Work Text:
It was between session 7, during break, Jimmy decided to hang out with his rancher, before going back to whatever he left off with.
They pair were having a casual conversation talking about how their session has been going so far, till Tango randomly says his name, “Jimmy?” he was looking at Jimmy’s wings, noticing something was looking a bit different.
“Yes? Something wrong?” Jimmy asked, trying not to worry too much, but the way Tango said it, sounded off, like something was bothering him. Was he talking too much? Jimmy tried to not overthink it, and just wait for Tango to answer.
“What’s up with your wings?” Jimmy felt Tango’s warm hands go through Jimmy’s feathers, and lands on a feather in particular which stood out to the rest of his gold-orangish feathers.
“What do you mean? I preened them just a while ago, did I miss a feather?” The dirty blonde raised an eyebrow confused, what was up with his wings, Tango already knew about the feathers so what was the issue.
“It’s like red, like there are a few red feathers peaking out. Did you get Grian’s feathers stuck in yours somehow?” Tango answers him, not knowing why Jimmy had red feathers.
Jimmy’s wings puffed up as he heard Tango mention red feathers, and immediately asks Tango where they are, “Oh! Where are they, I’ll get them out. Grian’s feathers get everywhere, must’ve got stuck in mine!” the way his voice pitched, Tango noticed something was up, his ear twitched sensing his avian partner freaking out.
“Jimmy, Rancher! Relax. It’s just red feathers, I can help you get them out if you want?” The Chinchilla hybrid, eyes, wander around at his distressed Rancher; who was freaking out. So he decided to take his hands and intertwined theirs together, which seemed to relax the other a bit. Although he didn’t really understand why he was freaking out about some feathers.
Tango watched as his Rancher take a deep breath, and his wings relax on his back, before he looks at his wings, and sees one of the many red feathers, and plucks them out as gently as possible. One of the red feathers that Jimmy plucked out falls onto the grass, and Tango picks it up, noticing how small the feather was. Tango wasn’t an Avian hybrid, and neither was he an expert on them. But through the time he’s spent with Jimmy and Skizz, he’s smart enough to know feathers aren’t this small unless it’s only recently grown.
His ear twitches again, when he looks up to see Jimmy with a decently sized pile of feathers and like the one he was holding they were all rather small feathers. With a few expectations, of it being about the size of his hands. And his hands were small, at least to a non-chinchilla hybrid.
“Are they all gone?” Jimmy stands up from the grass, giving Tango a quick spin for him to check for any other red feathers.
“Nope” Tango tells him, after looking at Jimmy’s wings which had no red in them any longer.
“May I know why, you've taken them all out? I’m no expert, but those are new grown feathers which means they’re your feathers” Tango start saying before getting interrupted by Jimmy.
“No! They’re Grian’s, they just really got stuck in there!” the Avian protests, ignoring that Tango has found out about this, something that he hates.
The chinchilla hybrid looks at the other, not believing him one bit. There was no way Grian’s small red feathers somehow got stuck in Jimmy’s especially ones that small. “Jimmy, if you want to talk about it, you can.” Tango assures the other, saying it was okay to talk about it, that he didn’t need to hide anything from him.
“It’s nothing, I promise!” Jimmy waves his hands in defence, saying it wasn’t a big deal. Which the Chinchilla hybrid couldn’t help but not believe him. Tango took his Rancher’s hands and looked him in the eyes, as he squeezes the other's hand.
The dirty blonde looked anywhere but at his partner's eyes, if he did, he would’ve felt stupid and weak, if he told Tango the real reason why it seemed like a big deal to him. “I– promise to not laugh…” Jimmy looks up at his Rancher, waiting for a response. Not even a second later, he watched as his partner nods.
“You know how, ever since I’ve had my wings, I hide them most of the time or keep them from other people preening them, it’s because I feel like I’m just like– just like him… Like I’m not my own person” he reveals why he got so defensive about it.
Jimmy then thinks for a moment wanting to know his Rancher’s opinion, “Do I look like him?” he looked at him, worried about his answer, what if he said yes? What if he really looks just like Grian. He doesn’t want to look like him, he doesn’t want to be compared to him.
The Chinchilla hybrid’s ears twitched as he looked at his partner confused, on what he was talking about, “Look like who?”
“Grian…” Jimmy mutters his brother's name. It wasn’t like he disliked his brother, he loves and cares about him. But he always gets compared to him, saying they looked exactly alike.
“Grian? What’s wrong about that? And no, I don’t think you look like him.” his Rancher answers, but still is a bit confused on why he’d ask that. Why he cared if he looked like Grian.
Jimmy rubs the back of his neck about to reveal something about his past, “I’ve always been compared to him, it’s always, you look the same, but you aren’t as good as him, why aren’t you like him? Why is he a canary hybrid when his brother is a macaw hybrid? Why does he pull his feathers out, is he disappointed being brothers with him? He can’t even fly good, like his brother? You two are related, who's the ‘dumb’ one?” Jimmy says a few of the comments he’s got given by people.
Tango frowns hearing Jimmy say some of the comments that he’s gotten told by people, “well, they are jerks, you’re amazing and people shouldn’t be comparing people with their siblings” The chinchilla’s tail wagged as he watches Jimmy’s expression change slightly by the comments.
“There’s the Jimmy I know!” He grins, hugging the taller, comforting his canary.
Jimmy, wrapped his wings around Tango, warming him up more, as they continued to hug. “I really appreciate that, thank you.”
Tango smiles as the Avian hybrid’s wings wrap around him, “No worries, Rancher.”