you… want to make a nest with me?” Blink asked slowly, drawing out his words carefully so that if he wanted to change his mind halfway through he still had the time to do so.
Troy’s eyes widened and for a moment, he looked conflicted. His eyes darted back and forth from Blink’s face to the barely constructed nest that he was in the process of making. His mouth opened and closed a few times as he struggled to put together a coherent response, and all the while Blink watched and waited anxiously, his heart pounding in his chest as he berated himself internally for that decision.
Only the most important people in one’s life would be allowed to share a nest, let alone share the construction of a nest. But Troy didn’t know that, there was no way on this entire planet that Troy could know that. He was an Uplander, and from everything that he had shown earlier today, he had no idea of the way of the hybrids down here, especially not when it came to instincts and hierarchies.
He wouldn’t know that what Blink was offering was probably one of the most important things for a bird folk to offer another person. But he was just offering it out of politeness because he felt bad for Troy, and because Troy had the look of a kicked puppy and Blink would’ve been guilty all night.
It didn’t mean anything. It was just because Troy looked so sad…
“I… I don’t think I’m allowed to…” Troy muttered after several seconds of conflict back and forth with his facial expressions. He looked scared. His eyes and pupils were wide when he looked at Blink, and there was a reflection of fear in the way he held his jaw.
Blink decided right then, that he liked the cocky, overconfident version of the man that he had just met better than this. The one that was so infuriatingly stupid and self-absorbed that Blink wanted to punch his teeth in whenever he opened his mouth. The change to the Troy that he was looking at currently frightened him a little bit.
“Your dad isn’t here,” Blink tried, figuring that must have been what was holding him back. He didn’t miss the mention that Troy made, although he didn’t know exactly what to think about it or if he should’ve brought it up at all.
Troy opened his mouth and then closed it again. He continued to stare at Blink with wide eyes as if he couldn’t really believe what he was hearing.
“I’m not supposed to…” Troy swallowed thickly, his voice cracking. It sounded almost as if he were just repeating something that he had been told his entire life, something that had been so deeply ingrained into him. He couldn’t tell what he wanted.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Blink tried, figuring that maybe he had overstepped somewhere, “But there’s nothing down here that’s stopping you… I’m not gonna judge.”
Troy looked down at the blanket in his lap, staring at it as if it held the answer to this conflict.
“I want to…” Troy muttered, so quietly that Blink probably wouldn’t have heard it if he didn’t have such good hearing.
“You can help if you want,” Blink suggested cautiously, “If we combine what we have, it might make a better nest.”
Troy’s eyes widened, “Oh, yeah…” He nodded hesitantly, “Sure.”
Blink patted the spot next to him, scooting over in the small pile of blankets so Troy could drag his blanket and pillow over to where Blink was trying to set up. He trembled slightly, something that Blink probably wouldn’t have noticed if he wasn’t looking right at Troy, watching his movements carefully .
Together, the two of them worked quietly to make a nest with the few materials that they had been provided by Uncle Threestrings. Blink spoke quietly to instruct Troy on what to do, and Troy, falling back into his normal persona, snarked back with comments that he “knew what he was doing” and that he “could do this in his sleep ”.
Blink was glad that his mood picked up a little bit once they actually started working on the nest , although when he spoke, his voice was quieter than normal, and he held his shoulders tightly, never fully relaxing. Blink kept noticing him looking around as well as if he were scared that someone was going to turn the corner , find the two of them making a nest, and he would get yelled at again. Blink did his best to distract him by talking about the nest and other, worse nests that he had made.
“A few years ago I tried to find some shelter someplace to sleep in the Sorting district, which was an awful idea in hindsight,” Blink started, knowing that the story probably wouldn’t mean much to Troy, who probably had never experienced what it was like to live on the streets. But it was just something to keep them both occupied as they rearranged the three meager blankets and two pillows that they had been given into something slightly comfortable. “I don’t think I got any sleep. It was hard to find anything to nest with and the noise and steam is awful down there, I’ve learned my lesson.”
Troy nodded along to his stories, not really saying much that might give Blink any insight into his life or experiences. He just made fun of Blink for stupid things or said things just in reaction to the stuff that Blink told him. It was the quietest that Blink had ever seen Troy, which was saying something. The man had not stopped talking since they met, and this was an almost jarring surprise.
As they worked together, Troy grabbed one of their two pillows and tucked it under the blanket that they had been pushing around back and forth for the past few minutes to arrange properly. And to Blink’s surprise, Troy made a peculiar noise from somewhere deep in the back of his throat. It was a sort of high-pitched chuff, almost like a squeak or a chirp but not that clean or cut off. It rumbled a bit in his throat and then cut off awkwardly as if he hadn’t meant to do that.
Troy stopped what he was doing and pulled his hands back from what he had just been touching as if it had become as hot as molten metal. His eyes were wide and Blink had a hard time even seeing if he was breathing.
Tentatively, Blink made a soft curious chirping sound.
Troy clenched his jaw tightly and swallowed hard, turning his face away from Blink and going back to working on their nest. Though he looked a lot more squirrelly than before, shifting and fidgeting and pulling on the back of his shirt as if he were trying to cover something that Blink couldn’t even begin to notice.
That noise happened a few more times as they worked. And each time Troy looked more and more embarrassed, holding his breath or swallowing thickly as if he could force any of the noises down away from his throat. Clicks and chirps, chuffs and vibrations that almost sounded like a choked purr.
Blink didn’t think that humans could make noises like that. The sounds were curious to him. They all sounded so hoarse, as if Troy were doing his best to swallow them down, or like he hadn’t made noises like that in a really long time. It reminded Blink of his first few chirps in the morning before he really started to wake up, hoarse and groggy, and choked at the end like he was trying to cut himself off but the noises just kept coming.
A few times Blink responded to the noises Troy made that sounded a lot like chirps to his bird brain. And then Troy would chirp back, and then he would look at Blink with a horrified expression and shy away as if he were afraid that Blink was going to hit him.
But Blink didn’t question it. He felt that if he asked any more questions tonight, he wouldn’t like the answer that he received. There was a lot about Troy that he didn’t understand , and whatever side of the cocky racer he was currently seeing, the complete shift from his normal persona was terrifying.
After a few minutes of silently arguing with each other on which way they wanted one of the blankets positioned, they finally came to some sort of agreement on how the nest should be set up. Blink liked the more rounded closed-off shape with the big opening in the middle to lounge in, while Troy kept trying to make it a little more enclosed with space for them to burrow underneath.
But without any verbal conflict, the two of them finished the nest to the best of their abilities. Troy kept fidgeting with the blankets, trying to sit as far away from Blink as possible as he stared down at his lap. It didn’t seem like he was fully satisfied with how the nest was, but Blink wasn’t either. There wasn’t a lot that they could do with such little material. They just had to make do with what they got.
They spent longer than Blink probably would’ve wanted on constructing the nest , but it was harder to make one as efficiently when it was two people who wanted conflicting things. Blink was exhausted from the day and he was just about ready to fluff up his feathers and go to sleep. But Troy still looked fidgety and on edge , there was no way he would get to sleep if he didn’t relax any time soon.
“Are you going to sleep in that?” Blink asked, nodding to the outfit that Troy was currently wearing.
It looked tight and uncomfortable. He couldn’t imagine how even walking around all day in that thing was remotely comfortable . Especially with the way that Troy kept pulling on the back of his shirt and adjusting it. With all the patches and pins on it, it couldn’t be comfortable to sleep in either.
Though… Troy didn’t really have anything else to wear, did he? Maybe he had something under it that might be a little more comfortable.
“Oh, yeah,” Troy blinked a few times as he at least stopped to consider the situation of sleeping in the clothes he was currently wearing. However this time, he didn’t seem as conflicted as he had been with everything else tonight.
Blink knew that he had proposed the situation, but he definitely didn’t expect Troy to just take his shirt off right in front of him. Not even bothering to turn around or have Blink look away for decency.
He just tugged on the underside of his shirt, pulling it up and over his head like it was the easiest action in the world, exposing the smooth skin of his torso and the small pouch of his stomach. His skin was dotted with freckles all the way down to his hips with a birthmark almost hidden in the rolls of his side as he slouched to get his shirt off.
Blink’s eyes widened and he was so surprised that Troy just took his shirt off with no warning that he didn’t even mean to stare.
Thankfully Troy didn’t say anything, it didn’t even seem like he noticed as he turned around to toss his clothes in a pile outside of the nest. He stood up on his knees just enough to pull the waistband of his pants off of his hips so he could shimmy out of the constricting garment, leaving him in just a pair of underwear that thankfully covered everything.
As Blink happened to be staring in shock at Troy’s bare back, he noticed a peculiar scar on his lower back just above his tailbone. It wasn’t a clean scar, it was jagged and a little bumpy in a circular, almost oval shape right at the bottom of his spine. And when Troy bent over, it almost seemed like it was the stump of something that used to be there.
The scar looked old, really old, but it was still visible once Troy took his shirt and pants off.
It was a weird placement for a scar and a weird size for the location that it was. A scar on the lower back would normally be bigger if it was an accident , and Blink figured that if he had fallen and broken something, it definitely wouldn’t leave a chunk of mottled scar tissue. Something really bad must have happened to leave a scar that bad.
In hindsight, Blink realized it looked vaguely familiar to the scars that he had seen on people who had gotten their tails docked. But at the time, he didn’t think about that, because as far as he knew, humans didn’t have tails. But humans also didn’t chirp or click or growl like the sounds that Troy had been making.
“What happened to your back?” Blink blurted without even thinking about it. He forgot that he was trying not to ask any questions in this situation when it was clear that Troy had some stuff that he hadn’t really gotten over just yet.
“What?” Troy turned around, eyes wide with innocent curiosity.
“You have that scar, at the base of your spine,” Blink pointed and Troy looked back over his shoulder. He reached around with his hand, placing it right over the chunk of scar tissue, and then pulled away.
“Oh, that,” Troy laughed a little bit and sat back down in the nest, “I think it was some racing accident from when I was younger, must have been before I was conscious because I don’t even remember what happened…”
“What kind of racing accident did that?” Blink sounded horrified. If racing could leave a scar that bad, how was Troy not covered in injuries and scar tissue?
“Oh yeah, probably, I mean I don’t actually know what happened… maybe it wasn’t…” Troy stopped to think for a second, reaching back again to touch the scar, “Y’know sometimes it feels like there’s something that’s supposed to be there… like it feels like there’s supposed to be something more . But like I know it’s not.” He laughed, but Blink just frowned. He didn’t see the humor in it.
“It looks like it would’ve hurt,” Blink muttered, not fully intending Troy to hear.
“Oh, yeah, probably. Maybe that’s why I don’t remember it. Another bang to the head and a lot of pain will do that to someone,” Troy again laughed, but this time it sounded a little more strained and he stopped after a few seconds with a choked, painful-sounding chirp. Blink somehow managed to frown harder.
The silence between them was thick enough to cut with a knife. Blink stared at him and Troy just looked down at his lap, shifting uncomfortably under the owl’s gaze.
After a few seconds, Troy slumped his shoulders and muttered, “Probably should get to bed? Yeah?”
“Right,” Blink swallowed thickly and nodded, shifting in the nest so he could get a little more comfortable where he was sitting.
He ruffled up his feathers and did his best to hunker down, sinking deeper into the nest of blankets and doing his best not to take up too much space so Troy could still have room. Half of this was his nest after all , so Troy should still have plenty of space to stretch out or sleep however he wanted. Blink didn’t want to overstep too many boundaries, and would much rather keep to himself on his side of the nest.
Troy tried to do the same as well, laying down with his back facing Blink and his head resting on one of the pillows he had stuffed under the blankets. He tried to burrow under one of the blankets that he had tucked underneath the rest of them to pad the floor, but he was only able to get it up to his hips.
Even in the warmth of Reclaim, the air in this part of the city was a little chillier from the water surrounding them. And Troy was sitting in his underwear and had just given up his blanket to finish making the nest.
When Blink peeked one eye open, he noticed that Troy was shivering faintly, goosebumps prickling against his skin as he tried not to say anything. But it was obvious to anyone who looked at him.
Blink had feathers to keep him warm (almost too warm in the summer months when the steam got so hot that he could barely stand walking for too long). But Troy didn’t have any of that. He barely even had a thin layer of hair over his body to keep him warm. How was he not freezing?
“If you’re cold, you can come here,” Blink offered, lifting a wing and doing his best to keep his tone casual, making sure to stress that there was nothing significant about the offer. It was just out of politeness. They were already sharing a nest, Blink didn’t need Troy getting any ideas.
“I’m fine,” Troy muttered, curling in on himself more. He looked like a small naked kitten shivering next to Blink. He definitely didn’t look fine.
“Okay, suit yourself.”
Blink wasn’t going to pressure him or anything, he just offered because he knew that he was warm with all the feathers, and he didn’t really want Troy to catch a cold from the chilly air. If Troy wanted to continue to shiver, that was on him. He did his good deed for the night, he let Troy help build a nest, and he even offered to keep him warm.
Blink decided that he was done being nice for the night. He needed to just go to sleep and worry about everything else in the morning when he had a bit more energy. Whatever happened from now on wasn’t his problem.
His eyes were closed, and he was going to bed. No more worrying about Troy. No matter how sad and pathetic he looked or acted.
At least that’s what Blink told himself.
To his credit, he did almost fall asleep.
But then he felt Troy shift, which pulled him from his hazy half-asleep slumber. He didn’t fully open his eyes, but he listened to the sound of Troy moving, the feathers on the top of his head twitching curiously but not letting on that he knew what Troy was doing.
After a few seconds of shifting around, Blink felt a weight settle against his side about the same size as Troy, burying into his feathers and leaning his weight against Blink’s stomach. Blink sighed softly and moved his arm without saying anything, bringing his wing up and over Troy’s shoulders, wrapping him up in soft brown feathers, his talons coming to rest against the side of Troy’s head, nails lightly tangling around his hair.
Troy relaxed into his arms, a long sigh spilling from his lips. He buried his head into Blink’s chest, snuggling into his feathered side and allowing Blink to place his wing over him like a soft blanket.
Blink tried to ignore the self-conscious thoughts about how this position would look to anyone else. Troy was cold. Blink was warm. This was a logical course of action when they hadn’t been provided enough blankets for the two of them to make a nest and keep Troy bundled. That’s what Blink kept telling himself.
It meant nothing. It was a polite thing to do. A logical course of action when the temperature of the house dipped below a temperature that a fur-less creature could comfortably sleep in. He was just being nice. Blink didn’t really care at all . Especially not for an arrogant human like Troy.
Blink’s talons curled around Troy’s hair, the knuckles of his fingers rubbing softly into the padded spot of flesh behind his ears, an idle movement as he fidgeted quietly until he could fall asleep.
As Troy sank deeper into Blink’s side, he did something that compared to the rest of his behaviors tonight, completely shocked Blink.
He started purring.
And for a few seconds, Blink just assumed that maybe he had something in his throat so that when he sighed, it rumbled weirdly in the back of his mouth. But he was still breathing, the soft, almost choked rumbling sound emanating from his chest rumbling through Blink’s body as well. It wasn’t just a sigh, or a weight exhale.
Troy had started purring, and it got louder whenever Blink would rub behind his ears.
Blink didn’t know humans could do that. He was pretty sure he had never heard of humans having the ability to purr. He figured that would’ve been something that people would’ve mentioned when they told tales of the humans that lived up above.
But here Troy was a human, an uplander. Cuddled in Blink’s arms as part of his nest, purring so loudly it felt like he had almost never received a proper hug before.
The sound reverberated in Blink’s chest, rattling his ribs in a way that wasn’t entirely uncomfortable. It was almost soothing.
Blink combed his talons through Troy’s hair, rubbing lightly behind his ears as he sank deeper into the nest that they had built together.
As much as he tried to convince himself that he didn’t care at all about Troy, those thoughts kept getting fewer and farther between as he started to fall asleep listening to the sound of Troy’s purring.
While Blink slept, he felt the most comfortable he had ever slept in a long time.