Archive of Our Own ^beta

Jimmy hadn’t been too happy at his cousin’s decision to leave for the big city to make a name for herself, about a decade ago now. They’d been thick as thieves, them and Lizzie and Martyn and Scott. They’d spent nearly every day together, inside school and out, until … well. Like all good things, their high school time eventually came to an end. While everyone else decided to stay back in Lifeshire, Pearl had left to study ecology in Hermitopia. She’d felt restless after moving with her parents for her work multiple times—she’d spent a large part of her childhood in Australia, then moved from France to Brazil to Ireland, to some other countries Jimmy didn’t remember, and only after her father’s death did she and her mother return, seeking comfort in their remaining family.

Pearl had stayed in Lifeshire for six years, longer than anywhere else at that point. And then, about a month from graduation she’d revealed to them that she’d not only applied to the little college two towns over but to Hermitopia University as well.

And, well, that’s how their friend group slowly fell apart. Not that there was any use dwelling about it, Jimmy decided. It’s been, like, ten and a half years. Well, if he was still salty that she’d stayed in Hermitopia much longer than in Lifeshire, that’s only for himself to know.

“So,” he started after they’d walked through the forest for a while. “How’s life been treating you?”

Pearl had only just arrived this afternoon, without as much as a peep beforehand, conspiring with Scott so she’d catch him on a day he didn’t have anything planned, just as he decided to go for a walk to enjoy the clear winter weather. She’d jumped on the opportunity to join him, and here they were.

“I’ve been great,” Pearl explained, explaining the measures she’d taken to fix Hermitopia’s horrid mail system, and what she was going to implement next.

It had been a surprise when Pearl had announced she’d dropped out of uni just to make her part-time job at the post office into a full-time job, let alone getting promoted within, like, two months, and then rising to the top within the next five years. But it wasn’t exactly like they talked very often now. They’d grown apart, and after Lizzie had moved to live with her fiancé Joel in Hermitopia after meeting him during a visit to Pearl’s, only Jimmy, Scott, and Martyn were left. Though, Martyn had recently accepted a job offer further away, as well. Scott had joked that he was tired of third-wheeling, and, well, he might just have a point.

“Earth to Jimmy?” Pearl asked, and Jimmy squawked in surprise as she waved her hand in front of his face.

“What?”

“You back with me?” Pearl asked, and Jimmy nodded quickly.

“I never left.”

Pearl regarded him with a thoughtful hum. There was a spell of silence, only disrupted by the sound of wind in the canopy above and crunch of their boots in the snow. There was something off, Jimmy thought, about the way he and Pearl talked. Maybe some part of him had hoped that it would be like she'd never left. Still, that didn’t quite justify the depth of the pit in his stomach.

“How are—” Pearl started in the same moment Jimmy asked, “Do you—”

They both interrupted themselves once they realized the other spoke, then argued for a few moments that reminded Jimmy of times past about who would let the other speak first.

“Do you hear this?” Jimmy ended their little squabble, because this was really making him anxious.

Pearl was quiet for a moment and just listened. “I don’t hear anything,” she concluded.

“Exactly.”

“Why do you look like that’s a bad thing?” Pearl asked with a frown.

“Because,” Jimmy explained, “when you don’t hear any animals, that means something scared them away, city girl.”

Pearl frowned. “I’ve lived here for, like, six years!” she complained.

“You’ve been gone for much longer than that,” Jimmy snapped at her and immediately regretted it. He never wanted her to feel bad for leaving them alone. He knew she’d gone to Hermitopia to pursue her dreams, and who was he to stop her?

Pearl stopped in her tracks, and something soft entered her gaze.

“Anyway,” Jimmy quickly said before she could respond and cleared his throat. “Most animals are more used to relying on their instinct to figure out if they’re in danger than humans or hybrids. When it comes to predators, but also when it comes to storms.”

Pearl eyed him for another moment, then she looked around. “Then what does this mean?’

Jimmy grew silent, listening to the sounds of the forest, flitting his eyes around to see if he caught any movement. It was almost like the world held its breath. Waiting. For what, he didn’t know, and that’s what he told her. “All I know is we gotta get the hell outta here.”

“It’s getting dark anyway,” Pearl noted with a quick gaze to the sky, and Jimmy’s stomach dropped.

“We left at half past two,” Jimmy pointed out, and Pearl frowned. “I don’t know if you remember, but it doesn’t get dark here that early, ever.” He winced at his biting tone, and Pearl’s red feathers bristled in indignation.

“Dude, what’s your problem?”

Ugh, great. Jimmy closed his eyes to take a deep breath, then said, “we can talk later, but we should get out of here before whatever spooked all the animals gets us.”

Pearl looked at him for a moment longer, then she nodded. “Fine. Let’s.”

They walked back faster than they got here, and the more time passed by, the more antsy Jimmy got, and it didn’t help that they didn’t even seem to get closer to the natural sounds of the forest. At this rate it seemed quite possible that they walked towards the danger.

The sky had turned a deep purple now, and Jimmy cursed his urge to go outside and enjoy the weather, and that they had decided to walk so far. They were probably about ten minutes from the edge of the forest now, and a five minute drive from his place. If whatever was going on didn’t find them until they got to his car, they would be safe. Probably.

He glanced up again and thought, if they’d been safe at home, this could have been a pretty sight, but stopped in his tracks when he saw the light. He thought it was the sun at first, but he hadn’t seen the sun since he realized the sky had dimmed. Maybe it had just been hidden, but there was something off about it.

Like the fact that it was too small, but rapidly got bigger and brighter, moving way too fast in the sky.

“Why did you stop?” Pearl asked, and Jimmy looked down to find her turned towards him, then her gaze turned up, finding that bright light in the sky.

“Oh, a shooting star!” she explained and stepped towards Jimmy. Then she frowned as she went through the same realization as he had earlier. “Why’s it getting bigger?”

“I hope it’s not coming this way,” Jimmy said and hurried to catch up with her, cursing that they’d gone off the paths because they always used to, knowing these woods like the back of their hand. If it weren’t for the underbrush and branches and roots littering the ground, hidden under snow and dead leaves, he would have made a run for it. Still, he was working up quite a sweat.

They hurried along for what felt like forever but probably was only a minute or two until he could feel a strange staticky feeling in the air, making his hair and feathers frizz, and when he looked over at Pearl he could see she wasn’t doing any better. And that was when he caught the bright ball of light from the corner of his eyes again, startled at how low it seemed. At least, so it seemed, they were running away from it.

He told Pearl how close it was, and she fell over a branch hidden in the snow trying to turn around. She squawked and landed on her ass, catching herself on her hands before her head could slam on the ground. That would have been bad.

Pearl inspected the scrapes on her hands, and Jimmy asked if she was okay.

“I’m fine,” she waved. “Didn’t even break skin.”

And then several things happened at once.

Jimmy tried to help her up, there was a sudden cacophony of noise that he couldn’t process before a wave of hot, humid air hit him and toppled him over, sending both him and his cousin to the ground. Smaller branches fell down all around them, and a bigger one fell way too close for comfort. And the ground was shaking, keeping Jimmy from getting up for a solid five seconds.

“What the actual fuck?” he exclaimed when he finally was able to get back up again. “Did I hurt you?” he asked, reaching out a hand to help her up again.

“You pushed your elbow into my ribs but I’ll survive,” she responded and took his hand to be pulled up, then she looked into the direction they came from, and Jimmy followed her gaze. Branches that hadn’t been there before were strewn around the ground, disturbing the snow. There was the faint smell of burnt wood and sap in the air, being carried to them in wafts of warm, humid air that was way too hot for the winter attire they were dressed in.

“Hey Jimmy,” she asked, and when he turned to her he found a conspiratory glint in her eyes. “Wanna go on an adventure?”

“We should probably call emergency services,” Jimmy pointed out and Pearl pouted.

“You’re no fun, Jimmy,” she complained, and he winced at that. Here they were, one awkward conversation that had been part argument into their reunion, and he’d done nothing but antagonize her. Besides, if the danger had been from the meteor impact(?), it was probably safe again. Just to be sure, he gazed back at the sky that had already noticeably brightened again, with no weird light sources in sight. Good.

“Call first, then adventure?” he suggested.

“You can call on the way,” Pearl countered, and he could see the excitement in the way she shook her hands before hurrying ahead. He followed behind more slowly, pulling out his phone and already dialing the number, but the call didn’t connect. Weird, they weren’t so far away from civilization that there wasn’t any signal here. In fact, he’d used his occasional walks in this forest for calling with a friend or family more than once, so there definitely was a signal supposed to be here.

With a sigh, he slipped his phone back into his pocket, then sped up so he wouldn’t lose Pearl.

By the time he caught up to her, she stood with her jacket over her arm at the edge of a crater that reminded him of the creeper holes he occasionally found around here, except this one was a lot bigger. The smell of burning wood permeated the air, steam and smoke wafting into the sky. Trees were smoldering red, and the humidity in the air seeped into his clothes, making him sweaty and light-headed like he stood in the too-hot shower for too long. There was no snow left here; it must have—what was that fancy word he’d learned in chemistry like one and a half decades ago? Sublimated?—, and what’s been further away had turned into small, steaming rivulets.

Jimmy stepped closer, to see what was it that had caused the crater, what was capturing Pearl’s attention.

When he stepped next to her, he spotted a big black something, possibly charred from its tumble through the atmosphere. It had a spiky texture, something that looked like feathers, if it wasn’t for the fact that they wouldn’t have survived the friction of such a long fall. Not to speak of the immense velocity and altitude a hypothetical feathered creature would have to reach to burn up and cause such an impact. Besides, no creature would have shattered upon impact like this thing did, with lavender light seeping through the cracks.

And then he saw what Pearl held in her hand. A feather, deep black with a purple shimmer to it, too big to belong to any bird he knew of. There were a few more floating around and dotting the ground that he had thought to be ash despite the site. Well, he thought, giant ash particles were easier to wrap his head around than a feathered creature falling from the fucking stratosphere without burning to a crisp.

Then, the cracks in the creature began to mend themselves.

“What the fuck.”

That seemed to shake Pearl from her stupor, and she stepped closer. “We should probably check if it’s okay.”

Jimmy just raised his eyebrows. “Or we should call a professional, Pearl, we don’t even know what it is—”

Pearl didn’t listen to him, instead knelt on the ground, reaching out to the creature. As soon as she touched it, a black wing jutted out, shoving her backwards. She fell onto her ass for the second time this afternoon. The creature—no, the man—that was revealed when its wings unfurled belonged into the dead of night, where the strange and fantastical seemed a lot more probable. It had six wings for starters—six!—and wore black clothes consisting of a tank top and wide trousers with silver jewellery. Its hair was shimmering of gold that reminded Jimmy of the sun or the stars, and its eyes—

Its eyes were littered over its body and wings, some hovering around it, and they all opened at once, gaze zeroing in on Pearl, who squawked in terror. Jimmy wanted to stand in front of her, shielding her from the gaze of this thing, but he stood frozen, as though his feet were rooted into the dirt.

The creature—the man, the biblically accurate angel?—didn’t attack her, though. It jumped back, its black eyes that had no whites, but were littered with stars and purple swirls, widening in shock. It stared at Pearl, and then the black seemed to fall off its wings and sclera, and its extra wings and eyes turned into dust. When the transformation was done, a seemingly normal avian with red, blue and yellow wings sat in front of them, with dirty blond hair and black eyes that seemed less like their own universes but more like voids now. There was still something about him that was not quite human, but it was easier to think of him as a person now.

And then, as if this transformation was too much for the creature to handle, he collapsed onto the ground.

Their way back to Jimmy’s car seemed to take forever, what with the avian stranger slung over their shoulders. They had decided against leaving him in the forest, and after checking him for any external injuries that might have gotten worse if they decided to carry him and finding none, they were now transporting him to their car. While he wasn’t exactly heavy, he was still a lot of dead weight, even between the both of them, and if Pearl’s clothes hadn’t been damp with sweat before, they absolutely were now.

If it weren’t for the man hanging over her shoulder, Pearl didn’t think she’d believe what happened to her this afternoon. It was like a scene from the movies, she thought, an angel fallen from the sky, kicked out of heaven. Because that was the only thing she thought the man could be: an angel, with six wings and dozens of eyes, even though his color scheme didn’t seem particularly angelic. That was one of the reasons she’d argued against calling an ambulance, even though Jimmy hadn’t seemed thrilled about it. It wasn’t like their phones had signal either. An aftermath of the angel fallen, Jimmy had mused.

Jimmy, in general, didn’t seem too thrilled about this situation. Pearl couldn’t fault him for it, with the sudden supernatural turn their reunion had taken.

By the time they’d arrived at the car, the air around them had gotten so cold that Pearl worried that they were going to get sick, and they hurried to get the fallen angel into the car, and then themselves. Pearl sat down with the angel, just in case he woke up and panicked, and Jimmy pretty much turned the car on as soon as he was in the driver’s seat. Pearl sighed at the warmth that started to spread in the car.

They didn’t talk on the way home, Jimmy focusing on the road and Pearl looking at the man next to her. His skin looked pale and clammy, brow furrowed in pain, or maybe a nightmare? His wavy hair was messy, and red aural wings were poking out from underneath it. It was strange, she thought. One moment he was all black wings and eyes, the next he seemed to have copied her after only one look. Maybe he didn’t want people to know he was an angel, she thought, using the first person he saw to create a cover. Though, he had seemed so out of it, maybe he hadn’t even noticed he did it.

Pearl was so entranced in the looks of the angel, she only realized they’d reached Jimmy’s house when the engine turned off. She jumped, then unfastened her seatbelt and left the car. While she started maneuvering the angel out of his seat, Jimmy unlocked the front door, then returned to shoulder his other arm. He and Pearl slowly inched to the front door, and by the time they scooted through it sideways, Scott stood in the door to the living room with his phone in his hand, frowning at them.

“Why are you carrying an unconscious stranger into our house?” he demanded.

“Uh,” Pearl said and blinked. “He collapsed in the woods and we didn’t just want to leave him behind?”

Scott narrowed his eyes, not very convinced. “Why didn’t you bring him to the hospital then?”

Pearl exchanged a gaze with Jimmy. Uhm …

“He asked not to,” Jimmy improvised. “Said he’s afraid of doctors and such.”

“Yeah,” Pearl backed him up. “That. And he’s not injured badly.”

Scott looked at the angel, then Pearl, then Jimmy. “He’s your responsibility,” he said and trotted back into the living room. Then Jimmy signaled for them to go up the stairs and sit the man into the office chair for now.

“I don’t like lying to Scott,” Jimmy said while he pulled out the couch they had here for guests to sleep on.

“You could have told him the truth,” Pearl said, and Jimmy turned around to frown at her.

“Do you really think that?” he asked. “What did you want me to say? ‘Hey darling, this man just fell from the sky and he’s probably an angel and we can’t bring him to the hospital because who knows what they’re gonna do with him?’”

Pearl frowned. “If you put it like that …”

Jimmy sighed. “Look, let’s just get him layed down and then … I don’t know, maybe I’ll talk to him.”

He put the angel’s arm back around his shoulders, then they carried him over to the couch and lowered him down on it. While Pearl worked on getting him more comfortable, Jimmy went to leave.

“Good luck,” Pearl offered.

Jimmy took a deep breath, then made his way back down to the living room where he found Scott frowning at his phone. He sat on his usual place on the couch next to him, not sure how to start.

“Have you seen the purple sky while you were out?” Scott asked and looked up. “And that meteor? Apparently it came down right in the woods near where you went.”

Jimmy made a face. “It was freaky,” he said. “Like, suddenly everything went quiet and it got really dark, but there were no stars.” He glanced at Scott to find him looking right back at him, now turned to face him fully.

“Tell me the truth, Jimmy. Who is that man?”

Jimmy didn’t know why he thought for a second that Scott wouldn’t see through his lies. That man knew him better than he did, himself, sometimes. But there was no accusation in the way he said it, only curiosity.

“It’s true that we found him in the woods,” he admitted. “When we went to find the meteor. Only it wasn’t a meteor.”

Scott tilted his head in askance. “So you’re saying it was him?”

Jimmy nodded. “I don’t think he’s human.”

Pearl spun in the office chair, checking social media now that she had wifi. There were a lot of posts about that strange weather phenomenon and so-called meteor, much speculation, but nothing conclusive. Not a lot of experts had gotten the chance to respond to it, and the ones who did had no idea what caused it, but they were investigating.

Yeah, Pearl didn’t think they would guess that it was a man falling from the sky. Something … inhuman, fantastical. They would probably think it was some debris, or a an asteroid that they’d overlooked, completely vaporized upon impact. Without the proof that was lying on the couch, there was no way they would be able to guess what that meteor had truly been.

She sighed and listened to the quiet voices sounding through the floor, too quiet to understand any word they said. She wondered what Scott thought about the angel, but she would find out soon enough. For now, she would give the boyfriends some privacy.

She got lost in her phone answering Gem’s message if she was okay and missed the moment the stranger opened his eyes. The only sign that he’d awoken was a panicked trill that escaped his throat. She looked up to find him standing up, backing against a wall with wide eyes. They were still black with a purple hue, but with their current shade they could almost be mistaken for very dark brown eyes in the right light. He made some more noises, chirps and squawks mostly, but some more human noises mixed into it as well. If it was supposed to be a language, it was none she’s ever heard before. If it was supposed to be a language, it was none she’s ever heard before, though it did remind her of the dialects that some more isolated avian communities possessed—without the need of the dialect having to be spoken or understood by none-avians, they often used some sounds exclusively to avians.

“It’s okay,” she said, dropping her phone into her lap and lifting her hands to show him that they were empty. “My name’s Pearl. I’m not gonna hurt you.”

The stranger’s eyes flicked around nonetheless, finding the window that was closer to him than her, and backed away from her until he stood in front of her. He turned to open it but quickly looked back over his shoulder with spooked eyes, as if he’d forgotten that he only had two eyes left. He fiddled with the handle, then looked back at it when it didn’t open the way he wanted, before quickly turning around to Pearl again, as if afraid that if he didn’t look at her, she’s gonna attack him.

“Hey,” she said quietly and slumped in the chair to make herself look smaller, less intimidating. “You’re okay, I just … you took quite the tumble in the forest there and I just wanted to make sure you weren’t seriously hurt.”

The stranger considered that for a moment, then he said, “I’m not,” and crossed his arms. “Now let. Me. Go.”

“I can open the window for you,” she offered even though she wanted him to stay, to figure him out. She hadn’t expected him to speak English, for one, copying her accent perfectly. “Or the front door. Whichever you prefer.”

The angel’s gaze flicked to the door, then the window, then back to her.

“I—,” he said hesitantly, his face scrunched up in thought. “Pearl.”

“Yes?” she asked maybe a bit too excitedly, sitting up straighter fast enough that the motion disturbed the phone in her lap and it clattered to the ground.

“You good up there?” Scott called, and the angel winced, his eyes wide.

“Just dropped my phone,” she called back, not daring to look away from the man, fearing that he would just disappear if she did.

It got quiet again and the angel bit his lip. “Pearl,” he repeated, eyeing her carefully.

This time, Pearl measured her response. No quick movements, she reminded herself and nodded.

The man frowned and scrunched up his nose in thought. “I—I think I’d tell you my name too, Pearl, but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten what it is.”

“Oh,” Pearl just said, not really knowing what to say to that. She glanced away in thought, then looked back at the man. “Would you like me to give you a new name until you remember yours?”

The man tilted his head in thought, glancing away briefly. Then he looked back at Pearl. “What do you have in mind?”

Pearl thought for a moment and played back their first meeting. The man had looked like a little sun in the darkness that had settled over the world, so…

“Grian?” she asked. “It means ‘sun’ in Irish.”

The angel tilted his head, pursing his lips as he thought. “Grian,” he sounded out slowly, and then again. “Grian, Grian, Grian.” His eyes focused on her, and his gaze was kind of unsettling. “It’s a good name, I’ll take it.”

A smile spread on Pearl’s face. She was glad he liked it. “Nice to meet you, Grian,” she said and reached out her hand.

Grian eyed it skeptically, then looked up at her before he stepped closer and took it. “Nice to meet you too, Pearl.”

“So, Grian,” Pearl asked once he sat back down on the edge of the couch. “How are you feeling?”

The man took a moment to think about it. “You said I fell, right?” he asked, and when Pearl nodded, he continued, “I don’t feel any pain anywhere. I think.”

“You think,” Pearl echoed, and Grian nodded.

“My head feels weird, but I don’t think it hurts. It might be the missing memories?”

Pearl tilted her head in curiosity. “Do you remember anything before you fell?”

Grian thought for a moment before he scrunched up his face in pace and lifted his hands to clutch at his hair. “It hurts.”

Pearl got up to sit in front of him on the floor. “It’s okay if you don’t,” she said. “You don’t have to remember now. Not if it hurts you.”

Grian was quiet for a bit, but the pained expression didn’t vanish from his face. “Can you distract me?” he asked with a small voice.

“’Course,” Pearl said and thought for a moment. “So, I’m currently working in Hermitopia, that’s about, like a hundred-ish miles from here? And what I’m doing is I’m currently working on overhauling the mail system because about ten years ago when I started there, it’s totally gone to shit. Like, you’re lucky if you get your important mail in time to send a response before the deadline’s over. And packages also took forever. Especially if you wanted to ship something within the county, it would be a lot more efficient to just deliver your mail and packages yourself, which of course would raise shipping prices a lot, because no one actually wants to do that if they can pay someone else to do it, and it lead to some third party services rising in popularity, which is actually not great either, because we’re a federal agency. It’s not really a good look, and besides, who knows how secure their services actually are? There’s been quite a few of those companies that snooped in the mail and sold the info to other companies.”

Grian looked at Pearl, watching her, not looking quice as pained anymore. “That … doesn’t sound good.”

“Yeah, it’s real shitty. So do you know what I did?”

Grian raised his eyebrows. “What did you do?”

“So there’s this guy I know,” she explains. “My friend Ren introduced me to him when I complained to him about the situation. Said he might help. Actually, I still don’t know his name,” Pearl realized. “I just know he goes by Doc. He’s a—actually, I don’t know what he does either, but I know he’s good at hacking. So I asked him if he could help me. I didn’t even know what he was gonna do, and I didn’t really care as long as he made the mail system safe again. And so Doc hacked into the servers of the mail service and published proof that the head of the HPS was embezzling the funds it got from the government and was also involved in the selling of customer data. I don’t even know if that asshole actually did it,” she said with an amused smile on her face. “I wouldn’t put it past Doc to fabricate evidence that holds up in court.

“But Doc’s apparently part of a network of hackers that expose corruption, and he was already working on writing an exposé on him so my request made him finish that even faster, and I’m pretty sure he pulled some strings so that I could rise through the ranks faster after that. Like, immediately after a bunch of people were let go for being involved in it, and that’s when I got offered a managerial position in the branch I delivered mail part-time from.”

“Huh,” Grian said. “And what are you doing now?”

“Well, about a year ago I was promoted to the manager of the HPS,” Pearl explained proudly. “So now, after I worked on optimizing the Magic Mountain branch, I’m implementing the things that have worked well on a larger scale, and things have improved a lot since Doc’s little exposé. Like, the mail’s getting to its recipients within two to three business days, same with packages, and while there was a lot of suspicions of the HPS’s security afterwards and calls to privatize the post service, there hasn’t been a scandal about sold customer data since. And now I’m working together with two highly skilled redstone engineers to make mail delivery even faster.”

“Huh,” Grian said, looking like he didn’t completely follow, but at least he didn’t seem in pain anymore, so mission accomplished. “That’s neat.”

“Right?” Pearl asked. “I’d tell you more about the redstone, too, but to be honest, I don’t really understand all the technicality. I’m trying to learn more about it by making a game with it, but I haven’t really mastered it yet.”

“What kind of game are you working on?” Grian asked, tilting his head.

“It’s Wordle,” she said, then added, upon seeing his confusion, “it’s like a word game, wait, I’ll show you.” She picked the phone up off the ground, then sat next to Grian on the couch and showed him how to play.

Grian didn’t like Wordle.

It definitely was due to the fact that somehow, none of the words they suggested were five letters long, and when Pearl spelled the words out to prove it, they were convinced the letters she used did not correspond to any word at all. Meanwhile, when Grian spelled them out, she was convinced that some of the letters weren’t even letters.

“Maybe it has something to do with the fact that earlier, you made some sounds that I couldn’t understand as words, and after you heard me speak, you suddenly spoke English,” Pearl guessed, and Grian frowned.

“You’re implying I switched from one language to another,” they noted. “I didn’t though.”

“Huh.” Pearl frowned. “Maybe it wasn’t consciously? I slip up, too, sometimes.”

Grian bit their lip in thought. “I don’t really … I don’t think I know I speak more than one language.”

“You sure?” Pearl asked, something calculating in her gaze.

“Pretty sure,” they responded, frowning when a laugh escaped Pearl’s lip.

“Apparently you speak Portuguese, too,” she grinned.

Grian blinked. “What?“

“Can you just emulate any language you’re hearing?” Pearl wondered.

“But I’m just speaking English!” they protested.

She shook her head. “That was Irish,” she corrected him. Then she tilted her head in curiosity. “Wait, do you actually just hear the word for ‘sun’ when I call your name?”

Grian frowned. “When you say Grian, I hear G-R-I-A-N, right?” And then they spelled the way ‘sun’ sounded to them, a trill followed by a group of letters.

Pearl frowned, then tried to emulate the sounds, not quite successfully. “But those sounds don’t come together to say ‘sun’, right? If you put them together.”

“Wait. Say ‘sun‘ again,” they asked, and when the word had left their lips, they realized the shape their mouth made was not a familiar one.

Pearl did as asked, then they asked her to say their name. Now that they actually paid attention to the words, they actually realized that they sounded completely different.

Weird.

“So do you just have an auto-translator in your head that adapts to whatever language the person you’re talking to is speaking?”

Grian frowned. “Maybe. So I’m currently matching your language?”

“Yeah. We’re both speaking English.”

“Huh.”

They were both quiet for a moment, then Pearl gazed at them. “Is it, like, related to the fact that you changed your appearance when you looked at me after you first collapsed?”

“Huh?”

“I mean … me and my cousin, Jimmy, we found you not long after you collasped, and I think you woke up for, like, two seconds because you opened your eyes, looked at me, changed your appearance, and then fell back asleep.”

Grian made a face. “Changed my appearance how?“

“Well,” Pearl said and hesitated, then pulled out her phone, closed the Wordle App and put it with its back facing them. Then she showed them the screen, a confused avian with wings like Pearl’s looking back at them.

“Are you saying that’s me?” Grian was sure they’d never seen that face before.

Pearl nodded. “And before that, you, like, had six wings and a lot of eyes that were completely black and purple, no whites. And your wings were black, and your hair looked like it was glowing.”

Grian tried to imagine what that looked like, and Pearl squawked in surprise as she was shoved to the side by a black wing.

“Just like that!”

Grian frowned and looked down at themself, startling upon finding eyes on their arms and hovering around them. They hadn’t even noticed the way their view had changed, almost like seeing out of these new eyes was second nature. Their eyes widened as they stood up and spread their wings, spotting six of them, black, and bright golden hair fell into their eyes. They looked at Pearl, all forty(?) of their eyes wide, and found themself looking back at them from the screen she held up to them. This time it was showing them like they were now as they prodded at their face, wings and hair.

This reflection felt more like themself than the photo Pearl had shown them earlier, but something about it didn’t feel right. They felt watched, suddenly, and goosebumps traveled up their skin. The only extra eyes in the room were their own, but something in them told them to hide away before something bad happened.

Grian watched as their reflection turned back into the them Pearl had shown them before that. Red wings, two eyes, non-glowing hair. It felt … safer, somehow, even if they couldn’t explain how. They just knew that being that was dangerous. They still couldn’t shake that feeling completely.

They were startled out of their thoughts by a knock at the door and stared at it with wide eyes. Pearl just got up, though, like it wasn’t a big deal, and opened it to reveal a man with antlers growing from under his bright blue hair. He was about the same height as Pearl, without them.

“Scott, what’s up?”

“Me and Jimmy are ordering dinner,” the man at the door, Scott said, and glanced at Grian. “Do you and your friend want anything?”

“Ah, right,” Pearl said and opened the door more before pointing to Scott. “Grian, that’s Scott, an old friend of mine. Scott, meet Grian.”

Scott frowned at Grian for a moment as though he was trying to figure them out, which made the avian’s anxiety skyrocket again, then he smiled. “Nice to meet you, Grian. What do you want for dinner?”

Grian blinked, then looked at Pearl for help. “I’ll … uh, I’ll have whatever she’s having.”

Pearl looked at them with her eyebrows raised and an amused smile around her lips. “Anything you can’t or won’t eat?”

“Uh … not that I know of.”

“Then let’s just keep it simple,” she said and clapped her hands. “We’ll have some pepperoni pizza.”

“Okay,” Scott nodded. “I’ll go order then. D’you wanna come downstairs or are you gonna stay up here till it arrives?”

Pearl looked over at them. “What do you say? Do you need some more time before meeting new people?”

Grian nodded quickly. The idea of being around more people, having them look at them, felt dangerous.

“Alright then, see ya later,” Scott said and gave them a little wave before he left and closed the door behind him.

Grian sat down and stared after him until the sound of his footsteps stopped and they could hear him talk to someone else downstairs. Only then did they avert their eyes and let out a sigh of relief.

“So,” Pearl said and sat down next to them and—oh no, she was looking at them.

“So,” Grian echoed, not sure what she expected of them.

“You just copied Scott’s accent,” Pearl noted, and Grian frowned.

“Didn’t notice there’s a difference,” they mumbled.

“Scott’s Scottish and mine’s mostly Australian, I think,” she said.

Grian hummed a response and then looked away.

“You okay?” Pearl asked after a moment of quiet.

They nodded. “Just tired.” They weren’t quite sure how to explain to her what was going on inside of them, nor were they sure they even wanted to share.

Pearl was quiet for a bit, then pulled out a laptop. “Do you wanna watch something?”

Suddenly, Grian forgot how to breathe. Their eyebrows twitched, then they glanced at her. “Watch?” they asked quietly, not liking how small their voice sounded.

“You gotta speak English with me, Grian,” Pearl said, and they frowned. They thought the switching languages thing was automatic, so why had they reverted to a different one just now?

They blinked for a moment, unsure of themself, then frowned. What was the word Pearl had used?

“Watch what?” they tried again after clearing their throat.

Pearl shrugged. “I don’t know, a movie or a show or something.”

Grian’s frown deepened as they watched her open the laptop and hit a button that illuminated it, showing a photo of her and a ginger deer-hybrid, arm in arm and laughing at the camera.

“Who’s that?” they asked.

“Oh that?” A soft, loving smile spread on Pearl’s face. “That’s Gem, my girlfriend. Maybe I could introduce her to you someday?”

Grian nodded, even though the thought of meeting more people turned their stomach upside down.

“So,” Pearl said. “Any suggestions on what to watch?”

Grian shrugged. “Dunno, I’ve … never watched much.” At least when it came to … whatever Pearl was planning to watch. Either that or they forgot.

Pearl watched them for a moment, then she decided, “I’m just gonna put on some YouTube, I still haven’t gotten around for nesting for the night, anyway.” She got up to grab the desk chair and placed her laptop on it, then tapped away at it.

“Nesting?” Grian echoed, more so she kept talking than because they didn’t understand. They knew what nesting was, at least. Nesting was familiar.

“I live further away,” Pearl explained and hit play on a video, then turned down the volume. “I hope some Stardew‘s okay?—Anyway, Jimmy always keeps some nesting material around in case family decides to cross the night. I doubt you’d like a night away from home without a nest,” Pearl added and glanced at them. Then she opened the top drawer and grabbed a pile of blankets from it that she chucked at Grian.

They squawked as they tried to catch them. “Warn a guy next time!”

“Sorry,” Pearl winced, then dumped some pillows next to them. “We could ask them later if you could use the couch in their living room for your nest, otherwise we could maybe build you one on the floor and pad it a lot?” She scrunched up her face in thought. “I doubt that would be comfortable though.”

“Floor should be fine,” Grian declared. “I’ve had floor nests before.” They weren’t sure how they knew but the concept definitely wasn’t foreign to them.

“Alright,” Pearl said. “Then you’ll get most of the blankets, just so you can get a bit more comfortable, that okay?”

Grian nodded and dumped a few of the blankets on the couch, then took a seat on the floor under the window. They started by laying the two thicker blankets down first, then they heaped some of the smaller ones around the edge, forming a little wall. Then they added some pillows and tried lying down in it before making some adjustments.

It was a lot smaller than they were used to. They didn’t actually remember their old nests, but they knew they’d been big enough for them to stretch out completely and still not hit the walls, the floor soft and fluffy. In this nest, they had to curl up to fit comfortably, and they could still feel the floor through the blankets. It wasn’t comfy but it would do. It wasn’t like they had to spend all day in the nest, either.

Grian spent some time curled up in their nest, making sure it was good enough that they wouldn’t spend all night trying to rearrange it, and listened to the quiet voice that came from the laptop. They could hear Pearl, walking around the couch and rustling with blankets and pillows. It was strangely domestic, for a stranger, but Grian found they didn’t really mind.

“You falling asleep there?” Pearl asked after a while, and then there was the noise of a body falling into blankets and pillows. Grian looked up to find her smiling in amusement.

“Just getting comfy,” they responded.

Pearl was quiet for a moment, then she said, “If you wanna watch along I wouldn’t mind if you sit in my nest.”

Grian raised their eyebrows. Nests were for flocks, not strangers you’ve only met today.

“You don’t have anyone,” Pearl explained at their silence. “No flock, nothing. So I don’t mind if you join mine for now.”

That … felt scary. Grian couldn’t understand how she could even consider letting someone new into her nest, someone she hadn’t known for months or years. The concept felt so foreign to them, they thought, it was likely it took forever for them to accept anyone as friends, let alone flock, someone they would let inside their nest.

They wanted to answer, but the anxiety was like ants in their veins, so they pulled a thin wall-blanket over themself to hide, instead.

“That’s okay,” Pearl said. “I’m not mad if it’s too soon for you, or you decide that’s something you don’t want at all.”

Grian frowned at that, fighting the temptation to look at Pearl, see what kind of expression was on her face when she said it.

But they didn’t look, instead hiding under the blanket until a knock at the door disrupted the atmosphere.

He heard footsteps, then an opening door. “Yeah?”

“Dinner’s here,” a voice said that Grian didn’t think they’ve heard before. “Where’s Grian?”

“Hiding in his nest,” Pearl said. “Grian, wanna eat something?”

Grian didn’t answer for a bit. They didn’t think they were hungry, and they weren’t really in the mood to meet new people. They just wanted to be curled up in their nest where no one could perceive them, with Pearl watching something quiet in the background—or better yet: alone in their nest with no one around, not even Pearl.

Still, they probably shouldn’t just hide away after these strangers had gone through the effort of picking them up in the forest and taking them home, without even knowing them. And if they were honest, they were curious about who these people were, even if they didn’t want them to perceive them.

“Fine,” they grumbled and kicked the blanket away. It was only Pearl waiting for them now, smiling when she saw them emerging from their blanket coocoon.

“Yeah?” she asked, excitement settling on her face. Grian just nodded and sat up, rearranging some of their feathers that had gotten into disarray from lying down carelessly, then stood up to join Pearl at the door.

“Let’s,” Grian said, and she smiled.

“Let’s.”

Dinner was an awkward affair.

After Grian had been introduced to Jimmy—they still winced internally when they remembered that they’d called him Timmy—, Scott and Jimmy had told Pearl what they’d been up to in the year and a half since they’d last seen her. Pearl responded in kind, telling them about the measures she’d taken to modernize the Post Service, and telling them about her and Gem’s plans to move in with each other.

Grian listened but didn’t speak, just working on decimating their pizza. It wasn’t the first time they’d eaten this, they noted with surprise, but they couldn’t remember where they had it before. It didn’t really matter, anyway.

“Grian?”

Grian looked up, suddenly all eyes on them. They didn’t like the way it made them feel, made their skin crawl. They hurried to swallow their bite, then asked, “Yeah?”

“We’re just wondering where you could stay,” Pearl explained, “since you don’t remember anything.”

Grian nodded. Okay, that made sense. They didn’t know them, so they had no reason to just offer them to stay. They hadn’t really expected that to be the case either, though they did think that it would probably make things easier if they could stay.

Not that they wanted to, anyway.

“It’s a little cramped here,” Jimmy explained. “We probably could make space for you here, but it’s probably gonna be a tight fit.”

“Besides, it seems like you’ve already taken a liking to Pearl,” Scott added.

Grian blinked. Okay, they didn’t want them here. That was fine. But where were they going with this?

“I’ve also got some experience with roomies,” Pearl explained then. “And I texted a bit with Gem since we wanted to move in together soon, and she’d be fine if my cousin stayed with us for a bit.”

So … Jimmy was moving in with Pearl and Gem? And Scott stayed here? And then what? It didn’t seem like it was to make space for Grian, and they wouldn’t want to kick Jimmy out anyway—

“That’s you, by the way.”

“Huh?” Grian asked, completely confused now.

“Well, I can’t exactly tell people I just randomly found you in a forest,” Pearl elaborated. “And you copied my wing pattern. You could absolutely pass for my cousin.”

Grian blinked. “What?”

“I mean your hair is somewhere between brown and blonde like mine, you’re a parrot as well, and I can just tell people you’re from my dad’s side of my family.”

Was that what Pearl meant when she said earlier that she wouldn’t mind if they joined her flock? Was she already thinking about it then?

“Uh,” Grian said, wide-eyed and unsure what to say. It would be rude to refuse, right?

“If you’re not comfy with the family part, we can figure something else out,” Pearl said after another moment of silence.

Grian blinked. “No, that … That’s fine, actually.”

A wide smile spread on Pearl’s face. “Cool, welcome to the family then.”

And just for tonight, Grian allowed themself to believe that they could have this.

Not long after dinner, Pearl retreated to the office to make a phone call. She had already texted Gem about her, well, ‘cousin’ staying with her for a bit but with everything, she hadn’t quite gotten around to discuss the stay with her in-depth.

She sat down in the office chair, moved the keyboard aside, and then plopped her own laptop in its place. After booting up Discord, she hit the call button on Gem’s contact. It rang a few times, then Gem’s face appeared on her screen.

“Hiiii,” Pearl greeted her with a smile.

“Hi Pearl, how are you doing?” Gem asked.

Pearl paused to actually check what her body was trying to tell her. With everything that’s been going on, she had barely had a chance to really listen.

“I’m … good, all things considered? Today was a lot. First this weird weather phenomenon, then my cousin needing to get away from some stuff, and … I think Jimmy’s mad at me too.”

“You think?” Gem asked, raising her eyebrows.

Pearl shrugged. “I don’t know why, he’s never said anything ‘till now, but …” She frowned. “It seems like he’s still not over me leaving.”

“What’d he say?”

“We were taking a walk just after I’ve arrived,” Pearl explained. “He seemed really absent during it, like he didn’t really want to hear what I had to say. And then …” She frowned. “Then he noticed that something weird was going on. Everything was quiet, the sky got all dark and … while we were figuring out what we were gonna do, he was just so mean. Made comments about how I wouldn’t know how to act or what to do because I’ve spent most of my life in cities, and not here.”

Gem scrunched up her nose. “Yikes.”

“Right?” Pearl asked. “He even told me he was fine with me studying in Hermitopia. I thought we talked it out! And like, I know I should have visited more but if it bothered him that much, why didn’t he say something?”

“Seems like he wasn’t quite honest.” Gem noted. “I’d say you two talk about it before you come back so that it won’t get worse. You’re not gonna be able to resolve this without talking.”

Pearl sighed. “I mean, he did say that we should talk about it later. Just …” she bit her lip nervously, taking a few breaths to gather the courage to speak out the doubts that had filled her head to the brim ten years ago, and threatened to drown out her reason now. “What if he hates me? For leaving?” As much as Pearl wanted to believe that that wasn’t the case, she’d moved around enough to know emotions could be messy when one of your closest friends moved away. When she left for Hermitopia ten and a half years ago, her friends had been mad at her, and Jimmy had been slowest to forgive her. At least she thought he’d forgiven her, he’d said he did.

“Pearl …” Gem said gently, her face twisting in compassion, and they both were quiet for a bit. “It’s his right to not forgive you, of course,” she said eventually. “But if he really doesn’t forgive you, it is his responsibility to communicate that, especially because he already said that he’s fine with it. You’re not a mind reader.

“Sure,” Gem added. “Maybe you could have done things differently, but you’re both adults. So if he doesn’t communicate, that’s on him. You did your best to resolve the conflict, to make it up to him. The ball’s in his court, now.”

Pearl let that settle in, then sighed. “You’re right. Thanks, love.”

“I’m always right,” Gem joked, and Pearl had to laugh. “So, what’s this about your cousin?”

Pearl paused and gathered her thoughts, going over the story she had made up in her mind. “His name’s Grian,” she explained then. “He’s the son of my dad’s sister, lives in England currently. He, uhm … he’s kind of sick? I don’t know what he has exactly, just that everyone really babies him even though he can still do most things, and he’s really sick of it, so he asked if he could stay at my place for a bit.”

“You never mentioned him,” Gem noted, and Pearl’s heart stopped for a moment.

“Ah, yeah, we were never really close,” she explained quickly. “Since Dad had long left the UK by the time he was born, we only met on the few trips we took there, but he found my Insta and decided to reach out. We’ve been texting all afternoon and then he asked me if he could stay with me for a bit, he’s not sure how long yet.”

Gem hummed. “And you’re fine with that?”

Pearl nodded.

“No people pleasing?”

Pearl paused and thought for a moment. “Maybe a little?”

Gem groaned. “Pearl—”

“I know,” Pearl interrupted her. “He just doesn’t really have any other place to go, and if I notice it gets too much I’ll make him get his own apartment, promise.”

“Fine,” Gem relented. “But if you let him cross your boundaries too much, I will call you out on your people-pleaser-iness.”

Pearl nodded. “Deal.”

Scott didn’t return to his room until he had made sure Pearl and Grian were back in their room. It wasn’t like he didn’t trust them to be alone in his and Jimmy’s home, but … he didn’t trust Grian to be alone in his and Jimmy’s home.

Maybe it was the fact that he was a stranger, but Scott wasn’t so sure about that. Even if he had people over that only knew Jimmy, not him, Scott was usually fine with leaving them alone for a few minutes if need be. And Pearl and Jimmy had brought him home, even if he was a stranger to them too. And Grian seemed quiet, and … well, that was it. Just quiet. Didn’t talk unless spoken to, but he was attentive nonetheless.

Maybe that was what unsettled Scott, that he was watching quietly, like what was happening around him had nothing to do with him. Or maybe it was because Scott knew he wasn’t human. How had Jimmy described him? A fallen angel. Six black wings and excess eyes, with golden hair that almost looked like a halo. The description he’d given didn’t reflect how Grian looked like at all. After just one look at Pearl, he’d shapeshifted into something simpler, more familiar, more safe, even if his eyes were still an unnatural purple. And it had been freaky how, during their earlier conversation, Grian’s accent had switched from Australian to British to Scottish depending on who he responded to, a perfect imitation of those he had copied. It didn’t even seem conscious.

He was the perfect manipulator, Scott thought. Effortlessly shifting appearance and way of speaking into something the people around him would deem safe. Watching, quietly, never saying what he thought.

And Jimmy and Pearl had accepted him into their flock. Just like that. And Jimmy had even asked him earlier, while they were waiting for dinner, if Scott would be alright with Grian staying. And now, after dinner that only seemed to confirm the bad feeling that had settled deep within his stomach, he was glad he told Jimmy he wasn’t comfortable with that … that creature staying. He didn’t exactly like that he was staying with Pearl, either, but anything was better than Grian staying here, tainting the safety of his home.

Scott sighed as he made his way upstairs, stopping in front of the office door to listen and make sure Grian was actually in there, then he made his way across the hall to the bedroom.

Jimmy had already turned off the light, but his phone still illuminated the room when Scott entered. He looked up, then, and smiled at his boyfriend. “Hi. How was the hangout?”

Scott shrugged and flopped down onto the bed like a starfish, draping half across his boyfriend. “Hangout-y. How’s TikTok?”

“Ah, yes,” Jimmy responded. “Certainly TikTok-y. Sent you some stuff.”

Scott struggled for a moment trying to pull his phone out of his pocket without disturbing his position too much, then gave up and sat up, freed his phone, and curled up into Jimmy who put his own phone down at that. It was their little routine now—Jimmy scrolling TikTok before bed, claiming it helped him sleep (despite Scott insisting that the blue light of his phone would have the opposite effect), and showing some videos of cute animals and some corny couple-y stuff to his boyfriend.

Jimmy watched Scott’s reactions to the stuff he had sent him, and the deer hybrid could slowly feel the anxiety seeping out of him, chased away by calming videos and his boyfriend’s presence. Still, a sense of uneasiness prevailed. He couldn’t get Grian’s otherness out of his head.

Scott waited until the video he was currently watching was finished before hitting pause and turning to face Jimmy. “By the way, did you and Pearl talk about how long they’re gonna stay yet?” If so, it hadn’t happened verbally.

Jimmy winced at that. “I meant to, but then Grian—I just totally forgot.”

“It’s okay,” Scott responded even though it was decidedly not. “Pearl told me she’s got time off for a week, and I gave my okay that she could stay this long if you’re also okay with it.” He hesitated, then said, “Though we’ll have to see if that’s still her plan now that Grian’s around.”

“True.” Jimmy bit his lip, and he’s got this look, the one he always got when he wanted to say something but didn’t quite dare. “Are you still okay with her staying that long now that Grian’s here too, though?” he asked, and Scott knew that it wasn’t the thing what he was afraid of saying, only a distraction.

Scott considered that for a moment, then settled for a half truth. “I don’t know him well enough to be fully comfortable around him, but he’s your cousin now. And you know that your family can stay here anytime.”

“Technically he’s only Pearl’s cousin,” Jimmy pointed out, and Scott was kind of glad he was still distracted by what was eating at him to notice the cop-out.

“So? You seem to like him, and it’s not that much of a stretch,” Scott argued. “I mean, you wanted to invite him to live with us.” Then he tilted his head and watched closer now. “Now, wanna tell me why you’re trying to distract me with semantics?”

Jimmy groaned, then looked away, frowning. It took a while until he opened his mouth, a while that Scott spent watching him. The way his hair was breaking out of the hold of his hair gel, the way his brown eyes flicked around the room as he mentally weighed his options.

“Fine,” he said then and ran a hand through his hair, displacing it even more. “I’m—I don’t think I like Pearl being here.”

“Is it ‘cause you’re mad she didn’t make more effort to stay in touch?”

Jimmy shrugged. “Yeah, pretty much. I wanna be mad at her but I don’t think I can stay mad at her if she’s actually here.”

“Well, you could tell her that you only want her to stay the weekend,” Scott suggested. And in that case, Grian would leave sooner, too.

“I don’t know,” Jimmy said hesitantly. “She already thinks something’s up, and if I tell her I want her to leave on Sunday, she’s probably gonna ask, because technically I told her we would talk, just … later.”

Bummer. Scott raised his eyebrows at Jimmy. “She’s probably gonna do it anyway if she’s staying for the week, too.”

Jimmy groaned and rolled away. “Don’t remind me!”

Grian greeted the morning outside, the cold wind in their face. They liked the quiet of it, the stars having not quite faded from the february night.

It reminded them of home, wherever that was.

It saddened Grian, even though they didn’t even remember home. Even though they didn’t remember what of this clear winter morning reminded them of it.

They didn’t really think about it too much. Didn’t want to get a headache, for one, but they had a new home now. Even though they didn’t think it would be forever.

Grian sighed and shoved these useless thoughts away. They were a new person now, not that they knew what that entailed. What use was it to dwell on the past if they couldn’t remember it?

They laid back and wished they’d brought some blankets from inside, but on the other hand they didn’t want to wake Pearl. It was still early, after all, but even in a tank top and barefoot as they were, they weren’t cold. They were used to temperatures much colder than this, despite the snow coating the landscape around. The warmth radiating from the roof under them made their perch nice and warm. They could almost fall asleep like this …

Almost. If it weren’t for the fact that there were way too many thoughts in their head that didn’t make any sense. And so they just lay here, staring into the universe and hoping the universe didn’t stare back. That was, until the window next to them opened and Grian jumped out of their skin.

“What are you doing up here at—” Timmy interrupted himself and stared at his phone, then stared at Grian with even wider eyes, “—four in the morning?”

Grian blinked. “Stargazing?” They tried.

Timmy eyed their bare feet and shoulders. “You’re gonna catch fucking death, wait here.”

His head vanished, and Grian frowned, then shrugged and stared back up into the sky. They didn’t know how much time had passed until Timmy opened the window back up again, pushed a small basket and a bunch of fabric into Grian’s arms, and climbed out of the window himself, closing it behind him. Then he grabbed the blankets out of Grian’s hands and plucked a fuzzy sweater out of their depths, followed by a pair of big fluffy socks.

“Put them on,” he ordered and pushed them back into Grian’s hands, taking the basket in return.

“Okay?” Grian said slowly, but complied. Timmy wore similarly warm clothes. Maybe the people here were simply more susceptible to the cold, they thought.

“Good,” Timmy explained, then gave Grian one blanket and tucked the other one around himself. Then he gave them a hot water bottle from the basket too, and once Grian had placed it underneath their blanket, Timmy produced a thermos bottle and two cups from the basket as well. He filled the first cup with something that smelled like peppermint and handed it to Grian, then repeated the same for himself. “Pearl’s gonna kill me if you get sick the first night you’re here.

“I’m fine,” Grian insisted, but Timmy just gave them a Look.

“If you’re gonna stay out here, I’m gonna make sure you’re not catching a cold,” he said and shrugged, then took a sip of his tea. “Why’re you even up yet?”

Grian wrapped their hands around their mug and shrugged, staring at their reflection in the tea. “Can’t sleep. ‘sides, I like stargazing. Reminds me of home.”

“Yeah?”

They nodded slowly. “I … don’t know more than that, though. Just—it reminds me of home.”

“That’s fine,” Timmy said and smiled. “You don’t really have to remember anything.”

“I guess.” Grian glanced at him. “Just … it feels weird. Being so sure I’ve done this before, but not being able to know.“

“Have you done this before?” Timmy challenged. “Sitting on the roof with your, what? Second cousin? Cousin of your cousin? Is there even a proper term for it?”

Grian laughed. It was a small thing, more an exhale over a smile than anything, but they laughed.

“I’ve never sat on a roof drinking tea with my … Timmy before, that’s true.”

Timmy blinked at them, then his mouth fell open. “Your what?” Grian was still trying to understand what they did wrong when Timmy lightly punched their shoulder, not enough to spill their tea. “My name is Jimmy!”

Grian frowned at him. They had gotten Timmy’s name wrong earlier, but … “I’m pretty sure your name was Timmy.”

Timmy gasped in shock. “You called me Timmy earlier, but that is not my name!”

A mischievious smile spread on Grian’s face. “You sure about that, … Timmy?“

“Oh my god, I hate you,” Timmy exclaimed and shook his head, then quickly glanced back at them. “Not actually though.”

Grian just grinned at him, and Timmy groaned.

“You’re never gonna stop calling me Timmy, are you?”

Grian just shook their head, and then they both enjoyed the silence while each sipping on their tea. Grian was kinda glad now that Timmy had joined them. Staring out into the universe while having an existential crisis was a lot nicer if one wasn’t alone. Besides, even though Grian hadn’t been exactly cold before, curling up around a hot water bottle while clutching a mug of steaming tea was better than just sitting here in a tank top and pants.

“Say,” they started up again after a bit, glancing at Timmy. “Don’t you wanna go back to bed soon? It’s, what, four AM?”

Timmy shrugged. “You woke me up anyway, and I have plenty of time to sleep in anyway. Besides, I haven’t stargazed in years, it’s actually kinda nice for a change.”

“I don’t know.” Grian bit their lip. “It is kinda boring.”

Timmy raised his eyebrow. “Says the guy I caught stargazing in the middle of the night.”

“That’s because I like stargazing,” Grian argued. “I just think staring into the sky for like an hour is probably boring for some people.”

“Probably,” Timmy agreed. “I don’t think I have the patience to do it often, but that makes the few times I do it even more special, don’t you think?”

Grian shrugged. He wasn’t wrong.

Then they did a double take. “You said I woke you up?” they asked and turned around quickly, spilling some tea.

“I think you just bumped against the roof a few times? I’m not the heaviest sleeper. Besides,” Timmy added, “I often wake up once or twice a night. Most nights Scott kicks me in his sleep.” He scrunched up his face. “He pretends he doesn’t, but where else am I getting these bruises from?”

The corners of Grian’s mouth curled up in amusement, and they had to hold back a laugh. “As long as you’re getting enough sleep.”

“I do,” Timmy confirmed. “I’m a light sleeper, but usually I get back to sleep fairly quickly. Sometimes I don’t even remember being awake, actually, just wake Scott up to complain and go straight back to sleep, and I only know that that’s a thing because he lectures me in the morning, because he can’t fall back asleep as quickly as I do.”

This time, Grian giggled. “That’s what I would call karma.”

Timmy joined their laughter. “You’re not wrong there.”

When Pearl woke up the next morning, she could almost forget something had happened in the first place.

Almost.

The moment she’d first set eyes on Grian was seared into her memories. This weird, black, feathery thing that would unfold to reveal what she might almost be fooled into believing was a man. A weirdly skittish, yet trusting angelic carricature of a man. Even in this room, or downstairs in the living room, he seemed just slightly to the left of where a normal person would be. His weird knack for languages was a part of it, but so were his eyes that couldn’t quite fit into a human color scheme, swirling purple with the emotion he so desperately wanted to hide. They didn’t have a pupil, not really. Sometimes it might seem like there was a black void in their centers but it wandered, sometimes scattering completely into purple.

It was freaky, making sure that Pearl couldn’t quite forget that the being she was dealing with wasn’t quite natural. And even now, just after she woke up, the part on her that was running on instinct made her sit up and check that Grian was still where she expected him to be, not a threat.

His nest was empty though. So was the rest of the room. Did he go downstairs for breakfast already? Pearl pulled out her phone to check the time. Ten AM, not impossible.

She took her time getting up and ready, and then she made her way downstairs where she found Scott nursing a cup of coffee.

“Morning,” he mumbled and looked up.

“Morning,” Pearl responded, grabbed cup from the cupboard and poured herself a cup from the pot on the table, then added some milk and sugar. “Fell out of bed?”

“Jimmy woke me up last night,” Scott complained. “Said I kicked him, which I did not, and then he left me all alone. And then I couldn’t get to sleep for another half an hour and he woke me up again when he came back into bed all cold.”

Pearl raised her eyebrows. “Wow. Rude.”

“Right?” Scott exclaimed, then looked at her. “How’d you sleep, Pearl?”

Pearl shrugged. “Could be better. Had to share the nesting materials with Grian so mine wasn’t super comfy. But considering his was on the floor, mine actually might have been a lot more comfy. Have you seen him by the way?”

“Grian?” Scott shook his head. “I thought he’s still asleep.”

“Check the roof,” said a half-asleep Jimmy from the door. Pearl hadn’t even noticed he’d come in.

“The roof?” Pearl echoed. “Why would he be on the roof?”

“He likes stargazing,” Jimmy shrugged and plopped down next to Scott, dropping his head on his boyfriend’s shoulder. “Why did you leave me?”

“You left me last night,” Scott countered, but Pearl wasn’t really listening anymore. Stargazing? It must have been bright outside for like three hours at this point. But just like Jimmy had said, he found a bundle of blankets and red wings curled up on the roof, eyes closed, breathing softly.

With his eyes closed, one might almost think he was human, Pearl thought. There wasn’t really anything telling him apart from any other macaw avian—still, there was a sense of danger lingering about him, telling her that this man was something more than met the eye. Something ancient and dangerous, like he could disintegrate her with a snap.

The logical part of her didn’t think Grian was dangerous. Even as scared as he’d been upon waking up, he’d never attempted to harm her. He was part of her family now, because he didn’t have anyone else. He was part of her flock now. It didn’t matter, shouldn’t matter that she had plenty of time to overthink it as she was falling asleep, and now that she woke up. So she climbed up on the roof using the dresser underneath the window as a stepping stool, sat on the window sill, and reached out her hand to gently shake Grian awake.

Grian jumped when her hand touched his wing, whipping around to her with fear in his eyes, jolting backwards before recognition settled in them.

“Pearl!” he exclaimed. “You startled me.”

“Why were you sleeping on the roof?”

Grian blinked. “Uh. Fell asleep while stargazing,” he said and stuffed the things scattered around him in the basket. “Why, what’s up?”

“Breakfast,” Pearl explained. “Wanna come down?”

Grian blinked, then nodded, following her inside and down the stairs into the living room where Scott had prepared the table, dragging a sleepy Jimmy around with him.

Pearl could see a hint of a mischieveous smile on Grian’s face before he called out, “Morning Timmy, you sleep alright?”

Jimmy took a moment to react, half asleep as he was, and then he glared at Grian. “I was hoping you forgot about that overnight.”

“Whatever do you mean, Timmy?” Grian asked sweetly.

Jimmy just pointed at him with narrow eyes before declaring, “I’m disowning you.”

Grian feigned a shocked gasp. “You’re disowning me? Timmy, I’m wounded.”

Pearl scooted up to Scott, frowning at the pair. “What’s going on?” she whispered.

Scott shrugged. “Not sure, but it’s entertaining.”

Grian’s eyes locked in on them, and Pearl was reminded of the moment he first looked at her, all, like, two dozen eyes of his.

“I’m glad you find it entertaining that I’m being disowned,” Grian deadpanned, and that’s when Jimmy doubled over cackling. Now, Grian focused his attention on him. “And you.”

Jimmy stopped laughing and tried to be serious for just long enough to listen to what Grian had to say, but not very successful. His silence was broken by a snicker every now and then.

“Why do you think it’s funny to disown your cousin, huh?” Grian accused, pointing at him. “Pearl, tell Timmy it’s not okay to just disown your cousin.”

“Wha—” Pearl gasped and looked between Grian and Jimmy. “You’re my cousins, you’re not even related to each other.”

Without even looking at each other, Grian and Jimmy turned fully towards Pearl and dropped their jaws. “She did not just say that,” Jimmy said.

“No, I think she did,” Grian responded and looked back at him. “Can you believe her?”

“We’re definitely related,” Jimmy explained and nodded, as if that decided it. “By blood. That’s where you got your good looks from.”

Grian turned to him and raised his eyebrows. “From you? Keep dreaming, Timmy.”

“This is a fever dream,” Pearl whispered weakly.

“Can you even disown your cousins?” Scott wondered.

Jimmy considered that for a moment, then pointed at Grian and declared, “I’m writing you out of my will.”

“Not if I’m writing you out of my will first.“ Grian crossed his arms.

Pearl looked at Grian, then at Jimmy and back before throwing her hands in the air. “It’s way too early for this, I’m going back to bed.”

She went back upstairs to the sound of their laughter.

After a small bout of anxiety about Pearl leaving that was quickly soothed by Timmy and Scott, they started eating breakfast. Scott half hung around Timmy’s neck as he explained what they wanted to show Grian around here, and Timmy told them about their friends—”it’s mostly us and Martyn now, but Lizzie and Joel often come by as well, maybe we can invite them to dinner some day and introduce you.”

Grian was content to just watch, honestly. They might have gotten a bit more comfortable around them, especially around Timmy, but they were still wary. Of what, they weren’t sure. Either way, they were glad their new family gave them space to quiet down and open up at their own pace. It helped that Pearl told them yesterday that Grian couldn’t remember anything, because how could they tell them about themself when they got a headache when they tried?

Of course that was a problem they would have to address at some point, but for now it was a blessing in disguise. And they weren’t even sure if it was good memories that would await them—maybe there was a reason they forgot.

It didn’t take too long for Pearl to return. Grian perked up when they saw her, a visual reminder that she was not mad about the jokes earlier.

“I saved you a seat,” Grian explained, patting the seat next to them, and she sat down with an amused smile.

“I thought you would want to sit to your new best friend Timmy,“ she said and raised her eyebrows at her cousin while she plated a piece of toast for herself.

“Not you too!” Timmy groaned.

Grian laughed. “Well, sure, but you’re my cousin.”

Timmy gasped. “I’m your cousin too!” he protested, and when Grian looked, really looked, they found that Timmy looked amused, not mad.

“Yeah, but Pearl was my cousin first,” Grian declared then and poked out their tongue at the canary.

Timmy whipped his head around to Scott. “Can you believe them? The nerve.”

“Uh-huh,” Scott responded, surpressing a smile. “Very rude.”

“You’re laughing,” Timmy deadpanned. “Grian’s playing favorites and you’re laughing.“

“You’re my favorite though,” Scott tried, but Timmy just pouted.

“That’s just not the same.”

“Why’s that?”

“I’m your boyfriend, that means I’m automatically your favorite,” Timmy argued.

“So,” Scott asked, “Just because you got competition for your status as Grian’s favorite cousin that doesn’t matter anymore?”

Timmy hummed. “Maybe a little. As a treat.”

Scott grinned in satisfaction. “That’s better.” Then he pressed a kiss to Timmy’s lips.

“Gross,” Pearl commented. “Go get a room.”

“We live here,” Timmy countered in the same beat that Scott responded, “Oh, so now you’re homophobic.”

Pearl rolled her eyes at them. “Yes, yes, we’re all homophobic here, however there’s a more pressing matter at hands.”

“Oh?” Scott asked.

Grian startled when Pearl put her arm on the back of their chair. Somehow, they’d completely forgotten they were part of this conversation, not just a silent watcher from afar. “Grian needs a new wardrobe,” she declared. “Unless you want him to keep stealing your clothes.”

“Right,” Grian said. They hadn’t even thought about that. “Are we gonna do that today?”

Pearl nodded, “Yeah, I’d say so. You need some proper winter clothes after all, if you’re gonna hang out on the roof. And maybe we can get some more stuff for your nest that we can take with when we go home.”

“Sounds good.”

Grian and Pearl took their time getting ready. Timmy and Scott chipped in with some money for the visit to the local thrift store—“My pay is not good enough to get you all kitted out in a normal store,” Pearl had declared—, and Timmy had also supplied some shoes for Grian that were about three sizes too big for their small feet. They had to wear about five pairs of socks so they didn’t slide around in them uncomfortably. Pearl also wouldn’t leave without them wearing a thick winter jacket, a scarf, gloves, and a hat—all borrowed from Timmy. Even though Grian had protested that they didn’t need them, they didn’t mind the cold. But Pearl seemed to have her mind set on taking care of them, even if they didn’t need it.

“Alright,” Pearl said, looking up after adjusting their scarf. “One thing before you go. Your eyes are kinda unnaturally purple.”

Grian blinked. “Huh. What color are eyes supposed to be?”

Pearl pursed her lips. “Brown, blue, green and grey are most common. With how dark yours are, I think shifting the hue to brown might be enough.”

“Okay,” Grian said and frowned, focusing on trying to change the color of their eyes without actually seeing them, and then Pearl burst out laughing.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Wait,” Pearl said and pulled her phone out, giggling as she took a photo. Then she showed it to them, and … well, Grian saw the issue. Instead of shifting only the purple in their eyes to brown, they’d done the whites, too. They were about the color of Pearl’s hair now. Even the veins in them were a dark coffee brown without a hint of red.

Grian started laughing too, then tried again. “This better?” they asked, and this time Pearl nodded.

“Now your eyes look normal. If a bit sparkly.”

Grian tilted their head. “Is sparkly bad?”

“I don’t think it’s as noticeable as purple eyes, or brown whites,” Pearl pointed out and pulled the keys out of her pocket. “Let’s go?”

After the fifteen-minute car ride to go into town, Grian firmly decided that they didn’t like cars. The way avians were meant to travel was to fly with the wind in their feathers, not stuck in a stupid metal box.

Pearl, so it seemed, was amused by their suffering. She also insisted that they would need the car if they wanted to carry all the stuff they were getting for Grian home.

“Not if I carry everything in my arms,” Grian insisted stubbornly, and Pearl just laughed and walked ahead to the thrift store.

It was a quaint little shop, with cozy wood panelling on the walls, and a few plush armchairs next to a standing mirror next to the changing rooms. Facing towards the entrance was a wooden counter that looked old and worn, with an equally old lady standing behind it, her silvery hair pulled up into an elaborate bun. She looked up from her work as they entered with the ring of a bell.

“Good day,” she said with a smile that was only slightly staged. “What can I help you with today?”

“Uhm, my cousin here has come to visit me, but his luggage got lost during the flight,” Pearl lied. “So we kinda need an emergency wardrobe for him.”

“Alright, just let me know if you need help with anything,” the woman said, and Pearl steered Grian to the right side of the shop.

“Do you know your size?” she asked as she looked through the selection.

Grian just shook their head, putting back the hoodie they’d been looking at. Not their style. They pulled out a dark blue shirt next, but it didn’t really appeal to them either.

Grian and Pearl were almost completely down the rack with Grian only having agreed to try on one item when Pearl pulled out a baby pink hoodie.

“Why’s this in the men’s section?” she muttered, but before she could put it back, Grian snatched it out of her hand. Pearl stared at them for a moment, tilting her head in thought.

“It’s cute,” Grian explained. “I like it.” They inspected it further and grinned with glee when they discovered that it had cat ears. “I’ll be right back,” they said and bounced over to the changing room, excitedly pulling off his scarf, gloves, and hat, as well as Timmy’s sweater. Then they put on the white backless dress shirt which had been their only find before the hoodie, and then the hoodie on top. The dress shirt was only a bit too small, but the hoodie reached down to their mid-thigh, sleeves covering their hands when they were just hanging down. It didn’t have any wing-holes but it was wide enough that their wings weren’t uncomfortable, and maybe they could cut some into it later. They looked into the mirror and pulled the hood over their head, carefully tucking their headwings away.

Then they pulled back the curtains to show Pearl the fit.

“You do look cute,” she noted, and Grian couldn’t help but giggle. “Then I’ll be taking this,” they said and moved to go back to where the hoodie had caught their eyes. But then they realized that the clothes in this section of the store looked a lot more appealing at first glance. They pulled out a purple sweater and found it covered with swirls and star, showing it to Pearl. “Wouldn’t this be perfect?”

“I think it would fit your eyes,” Pearl said quietly, and Grian beamed. “Wait,” Pearl said then. “Let me check the size of what you’re wearing first.” She beckoned them to turn around and looked inside the back of their hoodie. “L, alright. What does the sweater say?”

Grian inspected the tag. “It’s M.”

“Considering the L is quite big on you it should still fit, but you should still try it on. You never know with women’s sizing.” And in the basket it went.

By the time they left the thrift store, Grian had scored about five different hoodies and sweaters, three dress shirts in different colors, two skirts, and three pairs of jeans, as well as a white winter coat paired with pink gloves, scarf and hat that Grian put on before even leaving the store. The cashier had looked at them weird upon checking out, but Grian couldn’t bring themself to care. Too happy were they with their choice of clothing.

They left the store with a spring in their step, carrying two bags in one hand.

“Grian?” Pearl asked quietly, and they turned around to her. She looked a bit hesitant, a small frown knitting her eyebrows.

“What’s up?”

“I like the clothes you picked,” she started. “They’re very cute. I just wondered, uhm …” She quieted down, looking away, and Grian tilted their head in question.

“Yeah?”

“Is the way we refer to you okay? Grian and he?”

Grian blinked, frowned, then blinked again. “Yeah? What other way would you refer to me?” It was their name and the third person pronoun, there literally wasn’t any other way to refer to them if she wasn’t gonna drop the pronoun and just use their name.

Pearl smiled though, like that answered her questions. “Alright then, thanks.”

“You’re welcome?” they asked, still confused. But they didn’t get to ask another question because they reached the shoe store and Pearl lead the way inside.

By the time they reached the car to put the last purchases away, the dull greyness of this winter day had started fading into night. The sky wasn’t clear enough for stars, not by a long shot, and the weather forecast predicted rain.

“Alright,” Pearl said and shut the trunk. “I’d say that was a good haul.” They’d gotten a nice pair of black lace-up boots for Grian, a touch feminine with small heels, and after that Grian had raided the make-up aisle of the local drug store. They’d also gotten him toiletries, a new phone—an old, cheap model because this entire shopping spree was already expensive enough, despite the thrift store being really affordable—, some tights to go with his skirts, and a handful accessories. It was more than Pearl planned on spending, even with Jimmy and Scott’s contributions, and used up a few hundred dollars from her savings that was meant for decorating when Gem moved in, but … well, Pearl couldn’t bring herself to be upset when she saw how happy Grian was with his new wardrobe. Maybe she could have borrowed him some clothes until he’d earned some money, considering how feminine his style was, but … well, that was something to talk about anyway.

Pearl plopped down in the driver’s seat, Grian sitting down next to her. She instructed him to put on the seatbelt because he’d plain forgotten earlier, then tightened hers.

“Today was really fun,” Grian exclaimed, practically vibrating in his seat.

“And expensive,” Pearl reminded him. “We’re not gonna be able to do that regularly.”

“That’s okay,” Grian said. “I’ve got a lot now, I don’t think I need to go shopping for a while.”

Pearl was quiet for a moment, not sure how to word this. She chewed on her lips and glanced at how happy Grian was. She didn’t want to burst that bubble.

But Gem had said she’d kick her ass if she got too people-pleaser-y (or something along those lines, anyway), and Pearl thought it would be better to not even start being a people pleaser with Grian. That would make being firm with him easier in the long run, she knew that from experience. Not that that made it any easier.

“So here’s the thing,” she blurted out before she had any more time to overthink this. “I’ve spent quite a bit of my savings today, and I’ll need to cover some costs for you going forward if you live with me so—” She took a deep breath. “I’d appreciate it if you got a job when we go back to Hermitopia.”

Grian glanced at her, not at all upset or even a slightly dampened mood. “Of course,” he said. “That would just be fair.”

Pearl breathed a sigh of relief. So that was taken care of, too.

By the time Grian and Pearl arrived at Timmy and Scott’s house, the sky was almost completely black, with only a small sliver of light on the horizon. Pearl helped Grian the bags inside—they had to admit that they were too many to carry in flight, even between the two of them—, then once they were plopped down next to their nest, they shooed Pearl out of the room to get changed. They wouldn’t mind her presence when they changed, but Pearl had done the same with them last night when she got ready for bed, so they figured it was just a social norm to change in separate rooms.

Grian changed out of the winter gear they were wearing, then put the clothes they’d been wearing since yesterday into a pile next to his nest. Timmy’s sweater found a place with the rest of Timmy’s clothes that they had borrowed for the outing.

Then they went through the clothes Pearl had gotten them today and picked out a thin sweater, the cat-ear hoodie, some leggings, a black skirt and some fluffy white socks with paw prints on the soles. Then they fished the box with their new-old phone from one of the bags and went downstairs to find Pearl who had promised to set it up with them.

“You were right,” Scott said to Pearl pretty much the moment Grian opened the door. “He is a femboy.”

Grian was not sure what a femboy was, nor did they care. Instead they just plopped onto the couch next to Pearl and pulled the phone out of the box. “So how do I set this up?”

They watched as she tapped on the screen, selecting options that meant nothing to them while Scott and Timmy were watching something on Timmy’s phone in the background. Then she turned around to them.

“We need to make an e-mail for you now,” Pearl explained. Upon their confused reaction, she explained, “You’ll need it to use some apps, especially ones that let you talk to other people. It’s like an online mailbox.”

“Sure,” Grian shrugged.

“Usually you would use your name for the first half of it. I’d say you get my last name because of the way they’re passed down. Technically it’s plausible you have a different one because according to the cover story you’re the son of my dad’s sister, but it’s not that far-fetched that we share one. So let’s do grian.moon for the first part.”

Grian nodded. “So my full name is Grian Moon, then?” they said, focusing on how the name felt in their mouth. It seemed good enough.

Pearl started laughing, suddenly. It startled him. “Sorry,” she said after a moment. “I just realized I named you ‘Sun Moon’.”

Grian let out a startled laugh, and Timmy called over from where he and Scott sat on the other couch, “What about a star-themed middle name? Then you’re the entire night sky.”

The corners of their mouth curled upwards. That was actually silly enough for them to be completely on board with it. “Whatcha got in mind, Timmy?”

Timmy didn’t even react to the nickname, instead tapping on his phone for a bit. “How about Astra? Stella’s a girl’s name …” He scrolled some more. “Then there are some names of stars, like Lyra, or Sirius, or Vega. And a long list of names that would probably be strange for a white-looking man.”

Grian hummed. “I don’t think I like Sirius. Not sure about Stella and Vega, either.” They tilted their head and tried out their full name with both Lyra and Astra, and after a few minutes of deliberation—and being watched by Pearl, Timmy, and Scott—, they decided on Astra.

“Grian Astra Moon,” Pearl repeated, eyes twinkling with amusement. “Want me to use that glorious full name for your e-mail, then?”

Grian grinned. “Please do.”

She asked them to type in a password then—“Not your full name, as funny as that may be,” Pearl warned—, one that they needed to remember, and they needed a good few minutes to settle on one, slapping on some numbers and symbols at the end. They scribbled it down on the post-its that were lying on the coffee table and stuffed it into a pocket.

“You better memorize that,” Pearl instructed, then did some more taps and pulled up an app. “I’m gonna give you some essential apps. Discord ‘cause that’s what I mostly use for messaging, WhatsApp ‘cause that’s used by a lot of people too, Firefox ‘cause Google Chrome sucks, and Spotify ‘cause me and Gem have a subscription and I can add you to our plan once you sign up. The rest, we can see about later.”

Grian nodded, took their phone from her and signed up to the apps, set their nickname as ‘🌞⭐🌙’ in both WhatsApp and Discord, and the account name in Discord and Spotify as sunstarmoon because Pearl recommended not to use their real name, “in case you make some online friends,” whatever that meant.

Then they got added to two group chats, one on either platform, both called ‘Cousins (and Scott)’, that had both four members in total. On Discord, Pearl, Scott and Timmy changed their names to their actual first names—well, Timmy set his to ‘Jimmy’ but Pearl changed it to ‘Timmy’ which got a groan in response.

Cousins (and Scott)

Cousins (and Scott)

This is the beginning of the Cousins (and Scott) group.

22 February 2025

	Timmy 5:24 PM only Grian is allowed to call me that :(
	Pearlo 5:24 PM Timmy
	Scott 5:24 PM Timmy
	🌞⭐🌙 5:24 PM Timmy
	Timmy 5:25 PM I hate all of you 3 Except for you Grian

Message Cousins (and Scott)

Grian giggled at the special treatment as Scott called out a complaint and slapped Timmy’s shoulder, then sent everyone a friend request after Pearl showed them how to. She then showed them which number on WhatsApp corresponded to whom, showing them how to save them. Of course, Timmy got saved under ‘Timmy’ here, too.

Grian spent some time to figure out the camera app to make themself a profile picture, and Pearl took some photos for them, too, as well as sending them the ones she already had. Then they set a profile picture for the few apps they had before working on personalizing their Discord a little. When they were done, it looked a little like this:

🌞⭐🌙 sunstarmoon • idc About me Nice to meet you! Member since 22 Feb 2025

When Pearl said she wanted to talk that night, when Grian had already gone upstairs to explore the depths of the internet without anyone watching over his shoulder and Scott was already getting ready for bed because he had work tomorrow, Jimmy could feel his stomach lurch.

It wasn’t that he expected or hoped she’d forgot, just …

If he wasn’t a coward, he might have admitted that was what it was. But he was, and he didn’t, instead asking her what was up, pretending he wasn’t hoping another creature fell right from the sky, crashing right into this house so he wouldn’t have to hold this conversation. But the universe, despite giving him a cousin, didn’t favor him.

“You said we’d talk later,” Pearl pointed out, and Jimmy kept himself from groaning at that. “It’s later now.”

“It’s later, indeed,” he grumbled, then sighed. “Honestly, I don’t think it’s that bad though. We don’t have to talk about it.”

Pearl just glared at him, and that was the moment he realized she wouldn’t let him get away without an explanation. “I’m like ninety percent sure not talking is the entire reason why you’re holding this grudge in the first place,” she countered and … well, she wasn’t exactly wrong.

“Possibly,” Jimmy confirmed and looked away.

“Possibly?” Pearl repeated, louder. “You told me you’ve made your peace with me leaving. You told me you forgave me for not telling you earlier. So why the hell have you had not a single nice thing to tell me since I arrived? It’s like you don’t even want me here!”

“I didn’t ask for you to be here,” Jimmy snapped, and immediately regretted it when it gave Pearl pause. And he certainly didn’t like how small she sounded when she spoke.

“I thought you would be happy to see me.”

Jimmy looked away because anything was better than to see the way Pearl looked at him now. He wasn’t sure how he had felt when he opened the door, he just knew he wasn’t happy. Shocked, more like. He’d been too stunned to speak, not knowing what to say to the woman that had pushed into his home while explaining that she had the week off and wanted to catch up.

“I wasn’t expecting it is all,” Jimmy responded, hesitant to say what he really felt, what Pearl certainly didn’t want to hear.

Pearl was quiet for a moment, then said, with a harsher tone, “You weren’t happy to see me then?”

Jimmy’s heart stopped for a moment, then he hurried to say, “I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t not say that.” Pearl sighed. “Can’t you just be honest for once?”

Jimmy winced. If he was honest, then … what? Pearl would know that he was mad at her, and she would probably decide it wasn’t even worth it to get back in touch with him then. It wasn’t like he had made any real effort to reach out to her after he’d realized that she’d stopped texting first. Yes, maybe a message for her birthday and one for Christmas, but that was it. What if she came to the conclusion that he didn’t want her in his life and left him behind all over again?

They sat in silence for what felt like hours but was probably only a few minutes at most. Then, Pearl stood up, and Jimmy’s eyes snapped to look at her, wide with fear. So this was it, huh? Her leaving.

“If you don’t wanna talk, I can’t force you, but …” Pearl looked away. “I just … We can’t fix this if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”

“Wait,” Jimmy said before she had an opportunity to leave, reaching out and grasping her hand. When she looked at him in surprise, his stomach lurched. He hadn’t thought any further than making sure she stayed now.

“Yeah?” she asked and turned back around to face him, not yet sitting down.

“I may be an idiot,” Jimmy said because while his fear didn’t quite let him say the things he’d rehearsed in his head probably a million times by now, he had to say something.

“You are,” Pearl confirmed, a surprised chuckle escaping her.

Jimmy frowned, looked away for a bit, then steeled himself and looked into her eyes. There was confusion, guilt, and fear in them.

Pearl didn’t suddenly stop caring about him, he realized. She wouldn’t be afraid of what he had to say, then, or gone through this whole ordeal of planning with Scott to take time off the same time Jimmy had, just so she could come here and surprise him. He knew she hadn’t been doing well after she broke the news of her move and her friends hadn’t talked to her for weeks after. He’d thought she would be over it by now.

Just like she would think he was over it. After all, hadn’t he told her that he forgave her for leaving so suddenly? All their friends did, and it seemed like he was the only one still holding a grudge, even up until she left. And then, because they hadn’t talked in months at that point, Jimmy had gotten scared. Scared that she would leave him behind, leave for the big city and never return. And he couldn’t bear that thought, so he had rang at her door until she opened, demanding to talk even though he felt far from ready. And then he had broken down and told her he forgave her, lied to her so she wouldn’t abandon him. And for what? It still happened after all. All because he was so stupid, because he couldn’t be honest.

Jimmy closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then he looked at her. “I’m sorry for lying to you.” He bit his lip, gathering the courage to say the words he had sealed away deep inside for almost eleven years now, coming to terms with the fact that it would hurt her—but staying silent might hurt her even more. So then he opened his mouth to say, “I still haven’t forgiven you.”

Jimmy’s words were like a punch to the gut. Even though Pearl had expected it, she gasped, and she had to sit down because it felt like she was falling. She broke Jimmy’s grip and sat down, curling her knees to her chest and wrapping her hands around them, white-knuckled. Her talons were digging into her palms, but that was good now. Grounding, now that the pain inside her was matched by the outside. She took a few deep breaths, trying to slow them, and suddenly Jimmy was fussing over her, telling her to look at him, telling her to breathe.

Suddenly, Pearl unwound her arms from around her, remembering a grounding technique she had learned back when her mental health took a nosedive about eleven years ago. She tapped her thumbs to the tips of her fingers; index, middle, ring, pinky. Then the other way around. She repeated that a couple of time, then continued the pattern on one hand while reversing it on the other hand. It took a lot of focus to not stumble and sync both hands back to the same pattern, and she could feel her flattering nerves start to calm down. Her breaths were longer and deeper now, and the feeling of falling was … while still there, it felt less present. Less overwhelming. Less all-consuming.

She took a moment to gather the courage to look at Jimmy again, see the guilt and worry warring on his face. “I’m okay now,” she said, then made a face at the lie that had slipped out of her without a second thought. “Or, well,” she corrected herself, “at least I’m not on the way to a panic attack now.”

Jimmy winced and looked away, and the emotions on his face were softening. And because Pearl was his cousin, because they were friends for years, she knew that was not a good thing, so she tutted at him. “Eyes on me, Jimmy.” He didn’t listen, not at first, so she tried it again, now firmer.

His eyes slowly dragged across the space between them to meet hers, and Pearl forced a small smile, only for a moment. “There you are. I …” She looked away briefly but then focused her gaze back on him. “You might have hurt me but … Thank you for saying it.”

Jimmy’s eyebrows pulled together, confusion furrowing his expression as his eyes searched her face. “Why are you thanking me? I haven’t forgiven you.”

“Jimmy,” Pearl said gently and placed one of her hands on his, discarding the grounding technique because she could use this to ground herself, too. “Jimmy,” she repeated and squeezed it. “It’s out in the open now. When you told me you forgave me, I believed you, and why wouldn’t I? I thought we were fine now, so I acted like we were. But we weren’t—aren’t—, and so acting like we were fine just destroyed us further. Because we couldn’t talk about it, we had to hide it, and it was eating us from the inside.” She smiled tentatively. “But now it’s out in the open, that we’re not okay. Now both of us know. So we don’t have to act like we’re fine now. We can actually address this.”

“I guess you’re right.” Jimmy quieted down, looking away.

“Why don’t we start at the beginning?” Pearl asked. “What was going through your head when I told you I was moving?”

“I thought you were joking at first,” Jimmy said after a moment. “But then I realized you’re not and I just—I wondered why you only said something two months before we graduated. Like, we’ve been talking about college all year and you never thought it important to mention you’re going away, even if it’s only two hours away. And that just pissed me off. Because we all planned to go to college together, we made so many plans, and you knew all this time that you wouldn’t actually follow them.”

Pearl opened her mouth to say something, but Jimmy didn’t notice, barreling on. His voice was louder now, more agitated. “And then you didn’t even put in effort to stay in touch! I mean, sure, you texted lots at first, at least in the group chat, and then it just got less and less, and I know you were busy, but so were we! And you barely visited, and even when you did you spent most of your time meeting Lizzie. And then Lizzie met Joel, all because of you, and then she decided to move away too, and now Martyn got sick of third-wheeling so it’s basically just Scott and me now, and I’m sick of it. And now that I just met Grian and started getting along with him, you’re taking him away, too.”

So Pearl’s feeling had been right. Things had never been the same after she’d told them wouldn’t go to uni with them, but she thought that it was only Jimmy that was suffering because of her decisions. But she never even realized that she was the reason their friend group fell apart. She’d worried about it, sure, when her anxiety got the better of her, but she’d always thought it was just her trauma talking. And now … She had been the reason Joel and Lizzie met in the first place. If it wasn’t for her, Lizzie wouldn’t have moved to Hermitopia, and then Martyn wouldn’t have been third-wheeling, and then their friendship wouldn’t have broken apart. It really was all her fault, wasn’t it? Why hadn’t she tried harder to stay in contact? Why had she decided to study in Hermitopia in the first place? She genuinely couldn’t remember anymore.

“I’m so sorry,” she forced out, burying her face in her arms so Jimmy wouldn’t see the tears silently streaming down her face.

“Wait,” he said then, sounding shocked. “Are you crying?”

“Am not,” Pearl lied, but she couldn’t stop a sob from shaking her. “I—I’m just so sorry, Jimmy, I’ve been a terrible cousin.”

“Pearl … Pearl, no,” Jimmy stammered, then he hesitantly wrapped his arm around her which made her jump, knocking her head against his chin.

“Ow,” he complained, and Pearl sat up hurriedly, staring at him with wide eyes, holding the hurting spot on her head.

“Oh my god, are you okay?”

Jimmy made a face. “I’ll live,” he responded, and then he looked at her and started laughing.

“What?” Pearl asked, taken completely aback.

“Just, this,” he explained and spread his arms, still chuckling. “The entire situation. We’re both worried the other one’s gonna hate us but we still worry about each others so much, even when we literally just hurt each other.”

Pearl made a face. “I don’t understand what’s so funny about that, though.”

“I’m not sure, I just … the headbutt was so unexpected, and the way you looked at me after—I don’t know, I was so worried when I realized you’re crying, and then you fucking headbutted me, and then you looked at me like your biggest concern was that you didn’t, I don’t know, break my jaw, even though I just made you cry—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh at you.”

Pearl let out a chuckle. “You know, it is quite silly when you put it like that.” She tried a hesitant smile.

“I guess it’s a good sign for me though, that you worry about me despite everything,” Jimmy pointed out. “Means you can’t be too mad at me.”

Pearl frowned. “I … I don’t think I’m mad at you, really,” she explained then. “Maybe I am, but I’m mad at myself more.”

Jimmy frowned at her. “What? Why’s that?”

Pearl just gave him a Look. “Because I broke our entire fucking friend group apart and I didn’t even notice?”

Jimmy paled at that, his eyes widening. “Wha—That’s not what I meant!”

“It’s what you said,” Pearl snapped and felt the tears burning in her eyes. “And you’re not even wrong! I hurt people, I leave them, that’s what I do. It’s always been that way.”

Jimmy just stared at her, stunned. “I—no, I didn’t mean it, I mean … yes, I had that thought way more often than I would like, but it’s the kind of thought you have when you’re really not doing well, but when you’re okay you’re aware it’s not true.”

Pearl just glared at him. “You don’t have to lie to me to protect my feelings.”

“I’m not!” Jimmy sputtered. “Genuinely. I said it in the heat of the moment, because everything I’ve kept locked inside bubbled to the surface. I promise you that’s not what I actually think. It’s very well possible that Lizzie might have met Joel somewhere else, or that Martyn would have naturally drifted away even if you’d stayed. It was an unfortunate series of events, it’s not your fault.”

Pearl just looked at him with something akin to desperation in her eyes, and she just slowly shook her head. “I’m sorry, Jimmy, I—you’ve lied to me for so long, I don’t think I can believe you.”

When Pearl went back upstairs, she hesitated in front of the office before deciding against entering, heading to the window to the roof instead. Maybe some company could be nice, but Pearl usually prefered to be alone when she got like this.

When she opened the window, she found that the roof was occupied already. Grian sat there, phone in slender fingers that were red from the cold, holding a steaming mug in the other hand. He looked up upon the creaking of the window, smiling at her before his face fell. “Have you been crying?”

Pearl wanted to be alone, that was why she’d come to the roof in the first place, and there was something about Grian that strengthened her fears and anxiety, convincing her that she would always ruin everything—

But she was already here, and while she prefered to be alone when she got caught up in her own head, she knew that being around people helped. So, after some hesitation, she pulled herself through the window and sat next to Grian, closing it behind her.

“I should have guessed you were on the roof again,” Pearl said instead of answering, then plopped her head onto Grian’s shoulder. “This okay?”

Grian nodded and put his phone in the pocket of his hoodie before wrapping an arm and wing around her back, tucking her into his side. Pearl would have thought that his skin would be cold after sitting in the cold for god knows how long, but he was unnaturally warm, like a human furnace. Now that she thought of it, she could remember he’d been even warmer when Jimmy and her carried him to the car.

“How are you feeling?” Grian asked. “If you wanna talk about it.”

Pearl frowned, thinking about it. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to tell him about the entire thing with Jimmy, afraid he would leave her too if she did, so all she said was, “I had a small fight with Jimmy, I don’t really wanna talk about it. I … feel afraid, I guess? And guilty. But mostly numb.”

She saw Grian nod from the corner of his eyes, like he knew what that felt like. “I don’t think I’m a stranger to numbness,” he said. “It … feels familiar, like an old friend. Which, uh, isn’t actually a good thing from what I can tell about emotions.”

“Yeah,” Pearl agreed. “I’ve been going numb for a long time now, I think. Not sure there ever was a time I didn’t do it, just … ever since I started actually confronting my emotions instead I noticed that the times I go numb just make me worse at it. Like—” she paused, not sure how to phrase it.

“—Like your emotions overwhelm you more easily ‘cause you’re not used to them,” Grian suggested, and Pearl nodded.

“Yeah. That. Which is really annoying when I actually want to try to deal with my emotions in a healthy way for once.”

Grian nodded, then asked, “Do you know what helps keep you from going numb?”

“Movement,” Pearl said. “But you’re too comfy. Like a heater.”

Grian moved around a little so he could look at her more easily, then asked, “What about physical sensations? Cold?”

Pearl shrugged. “Never tried those. Besides, it’s cold around me now, but I think talking to you helps more, actually.”

Grian was silent for a moment, then, “Can I try something?”

Pearl shrugged. “Go for it.”

Grian moved the arm he had wrapped around her then, touching his hand to the back of her neck. Then it suddenly dropped by about thirty degrees—Celsius, the only correct way to measure temperature; she never warmed up to using Fahrenheit—while the rest of Grian’s body temperature stayed warm.

Pearl sqawked and shivered at the sudden cold. “What are you doing?”

“Is it working?”

Pearl frowned. “I don’t think I can quite tell yet.”

“Then just let me know when you want me to stop.”

Pearl nodded. “Will do.”

They sat in quiet for a while, watching the neighborhood, and Grian sipping on his tea. It was quiet, a small layer of nearly undisturbed snow that had fallen from just after they returned until about an hour ago covering the world. Some windows along the street were lit, but it was late enough that some people had already gone to bed.

Pearl watched along on the TV in one of the lit windows. It was some football—soccer—game, but she had no clue who was playing.

“So,” Grian broke the silence after a while, “I was wondering about something.”

“Yeah?” Pearl asked and directed his attention back at him.

“I haven’t really thought about it at the moment but I’ve been thinking about what you said when we left the thrift shop.”

“About your gender?” Pearl asked, and Grian tilted his head.

“See, I didn’t realize that that was what you were talking about. I didn’t mind the way you refer to me so I didn’t say anything.” Grian furrowed his brows. “So, what kind of genders do humans have?”

Pearl blinked at him, taken aback. Reminded again that he wasn’t human. “Uh. That’s … not really that simple,” she said, and Grian shrugged with the shoulder that wasn’t being used as a headrest.

“I have time.”

“Okay,” Pearl responded. “So, for a long time people thought there were only two genders, men and women. Men impregnating women, and women carrying the babies, and it was determined who’s what depending on the genitals they were born with. The idea of those two genders being the only option was perpetuated especially by colonialism and Christianity. Actually, there’s intersex people, too. Those have some mutations that cause them to be born with features that aren’t quite one or the other. And then there’s trans people,” Pearl explained. “They don’t feel like the gender they were assigned fits to them so they transition to a gender presentation that feels more them. Some of them are women, some of them men and some of them are neither. And that’s why I asked you about the pronouns too.”

“Huh,” Grian said, “I don’t really notice a difference about third person pronouns to be honest. Well, other than singular and plural, that is. Can you repeat the options for me?”

Grian watched the way Pearl’s mouth shaped the words as she explained the most common options, repeating after her. “I’m using she/her,” she explained then. “So does my girlfriend. Scott and Jimmy use he/him, but you’ve been using their correct pronouns so far. I guess your weird language thing is helping with that.”

Grian nodded. “Must be, because the language I’m perceiving only has one singular third person pronoun. You could say it’s refering to everyone as they/them.”

“How about you then?” Pearl asked. “Do you have any preference or do you just not care about your pronouns because they all sound the same to you anyway?”

“I don’t care,” Grian said. “It’s not like I have a gender, anyway.”

Pearl looked at him perplexed. “You don’t?”

Grian shook his head. “I think what would best describe me is probably intersex? Except I don’t really have any genitals.”

Pearl scrunched up her face in confusion. “How do you use the bathroom then?”

“I do have the holes for that,” Grian shrugged one-sidedly. “Just nothing around them, though I could probably change that with my shapeshifting.”

“You can still be intersex and a man or a woman though,” Pearl pointed out. “The way your body looks doesn’t have to go hand in hand with how a body of your gender typically looks.”

Grian was lost in thought for a bit, taking a few sips of his tea, and then he said, “I don’t really feel any strong way about my gender. And, like, the style I would be most happy with would be just cute, but I don’t think that ties into my gender.”

“I’m a woman,” Pearl explained then. “After meeting Cleo—she’s enby just like you and uses she/they—I’ve decided to fuck around with my gender expression and pronouns a bit in case I’m not actually a woman, but I’m utterly and completely cis. Cis meaning my gender identity is the same as the one that was assigned to me at birth.”

Grian hummed in thought. “Would that mean that an intersex enby person can also be cis?”

Pearl blinked. “I guess that probably varies from person to person. While identities usually have a clear-cut definition, not everyone follows them strictly, so I guess there might be some intersex enbies out there who do consider themselves cis.”

“So if I was born with the gender markers I have now, which is to say none, and my gender is also pretty much non-existent I could call myself cis?”

“Probably.”

Grian and Pearl sat with each other for good part of the night, cuddled up together on the roof. Pearl had advised him to put his cold hand away at some point, which had then settled on her shoulder, warming her.

When Grian finished his tea, he went back down to the kitchen to fill a thermos can so Pearl could have some too, and she missed his warmth by her side. She pulled out her phone to text Gem.

Gem <3

Gem <3 Yesterday at 8:23 PM Hi pearl, how's it going? Have u talked to jimmy yet?

23 February 2025

	Pearlo 1:35 AM Yea hi it didn't really go that well? I mean it was'nt like I didn't expect it, but he did in fact not forgive me Also apparently its my fault that lizzie left too, and thar martyn drifted away too Jimmy tried to tell me it isn't but its kinda obvious. Besides he's the one who said it first Grian's been cheering me up a bit tho. They landed earlier tody bc they really just wnated to get away from their family His luggage got lost tho so we went to a thrift stoer to get him some stuff for now, and some other stuff Some other stores I mean (Also they use any pronousn) She's getting along really well ith jimmy which I'm glad they get along Jimmy immediately adopted them as his cousin too
	@Pearlo Jimmy tried to tell me it isn't but its kinda obvious. Besides he's the one who said it first
	Gem <3 1:37 AM I'm gonna kick his ass
	Pearlo 1:37 AM Gem
	Gem <3 1:37 AM WHAT He deserves it
	Pearlo 1:38 AM Also fem *gem Bw proud of me I told grian to get a job and he said it would only be fair 1
	Gem <3 1:38 AM Fuck yea!!!

Message Gem <3

Pearl looked up when she heard the window squeak open. Grian handed her the thermos, then climbed out on the roof.

“Hey,” she asked as he poured himself a cup. “I was just talking to Gem, wanna meet her?”

Grian glanced at her, a smile on his face. “Sure!”

“I can make a group chat,” Pearl suggested. “Or I could ask her if she’s free to call.”

Grian shrugged. “Whatever she prefers.”

Gem <3

	Pearlo 1:40 AM Grian came back and I offered to introduce you to him. I was thinking of making a group chat (which I'm probably gonna make anyway), but we could call too
	Gem <3 1:41 AM Actually i was about to go to sleep, how about you make that group chat and maybe i'll text a bti tonight and then maybe we could call tmr or sth 1

Message Gem <3

Pearl created a group chat and invited both Grian and Gem to it.

The Sun, the Moon and the Stars

The Sun, the Moon and the Stars

This is the beginning of the The Sun, the Moon and the Stars group.

23 February 2025

	Pearlo 1:43 AM Hi
	Gem <3 1:43 AM Hi
	🌞⭐🌙 1:44 AM Hi Gem, nice to meet you OMG, are we all me here?
	Pearlo 1:44 AM Grian’s the sun, I’m the moon and you gem are the stars. Bc gemini yk? nO
	Gem <3 1:44 AM You 2 Lol How r u doing
	Pearlo 1:44 AM Grian's name means sun star moon fyi 3 3 3 Like their irl name 1
	🌞⭐🌙 1:44 AM Good, hanging out with Pearl. I just brought us some tea. How about you?
	Gem <3 1:44 AM WHO CAME UP WITH THAT 2 Oooh what kind I'm good too, probably gonna sleep soon
	🌞⭐🌙 1:45 AM Peppermint. Timmy gave me some to try and it's nice
	Gem <3 1:45 AM Wait whos timmy?
	Pearlo 1:45 AM My cousin
	Gem <3 1:45 AM JIMMY????
	🌞⭐🌙 1:45 AM That's what I said ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 2
	Gem <3 1:46 AM Youre a weird one
	🌞⭐🌙 1:46 AM Life is too boring to not be weird ☆*: .｡. o(≧▽≦)o .｡.:*☆
	Pearlo 1:46 AM How would you know
	🌞⭐🌙 1:46 AM Rude wHY IS DID THAT BECOME AN EMOJI
	Gem <3 1:47 AM Skill issue
	🌞⭐🌙 1:47 AM Rude : (
	Pearlo 1:47 AM Lol U can turn that off in settings
	🌞⭐🌙 1:48 AM :( Yay ☆*: .｡. o(≧▽≦)o .｡.:*☆
	Pearlo 1:48 AM hOW DID U FIND THOSE
	🌞⭐🌙 1:48 AM Tumblr 1
	Gem <3 1:48 AM Omg you have a tumblr??
	Pearlo 1:48 AM SINCE WHEN
	Gem <3 1:48 AM We can be mutuals im geminitay
	🌞⭐🌙 1:49 AM Sunstarmoon, following you now I haven't posted anything yet tho, I only made it today Only've been lurking so far Idek where to start lol
	Gem <3 1:50 AM I can give you a crash course tmr if u want 1
	🌞⭐🌙 1:50 AM Yay!
	Gem <3 1:50 AM Ok I think i'll go to sleep now its almost 2am Good night pearl, good night grain GRIAN Stupid autocorrect 1
	Pearlo 1:50 AM Night gem!
	🌞⭐🌙 1:50 AM Good night, Gem, and thanks for the help!

Message Cousins (and Scott)

The next few days passed in much the same fashion: Grian woke up, on the roof when the night had been clear because they felt calmer, safer up there. Then they went to breakfast, some days only with Pearl, on others Timmy was there, too. Scott had to work again two days after they went shopping, which meant that he had to leave too early for him to be able to have breakfast with them. But from the time Grian did spend with Scott, they could gather that he did not like them very much. They couldn’t base it on any concrete evidence, it was more vibes, but it was enough to convince them.

During the days, Grian explored the internet, mostly, devouring any and all information they could find about this world. They watched documentaries with Pearl and went exploring with her and Timmy. Their outings were awkward; obviously the argument between Pearl and Timmy hadn’t been fully resolved. But when he talked to them about it, seperately, they both said it was fine.

Grian called bullshit.

Today, Grian was out by himself, though. It’s been six days since he had fallen from the sky, it was Wednesday, and Timmy had asked Pearl to talk some more. Grian hoped they would resolve the conflict and get along again, and they’d left the house to give them space. They weren’t sure how long they’ve been out, but they had long left the town behind, walking along barren fields now. They were glad Pearl had shown them how to use Google Maps a few days ago, otherwise they were sure they wouldn’t have found the way home.

They reached a forest soon after, and they were not sure what compelled them to wander into it and possibly get lost, even leaving the trails, but it was nice. There was some snow around, patchy where it fell between the branches high above. They were alone, mostly, some birds chirping in the distance. Grian happily chirped back.

Eventually they reached a strange clearing, the trees black with soot for a few meters from its edge. Big purple-ish black feathers were strewn all over the place, and Grian picked one up to inspect it. From what they’d learned the past few days, he had learnt that there were no birds around here that got feathers even close to this size, and comparing it to their own wings, it seemed too big for an avian, too. Still, something about it seemed familiar, so they unfurled their wings, all six of them.

That was when they realized that their wings had originally been a lot bigger, before they had copied Pearl’s. The primary feathers of their lowest pair of wings dragged on the ground, and the feathers from the middle one almost touched it, too. And their wings were similarly iridescent to the feather in their hand that now seemed dull in comparison.

Was this the clearing where Timmy and Pearl had found them, then? Grian stepped further into it and slipped on a layer of ice that was hidden beneath the snow, but before they could even attempt to regain their balance or hit the ground, two hands in their back caught them and placed them back on their feet. “Careful,” chided an oddly familiar gentle voice that echoed in their head.

“Who’s there?” Grian demanded, looking around and almost slipping again, two hands stabilizing their shoulders, and when they looked down they found two dark silvery-blue hands, translucent and fading at the wrists. “What the—”

“A friend,” the voice said, non-committally, and the hands moved away, fading into nothingness.

“Are you the one who’s been watching me?” they asked, but the voice didn’t respond.

What the fuck.

Grian did heed the bodyless voice’s advice as they made their way further into the clearing with the faint smell of burnt wood in their nose, fanning out their wings in order to help them balance better.

There was a crater in the center of the clearing, jagged and deep. Grian stood in the center of it and looked around, and then they were seeing things.

Superimposed over their normal vision, they saw Pearl stand at the edge of the clearing. She carried her jacket over her arm, scanning it curiously. Then she bent over and picked up a feather, inspecting it. The ground was free of snow, replaced by water towards the edge of the clearing. The trees weren’t just covered in soot but parts of them still glowed orange-red, like the fire that had colored them black hadn’t quite died down yet, the only light against the dark sky. The smell of burning wood was so much stronger in their nose now, the ash drifting through the air making them sneeze.

When they opened their eyes again, they found an iridecent purple ball of feathers that they were standing in, reaching to their thigh and covered in golden glowing cracks, and they stumbled back in surprise to find a pale bare back sprouting the wings that were covered in violet eyes. It was them, they realized.

When he looked back up, Timmy had appeared next to Pearl, a faint, partially hidden fear in his expression.

“What the fuck,” Timmy said then and took a step back, and Grian looked down to see the cracks on their body start to mend.

Pearl, on the other hand, stepped closer, exclaiming, “We should probably check if it’s okay.”

Timmy glanced at her and raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “Or we should call a professional, Pearl, we don’t even know what it is—”

Pearl ignored him and hurried closer, kneeling on the ground next to past Grian, gently touching their wing. The wings unfurled at that, shoving her backwards. She yelped and fell onto her backside, shock blooming on her face in the form of wide eyes and a dropped jaw. Timmy, meanwhile, stood frozen at the edge of the clearing, fear etched into his face, watching as Grian’s past self jumped back from Pearl with wide eyes, passing through current Grian who whipped his head around so they didn’t miss anything. And then their past self dulled the color of their hair, shrank two of their wings—both on their back and next to their ears—colored them red, yellow and blue, and made the rest disappear. Then they collapsed, and Pearl hurried to them to check on them, checking pulse and breathing.

“He’s definitely alive,” she confirmed.

Timmy inched closer slowly, eyeing Grian’s past self suspiciously, then pulled out a phone. “I really should call an ambulance.”

Pearl looked up at him from where she was kneeling next to them. “He’s not human,” she hissed at him. “You sure that’s a good idea? What if they take him away and experiment on him?”

“You watched too many movies,” Timmy chided and put his phone away with a sigh. “I don’t have a signal anyway. We could drive him to the hospital, though.” Pearl gave him a Look, and he threw his hands in the air. “Just a thought.”

“Help me carry him to the car,” Pearl said and heaved past Grian into a sitting position, moving into a squat and putting one of their arms around her shoulders.

“Fine,” Timmy relented and moved into much the same position she was in, just on their other side.

“On the count of three,” Pearl said. “One … two … three!”

They both stood at the same time, slowly and strained, then started wobbling towards the direction they came from, and Grian stared after them.

“Why did you show me this?” they asked the disembodied voice, but it didn’t answer. “You’re still there, aren’t you? I can feel you watching me. Do you know who I am and why I’m here?” They waited for a response for a good few minutes, then sighed and yelled, “I thought you were my friend. Well, fuck you, too.” Then he went to follow Jimmy and Pearl who hadn’t gotten too far out of sight yet. Following them would make it easier to actually get out of here.

It was a slow walk back out of the forest, and Timmy and Pearl were struggling. Suddenly they had a newfound appreciation for them both. They followed them back to their car which was parked in a different spot than Grian had entered the forest. They parked Grian in the backseat and sat down in the car before driving away, and Grian took off to fly after them, only realizing that they still were in the form they had found them in when they were already in the air, tumbling a few meters when they tried to adjust to their more human disguise. But they’d been high enough that they were still far enough from the ground by the time they caught themself. And then they followed the car back home, enjoying the feeling of wind in their wings.

They touched down on the floor just as Pearl and Timmy left the car, and watched as Timmy opened the door, then Grian went to enter while they waited for them to carry his past self inside—

Ow.

Grian blinked the illusion of the open door away, glaring at the closed door like it personally offended them. Then they sighed and rang the doorbell.

A few days later, Pearl sat down hesitantly in the living room, next to Jimmy, wringing her hands anxiously. The fact that he’d been the one to seek the conversation should have been a relief, showing that he really cared about improving the situation, but Pearl … Pearl couldn’t trust it. Not after she realized that it had all been her fault, no matter how much Gem and Jimmy both tried to assure her that it wasn’t.

“So, I’ve been thinking,” Jimmy said and looked at her hesitantly. “I—I just wanted to apologize again, and I’m not gonna try to change your mind about who’s at fault if you don’t want me to, just …” He sighed. “Can you do something for me?”

Pearl frowned and nodded. “Of course.” He was probably gonna kick her and Grian out now, and she had mentally prepared for that possibility, especially since they never did get around to talking about how long they could stay.

“Don’t you want to know what I want first?” Jimmy asked, and Pearl shrugged.

“I owe you one anyway,” she said. “For suddenly crashing at your place and dragging Grian into your home, too.”

Jimmy frowned at her, then said, “I was thinking you should go to a therapist.”

Pearl’s brain blue-screened at that, then she just said, “I—what?”

“You should see a therapist,” Jimmy repeated.

Pearl blinked at him for another ten seconds, then just asked, “Why?”

“Honestly, I think you would have benefitted from it like seventeen years ago. ‘Cause you really wasn’t doing well then, and I think a lot of the shit you were dealing with then you’re still carrying with you today.”

Pearl rolled her eyes, “Pshh, I don’t need therapy, I’m fine.”

Jimmy raised his eyebrows. “Sure, like I’d believe that.” He sighed. “I’m just worried about you. And I know some people who have it and … I think you might have depression or something.”

Pearl blinked. “You—what? We haven’t seen each other in like two years, and now you’re diagnosing me with depression? Are you kidding me?”

“You have to admit that you saying you’re always leaving and hurting everyone is a bit concerning, right?” Jimmy asked.

“It’s not if it’s the truth,” Pearl snapped back.

“And that’s why it might be good for you to just try it,” Jimmy said. “Besides, Scott said—”

“You talked to Scott about this?”

“Don’t act like you didn’t tell Gem about it, too,” Jimmy snapped. “I just—I was trying to figure out a way to help you, and to get along with you again, so why are you making this so difficult?”

“Because apparently I’m mentally ill, I don’t know. I—I thought you were actually gonna suggest something helpful. I’m far from being bad enough that I need therapy.”

“Scott said,” Jimmy said, gently but firm, “That therapy’s helped him a lot with his insecurities.”

Pearl blinked. “Scott is in therapy?”

“Has been for like three years now, which you’d know if you’d bothered to stay in contact.” He and Pearl both winced at how sharp that came out. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that. I just—He has depression, he’s just been masking it pretty well until he got really burnt out and couldn’t work anymore. And it’s there in everything he does, everything he thinks about himself or others. And it’s still there, even after three years of therapy, but it’s less.”

“And because Scott has it, you think I have it too.”

“Because I recognize the signs he had and still has and I’ve learned that they’re a common sign of depression. And I’ve looked up some resources, and talked to Scott about it too—well I told him an online friend of mine had some symptoms and asked him for his thoughts, I didn’t want to tell him it was you without you knowing.”

Pearl frowned. “So you think I have depression because Scott thinks I have depression.”

Jimmy nodded. “Basically, yes.”

“Even though I’m not sad all the time?”

“Scott isn’t either,” Jimmy shrugged. “It can also manifest as emotional numbness—”

“Shit,” Pearl said, remembering the conversation she had with Grian on the roof.

“You go numb then?”

Pearl nodded. “I—When my emotions get too much, I just busy myself to get them to go away. That counts, right?”

Jimmy made a face. “Sure does. There’s more to it than just that but you have to understand that depression doesn’t only make you sad all the time.”

Pearl looked at him, not sure at the emotions that were swirling inside her. “Then—what does it do?”

“It makes it difficult to see when you’re doing good, and when you mess up, it feels like that’s all you ever do. It makes you numb, and when you do allow yourself to feel, it feels like you’re crying all the time. It feels like you’ve lost interest in hanging out with friends and family or doing your hobbies because you don’t have the energy to do shit. Because all these emotions you experience are distressing you and you don’t know how to deal with them in a way that doesn’t take a toll on your body in the long run. You do things that are easy instead, staying in bed or sleeping or just being on your phone. And you don’t have to be suicidal or do self-harm, but wishing you could just disappear or, like, just sleep for a week or something even though you didn’t do anything really physically exhausting is like, a step before that. At least that’s how it was for Scott.”

“Wait, so wishing I could just sleep until my problems are gone isn’t normal?” Pearl asked.

Jimmy shook his head. “Nope.” He popped the p. “I don’t do that, usually. I—I do struggle with feeling my emotions sometimes, or with actually standing up for myself, but I don’t really do that, at least.”

“Sounds like you might be depressed too,” Pearl suggested hesitantly.

“Seasonal Affective Disorder, actually,” Jimmy corrected. “You know how I’m always more dramatic and mopey and sleepy in the winter?”

Pearl nodded.

“Well, turns out it’s not just winter blues but my brain chemistry getting fucked up in the winter. Mostly because I lack vitamin D, but I also check some of the boxes for depression the rest of the year too, just not enough to get a diagnosis for Major Depressive Disorder I think. And, well, it’s get worse during the darker half of the year, even with vitamins.”

Pearl raised her eyebrows. “Is that why you waited so long to actually talk to me about what was wrong?”

Jimmy ducked his head. “Maybe. I’m not sure. Probably.” He frowned. “I … actually haven’t done enough therapy to know for sure. Scott suggested it the first winter after he started because he recognized I became more depressed, and I did go to a therapist for long enough to get my diagnosis but then came spring and I was getting better, and I had some more ideas about what to do when I got like that, and I had my vitamins and—” He sighed. “I don’t know, the therapist did want to test how depressed i was the rest of the year but I thought I knew how to handle it, and I —I don’t know, I just think it would be easier to pretend I’m normal the rest of the year.”

Pearl frowned, leaning in. “Is it, though? Because if you’re depressed year-round, then you can only get the help you need when you acknowledge that.”

Jimmy raised his eyebrows and looked at her. “Well, and you only can get help when you acknowledge you’re mentally ill, too.”

Pearl gaped in affront. “How dare you. How dare you use my own words against me.”

Jimmy snorted. “Is it working?”

Pearl scrunched up her nose. “Maybe a little.”

“Good.” He looked away for a bit, thinking, before turning back to her. “You know, there was another suggestion I had.”

“Yeah?”

He nodded. “To help us keep in touch, I mean. We could determine a time when we next meet up whenever we’re meeting, and if we do have to cancel or move a meetup, we have to suggest another option when we’re informing the other person. Just so we always have a meeting lined up and we don’t forget about arranging new ones.”

Pearl thought about that for a moment. “That could actually work.”

“Right?” he asked and pulled out his phone. “So when are you free?”

Once Jimmy and Pearl found a time and place for their next meeting, they sat on the couch together and played some Mario Kart on Jimmy and Scott’s Switch. Pearl was totally winning when there was suddenly a loud slam coming from the front door and she jumped, steering her kart straight off a bridge. Jimmy pulled past her and cheered, then quickly hit pause when the doorbell rang.

“Wow, now you hit pause, now that you’re like half a lap ahead of me,” Pearl called after him, and he ignored her in favor of opening the door. Grian stood in front of it, holding his nose, looking like he was in pain.

“What happened to you?” Jimmy asked, and Grian pointed accusingly to the singular step leading up to the front door. “My foot got caught on that!”

“So what you’re saying is that noise was you crashing into the door?” Grian nodded, and Jimmy gestured for him to take his hand away so he could look at it. “No blood at least,” he said, and then frowned when he had a thought. “Wait, can you even bleed? I don’t think I’ve seen you bleed before, not even after that big fall you took on Friday.”

Grian made a face. “I—I’m not sure, I don’t remember ever bleeding. But also I don’t remember anything before Friday, so make of that as you will.”

“Fair,” Jimmy said. “Come in. Pearl and I’ve been playing some Mario Kart, if you want you can join next round.”

Grian nodded, “Sure,” he said and, after taking off his coat, shoes, hat, scarf, and gloves, followed him into the living room, squeezing himself on the couch next to Pearl, while Jimmy sat on their other side.

“Time to win this,” he said, and Pearl elbowed him.

“Shut your mouth hole, I only fell because I got startled,” she hissed and readied her controller. “I’m gonna destroy you.”

Jimmy hit play and made sure to get as far ahead as quickly as he could, but Pearl caught up fast to second place. Still, he was confident he could win this, the finish line was already in sight.

And then a red shell hit him and Pearl pulled past him and crossed the finish line.

“No!” he cried out at the same moment as Pearl started cheering and high-fived a mildly-confused Grian.

“I told you I was gonna destroy you,” Pearl countered and stuck out her tongue at him.

“What are you, five?” Jimmy said as he finally crossed the finish line.

“You’re just a sore loser, that’s what you are.”

Jimmy pouted and looked past her at Grian. “Hey G, you gotta help me destroy her, okay?”

“I don’t even know how to play this game,” Grian complained.

Jimmy and Pearl took a few moments to explain the controls to him, then they played a practice round that didn’t count towards the tally which Jimmy had insisted on making to prove that he was better than Pearl at this game. By the time Scott came home they had played for three and a half hours, which meant about eighty races with a few breaks here and there. Jimmy had gotten last, finishing first out of the three in twenty-five races, Pearl in twenty-seven, and despite losing almost constantly in the beginning, Grian somehow managed to come first out of the three in twenty-eight races.

“That’s not fair,” Jimmy exclaimed, chucking a pillow at Grian’s head. “This can’t be your first time playing, you’ve been going easy on us!”

“Yeah, how did you do that?” Pearl complained.

“You’re just salty I beat you in the last race and took away first place,” Grian taunted and poked out his tongue.

Pearl gaped at him. “How could you betray me like this?”

“And me,” Jimmy complains. It had been his idea after all to recruit his dearest cousin to stick it to Pearl. “Guess I’ll have to disown you now.”

That was about the time when Scott poked his head in through the door, hair messed up from a hat, scarf and jacket half-open. “Who’s disowning who now?”

“I’m disowning Grian,” Jimmy stated and pointed at the macaw with his controller. “He said he’s never played Mario Kart before and somehow managed to win almost every game in the last hour.”

Scott raised his eyebrows and glanced at Grian. “That is disown-worthy, wow.”

Grian pouted and wrapped his arms around Pearl. “I guess that makes her my favorite cousin then.”

Scott chuckled and just said, “Carry on then,” before leaving the room again.

“I should probably get started on dinner, then,” Jimmy said and got up. “You gonna play some more?”

“Yeah, I wanna get revenge,” Pearl declared.

“Actually,” Grian interrupted her and looked from her to Jimmy and back. “I’m actually curious how your talk went earlier.”

“I made an initial appointment with a therapist in Hermitopia,” Pearl explained.

“And I’m going back to therapy,” Jimmy said. “Also, we’ve planned the next time we’re gonna meet and we’re gonna call once a week.”

Grian smiled. “So you’re getting along again?”

Pearl started laughing, “Wow, that sounds like you’re the kid of two divorced parents.”

“Ew no,” Jimmy complained. “I did not need that mental image. I’m leaving. Goodbye.”

Both of their laughter followed him out the door.

This evening, Grian felt restless. Playing Mario Kart with Timmy and Pearl had distracted them, but once Pearl and them stopped playing for dinner, anxiety started settling in every crevice in their body. Electric, making them feel fluttery. They shouldn’t have left the crater as quickly as they did. It had been the only hint towards who they were, after all. They had crashed into the earth there, coming from who knew where, and there they had found this strange voice, with those almost ghost-like hands that had steadied them. Even when they were sitting on the roof, staring into the vastness of the universe, they hadn’t felt as home as they did when that voice had talked to them, had called them friend.

“Grian, you okay?” Scott asked, and the concern infused in his voice was almost enough to make them believe he didn’t dislike them.

Grian shrugged. “Just feeling a little restless, that’s it.”

Scott narrowed his eyes, not quite believing them.

“Maybe we could play some more,” Timmy suggested, “If that would help.”

“Maybe,” Grian echoed, not so sure about this. They felt like they needed to go back and figure out wo that voice had been now, asking it who Grian was until they got an answer. “Don’t really feel like it, though.”

“Did something happen?” Pearl asked.

Grian just frowned, not sure how to answer that. They knew that the others knew that they weren’t human, that they had weird abilities, but how much would they be okay with before they freaked out? They chewed on their lip in thought, trying to figure out what to tell them. “I went to the forest today,” they explained then. “I came across this crater which is probably where you found me and I—I don’t know, I feel kinda weird about it.”

“Weird how?” Timmy asked.

Grian shrugged. “It’s difficult to describe, but going there just reminded me of how little I know about myself and why I ended up here out of all places. And now I just have the urge to go back there and see if I can’t find any more clues.”

“You better wait ‘till tomorrow,” Timmy pointed out. “While it’s pretty safe here in town, it’s not a good idea to leave town at night.”

Grian just blinked at him. “Why’s that?”

“Because of the mobs,” Scott explained, eyes narrow. “Why else?”

Pearl and Timmy didn’t seem to hear the sharpness of his tone, and Grian wondered why. They both seemed to have known him for a long time, after all. Or maybe their willingness to integrate them into their lives had made them blind for Scott’s disdain.

“Mobs spawn every night, mostly out in the wilderness where it’s dark. Zombies, creepers, endermen, the like,” Pearl explained then. “They usually despawn by morning or get burned. During the day it’s usually fine to go out.”

Grian tilted their head, and it was like a puzzle piece clicked into place. “So is that why your nights are so bright?”

The others looked confused at that.

“I remember … Well, not actively remember, but I remember the nights being darker than this, not drowning out the stars every chance they got.”

“Oh, you mean the light pollution!” Pearl called out. “Yeah, that’s to keep mobs from spawning, and to keep them away from the cities. I don’t know what it’s like where you come from, but most places I’ve lived had lights scattered around their towns and cities for a few kilometers that turn on upon dusk. The one place that didn’t was kinda far away from everything, and everyone there learns how to defend themselves from mobs from childhood.”

“Huh,” Grian said, intrigued. The concept sounded familiar, like they’d been somewhere with mobs before, but it felt foreign at the same time. They didn’t think the place with mobs they’d visited was one they’d frequented often. Either way, now they were tempted to go out at night, flying far away from the cities, just to get a glimpse of what night skies had been like at home. Wherever home was.

“So please,” Pearl said, “please don’t leave the towns unless you sign up for a mob fighting class, okay?”

“Fine,” Grian responded, even though they didn’t quite see the sense in that. They didn’t know how they knew, but they knew they could defend themself if need be.

After dinner, they all moved to the couches to watch some TV after Grian had vetoed more video games. Scott curled up next to Timmy, farthest from Grian. Not unsurprising. He’d snatched the remote and turned on the TV, and in the split second before he switched to Netflix, Grian recognized the person that flickered into frame.

“Isn’t that the guy in the edits Gem keeps reblogging?” he pointed out, and Scott immediately closed Netflix again to see who he meant. “Not on screen right now,” Grian pointed out when the TV showed a newscaster in a suit. “There,” he pointed out when another picture of the guy was shown, and Scott hit pause. The man on TV was clad in a dark grey, almost black body suit with blue and orange accessories that matched the shades he was wearing, obscuring the upper half of his face. What little was visible of his tan skin—mostly the lower half of his face and his muscular arms—was littered in scars.

“That’s HotGuy,” Pearl explained, “he—”

“That sure is a hot guy,” Grian said, dragging their eyes across his body. That was something they'd noticed from the gifs on tumblr, as well.

Timmy chuckled, and Scott raised the corner of his mouth in amusement while Pearl sputtered, “Wha—no, that's his name!”

Grian's eyes widened at that, and their face felt hot. Oops. “Just ignore what I said.”

“Never,” Timmy said, and Grian buried their face in their hands.

“You can go ahead and kill me now.”

“But then I can't tell you more about HotGuy,” Pearl teased, and they groaned.

“Fine, if you insist.”

Grian still didn’t lower their hands from their face but they listened as Pearl explained who HotGuy was.

“Many people call him a hero, even though he’s technically a vigilante,” she started. “He’s absolutely breaking the law pursuing criminals on his own and even punishing some but law enforcement gives him free reign. Probably because HotGuy’s done more for Hermitopia in the past two years he’s been active than the POE in the entire past decade. They did try to issue a warrant for his arrest but all they achieved was thousands of people taking to the streets, dressed up as HotGuy and protesting in his name. It was a really big thing, going on over the course of a few weeks until the POE ended the manhunt.”

“Wow, people must love him,” Grian noted, and it made sense. If his looks wasn’t enough to make someone fall for him (romantically or otherwise), his good deeds surely sealed the deal. Knowing all the good he did certainly made him more attractive in Grian’s eyes.

“They do,” Pearl affirmed. “He’s got a really big fanbase online, pretty much nationwide, even though for all we know he’s never even set foot outside of Hermitopia. Though, luckily, Hermitopia’s the city with the highest rate of crime by far, so it’s not really as necessary elsewhere.”

“And he only deals with crime?” Grian asks. “No mobs or anything?”

“There’s not really any risk of mobs appearing in Hermitopia,” Pearl explained. “It’s too illuminated for that, and there’s been a non-profit that’s been getting more active more recently to make sure that’s true for abandoned buildings, too. HotGuy’s been working with them, actually, ‘cause some criminals aren’t too happy about that. After all, people are more likely to see what they do if they do business where it’s almost as bright as day out. So he’s been making sure to stop vandals from destroying the lights, and when he’s too late for that, make sure that any mobs that spawn there don’t go causing trouble. But since that non-profit was founded about five years ago, mobs haven’t really been much of a concern. It’s really more the corruption and criminals that he’s up against.”

Grian hummed, lost in thought. They didn’t pay much attention to the movie once it started, didn’t even think about that weird afternoon they’d had.

Instead, they scoured the internet for whatever they could find about HotGuy.

The next day—their last full day in Lifeshire—passed rather quickly. While Pearl didn’t have work until Monday, she’d informed Grian of an appointment they had around Friday noon in Hermitopia, to get them some ‘legal documents,’ whatever that meant. Because of that, they spent Thursday packing, and after that they played some board games with Timmy—who had clearly hoped that Grian wouldn’t show the same rapid improvement with as they’d done with Mario Kart, but alas—to use their last day here to the fullest.

Grian would prefer to sit and watch but Timmy insisted on a rematch, then thoroughly regretted it before insisting on yet another rematch and—well, the cycle continued.

There was another thing Grian would prefer to do, truth be told, but that would have some time until later, they thought. They didn’t mind spending time with both their cousins, after all. And thus, noon turned into afternoon turned into early evening when Grian finally found themself sitting at the bottom of the stairs to pull on their boots. The sky hadn’t quite started to darken yet, which meant if Grian hurried up they would be able to spend around an hour at the impact site before they needed to head back.

Lost in thought as they were, they didn’t notice the key in the door until it almost whacked them in the face for the second time in as many days.

“Hey,” they squawked at their assailant, a moment before a confused face poked around the door. Scott, of course.

“Why are you sitting right behind the door?” he complained, then closed it and stared Grian down. “And where’re you going at this hour?”

“Forest,” Grian responded curtly, not really eager to justify themself to Scott.

“The impact site?” Scott asked, raising his eyebrows judgementally.

“Yes, the impact site,” Grian confirmed and rolled their eyes. “What about it?”

“Make sure you’re not back too late,” Scott said, then paused to think. Grian decidedly did not like the look of determination that settled on his face. “Actually, you know what?”

“No,” Grian said and got up, not caring that they didn’t tie their laces fully. “No. Whatever you’re thinking, no.”

“I just wanted to suggest some bonding time,” Scott said sweetly, raising his hands in defense, like Grian was the crazy one for thinking he wouldn’t do that without an ulterior motive. “You know? ‘Cause we really haven’t gotten much time to talk, what with me having to work and all.”

Grian just glared at him, gritted teeth and all, and then said slowly, clearly, like Scott wouldn’t understand any other way, “No way in hell.”

Scott just raised his eyebrows, unsurprised, then leaned forward until his face was only a hand’s width from Grian’s before snarling with bared teeth, “Why not? Unless you’re saying you’re not to be trusted alone out in the forest.”

“What do you want?” Grian hissed, only noticing the way they grew taller in the way Scott had to tip his head back in order to keep eye contact.

“I just want to talk,” Scott responded, swallowing. The fear in his eyes was obvious now. “Nothing more.”

It was almost cute, Grian thought, the way he glared at them, trying to hide his fear, like it actually mattered. Like they couldn’t wipe out his existence with the wave of a hand, making sure not even a memory remained. “Sure,” they said then. “Let’s talk.”

Grian finished getting ready while Scott informed Timmy and Pearl that he’d be coming with them, then they reluctantly got into the car with him, not willing to show any weakness—even if it was only a dislike of cars.

The five minute drive to the forest seemed to take forever. Scott didn’t put on any music, and so they drove in silence, driving Grian half-mad in the process—and, oh, how fitting that idiom was considering their dislike of these moving metal machines.

When Scott turned the car off, the silence echoed in Grian’s mind, making them anxious, though they didn’t know why. They sat there for a while like this until Scott undid his seatbelt, Grian quickly following suit because they did not want to look like a coward in front of him.

The silence between them was thick enough to be cut with a knife as they walked next to each other. Grian regretted letting him come with them now, seeing as this was cutting into the time they could have spent investigating, but it was too late to change it now. The only thing that could be done about it now was to get this conversation over and done with; their only consolation was the fact that Scott seemed as off-put by the idea of being alone with them as they were.

“You know, we don’t have to do this,” Grian said, glancing over at him. “It’s obvious you don’t actually want to be here.”

“Obviously I don’t want to be here,” Scott snarled, and … if Grian was completely honest, it was refreshing that he didn’t hold back anymore. Especially with how obvious he was about his disdain. “But I’m pretty sure you don’t either, so why don’t we do both of us a favor and get this over with?”

“Fine,” Grian said, stopped and crossed their arms. “What is it you want to talk to me about, then?”

Scott’s eyes flicked across them then, thinking. Then he started, “First of all, I wanna know who you are.”

Grian’s eyebrows shot up at that. “Tough luck, I don’t even know that myself. Next question.”

Scott frowned. “You really don’t know anything about yourself?”

The avian rolled their eyes. “I know I’m not human. I know I fell from the sky a few days ago with no injuries and memories. I know I don’t have a gender, nor does the concept appeal for me. I know watching the night sky reminds me of home. I know I’m attracted to men. I know I learn quickly. I know I can alter my appearances and I know I can magically understand what others are saying even if I’ve never learnt the language and vice versa. I’m pretty sure that’s it.”

“And you use those abilities shamelessly to make yourself seem harmless to others so they won’t have any reason to see you as dangerous,” Scott said, so confidently it must be what he really believed. “You mirror the appearance of the first person you see, make yourself seem small and helpless, and act like others want you to act so you can strike when they least expect it.”

That did startle a laugh out of Grian, not because it was so far-fetched but because they wouldn’t do that, especially to Pearl and Timmy. “So what, you think I’m pretending to be all harmless just so I could—what, hurt them when they think I’m safe to be around? If I wanted to hurt them, I could already do it, and I doubt they could do anything about it!”

Scott frowned at them. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Enlighten me, then,” Grian ordered. “What are you so afraid of?”

Scott looked away for a while, frowning, faltering, before he turned back to them, his face hardened. “I don’t want you to hurt Jimmy or Pearl or anyone else,” he explained simply. “I don’t care what you’re saying, my instincts tell me all I need to know, and they’re telling me that you’re dangerous. That I would be a fool to trust you. And my instincts usually are right when it comes to threats. So I don’t care what you can tell me to reassure me, the only thing I care about is for you to stay the fuck out of our lives.” Scott jabbed his finger against Grian’s chest repeatedly at the end. “And I don’t care that you’re not human and that you’re dangerous, if you hurt them, I will hunt you down, I will find you and I will make you pay, supernatural abilities be damned. Is that understood?”

“Loud and clearly,” Grian said, frowning down at Scott. “Are you done?”

Scott blinked, clearly taken aback by their nonchalance. “Uhm … yes.”

“Good,” Grian said and took a step back, “Then that means we can finally do what I came here for.”

Scott wouldn’t be lying if he said that his conversation with Grian had made him even more wary. There was a part of him that wanted to believe the avian when he—they? It—said that it had no intention in hurting Jimmy and Pearl, but still, Scott couldn’t just put aside all the evidence that told him just how dangerous it was. He sighed, hurrying past Grian because as much as he didn’t want to spend time with it, he hoped seeing the place his boyfriend and his cousin found it might give him some ideas as to what it was like, though his hopes weren’t very high.

It didn’t take very long for them to reach the crater, and Scott would have thought it to be a clearing at first glance if it weren’t for the soot covering the trees around them as a stark contrast to the snow.

“What the fuck,” he asked as he took in the crater that must be spanning several meters in diameter. “You caused this?”

Grian turned around to find him pointing at the crater, mouth agape. How was Scott ever gonna be able to do anything to it if his intuition proves to be true? If Grian had survived a fall that left the ground like this, wouldn’t that mean it was and truly invincible?

Grian just nodded, like that little information hadn’t just turned Scott’s legs into jelly, like it didn’t make his heart race in pure fear.

“How’s this possible?” he forced out, staring at Grian in wide eyes, taking a step back. “From how high did you fall?”

Grian tilted its head at that, and then the whites in its eyes vanished as they turned into a purple swirl, lashes igniting into a golden shimmer that ignited its hair, and Scott stumbled back further.

“From beyond the atmosphere,” it said, almost indifferent. Of course. Of course it was not only inhuman, but a fucking alien at that. And the way it said it, standing there so matter-of-factly like it wasn’t even a big deal … It made him sick with terror.

Scott stumbled back further until his calf caught on a fallen branch and sent him tumbling down with a scream, hitting his head hard.

“Are you okay?” Grian asked, and several more eyes blinked to life in its face, blinking at him in concern as it stepped closer.

“Stay back,” Scott almost shrieked, and the avian—the alien—stopped at that.

“I’m sorry,” it said, stepping back, looking almost … confused. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“How?” Scott asked, scrambling back a bit further, because no matter how far he got away from this thing, it would never be enough. “Just look at yourself! How can I not be scared?”

Grian frowned, then pulled out its phone, tapping on it a bit. “Oh,” it said then, closing the extra eyes until they vanished into its skin and dimming its hair. Its eyes turned back into their boring brown, but it wasn’t enough. “Sorry,” it apologized and looked back up at Scott. “How’s your head? It looked like you hit it pretty hard—”

“I’m fine,” Scott snapped and scrambled to get up. “It doesn’t even hurt,” he lied and made sure to move back more slowly this time so he wouldn’t hurt himself again.

“You’re leaving?” Grian asked, somehow sounding sad about it.

“Yes, I’m leaving,” Scott confirmed, glancing quickly behind himself when his foot caught onto a root and stepping over it. “I really think we’ve talked enough.”

“Alright then,” Grian responded, “See you later then.”

Scott’s stomach turned at the thought of seeing it later, but he just nodded. “Yeah. Later.”

Scott didn’t dare turn around until Grian was well out of sight, but he simply didn’t feel safe enough to do so until he was sure it wouldn’t follow him. And even then, as he broke into a run back to his car, he couldn’t help but look over his shoulder repeatedly. He only really felt safe once he was back in his car, slumped over the steering wheel with his heart going a thousand miles a minute. He turned up the radio, hoping for the music to drown out his fears but it didn’t.

God, how was he supposed to face Grian later? How was he supposed to pretend everything was alright when the knowledge that this alien could probably end them with a wave of its hand was ingrained into his very being now? How was he supposed to face Pearl and Jimmy, who had taken Grian into their flock the very first day they knew it, and tell them just how dangerous it was? They’ve been at the impact side, for fuck’s sake, they know what this creature could survive! They’ve seen its true form even, with even more eyes and wings than Scott had seen, and they still weren’t scared. How was Scott supposed to convince them that Grian was dangerous when they still couldn’t see it, despite everything? Was there even anything he could do to stop it from moving in with Pearl tomorrow?

Scott yelled in frustration, hitting the steering wheel. He could tell them what he thought but he doubted they would believe him, as caught up in Grian’s charm as they were. Was threatening Grian, a being he probably couldn’t even hurt if he tried, all he could do to protect them?

The thought alone made him want to cry, and so he did.

Grian watched as Scott left, frantic, scared. They told the truth when they’d said they didn’t want to scare him, which just made this worse.

They sighed, turning their back to him before he was even out of sight because they didn’t want to risk freaking Scott out even more. It was confusing, the way he reacted to Grian completely different from Pearl and Timmy. They had taken to them quickly, trusting them pretty much from the beginning, willing to take them into their flock, even if Grian themself couldn’t understand quite why they would be so eager.

Scott was such a stark contrast to them, hesitant from the moment Grian actually paid enough attention to him to notice. Eyeing them from the side like they would set the house on fire and burn it all to the ground if he only looked away for a second. Grian couldn’t even remember doing anything to make him so suspicious. They just noticed him watching on their first evening and started watching back, noticing all the little tells that screamed distrust, though Scott had been decent at hiding his fear.

Until he decided to tag along with Grian, that is. And they couldn’t even be surprised—after all, they had seen how scared Timmy had been when he and Pearl found them, the startled looks Pearl gave them when they revealed a new ability without even thinking. It would make sense Scott saw them as dangerous, especially after realizing that Grian fell from the sky without as much as a scratch remaining. They’d be freaked out too, they supposed, if some sort of otherworldly being fell into their family’s lives, so much more powerful and invincible than they’d ever thought possible. Though there was some of their family they could do without, they’d still be scared, if only for their little sister—

Grian froze at that thought. They had a sister …

“I have a sister,” they said out loud, if only for the voice to hear, and maybe respond to the revelation, but all they heard were the sounds of the forest.

“I have a sister,” they repeated and sank to the ground, trying to remember more about her, if only the color of her eyes, her hair, the sound of her voice, but there was nothing. An overwhelming sense of dark blue like the night sky, sprinkled with star-like silver—and that was it. No voice, no face, no nothing. Just the knowledge that she existed.

Grian didn’t know how long they sat there, trying to wrap their head around this newfound information, trying to manifest a vision like the one they had about Timmy and Pearl, but nothing. Only silver swirls and sparkles in front of a dark blue background. They pulled out their phone then and drew a rough approximation in their notes app, not wanting to forget anything about their sister, even if it was only this color scheme that didn’t really tell them anything about her.

“Did you know I have a sister?” they tried asking the voice again, but it remained quiet. Grian just sighed at that. “You’re here, aren’t you?” They challenged then, looking around to search for the presence that they had felt consistently since it had spoken to them yesterday, but they couldn’t find where it was hiding. “If you know who I am, can’t you please just tell me if you insist on watching me?” But the voice refused to answer, so Grian got up and kicked the snow in frustration. “Fine, be like that,” they hissed. “If you don’t wanna help me, I’ll just go home to my new family.” They weren’t even sure if that strange voice was in any way, shape or form related to their sister, but on the off chance it was, Grian wanted it to know they were upset.

Was that weird? They were pretty sure this was weird. It had been worth a try, even though it didn’t result in anything at the end.

Grian sat back down again, trying to will their ability to give them more information as they sat in the snow, staring across the artificial clearing until it was colored gray by the lack of sun, only startled back into motion when their phone rang. When they pulled it out, they found Pearl’s contact on the screen.

“Yeah?” Grian asked upon accepting the call.

“Please tell me you’re already on your way home,” Pearl asked without further ado, sounding worried.

Grian blinked. “I’m still in the forest, why?”

“Because it’s dangerous, Grian,” she explained, sounding exasperated. “We told you about the mobs last night.”

“Oh.” They had completely forgotten about that. “Should be fine though, I’m probably quite invincible.”

Pearl sighed. “Can we please test that theory when you’re safe at home?”

Grian shrugged. “Sure, it won’t make much difference to me if I sit around in the forest or on the roof anyway.” They got up and tugged their coat tighter even though they didn’t really felt the cold.

“Why did you stay behind anyway?” Pearl asked then. “Scott looked upset when he came back but he wouldn’t tell us anything. Did something happen?”

Grian was quiet for a moment. Scott wouldn’t want them to know how scared he was of them, right? Otherwise he would have told her, maybe even warned her.

They sighed. “I don’t really know what’s going on,” they lied then. “He said he wanted to go home early but didn’t want to tell me why, maybe something happened at work?”

“Huh,” Pearl just said, not quite sounding convinced. “Well, you should come home before it gets really dark, flying should be rather safe considering you’d be faster than the phantoms.”

“Alright, I’ll get going then.”

“See you soon,” Pearl said, and Grian repeated the words back at her before hanging up and quickly checking their appearance in their camera, making sure it was back to normal, before sliding it into their pocket. Then they unfolded their wings and looked up—

Their eyes caught on a pair of glowing purple eyes in the dark, almost three meters in the air, then flicked to the sky, barely processing what they’ve seen when a garbled sort of scream sounded out. Before they could even think about what that meant, the noise and the eyes were suddenly right next to them, and then they felt sudden pain as whatever this thing was started punching at them. They squawked in surprise, whacked the thing with their wing until they had enough space to set off, getting caught in some branches in the process. A few moments of struggle later, they managed to break through the canopy and into the sky.

Grian flapped in one spot for a moment, staring down at whatever it was that had attacked them. It was still screaming at them, looking up at them but seemingly unable to do anything. Was that one of the mobs Pearl had mentioned? Well, at least their theory that they couldn’t hurt Grian has been proven true.

They flew homewards then, using the vision they’d seen yesterday as a map to guide them home. It didn’t take long, all things considered, and so Grian landed and quickly checked that they didn’t accidentally shift their appearance in the scuffle before ringing the doorbell. There was the sound of voices, then the clattering of keys before the door opened to reveal Scott, frowning at them and beckoning them to move aside before he sat down on the step.

“What are you doing?” Grian asked and sat on the ground, a couple feet from Scott.

Scott opened his mouth, then closed it before asking, “Where’d your hat go? Why are there twigs in your hair?”

Grian blinked and ran a hand through their hair, catching on twigs and finding that their hat was gone. They must have lost it trying to escape the mob. They dropped their hand, Scott’s gaze dropping with it.

“How did you do that?” he asked, sounding a little freaked out.

Grian blinked down at their hand to find their light pink hat between their fingers. “Huh. I had no clue I could do this.”

“I guess that’s another ability to add to the list,” Scott said and dropped his head into his hands, digging them into his hair.

“So,” Grian started, curious why Scott had been the one to welcome them and even come to sit outside with them, but he cut them off.

“Shut up, Grian.”

They raised their hands in defense and waited until Scott was ready to say what he clearly came here for.

“Look,” Scott said after a while that made Grian just more anxious. “We both know that I don’t trust you so there’s something I want to ask you.” He glanced at them between his hands, expression twisted with something akin to desperation. “I know you don’t have any reason to actually do it but … I haven’t seen Pearl in, like, two years, and it’s similar for Jimmy, and I just … Now that they actually get along again I don’t want that to get ruined. So I want you to stay away from Pearl.”

Grian frowned. “I need to stay somewhere.”

“And Pearl’s probably not just gonna let you move out unless she’s sure you’re gonna be okay, I know. Just tell her you prefer to live alone or something, I’d even chip in, but please move out as soon as you can afford it.”

Grian looked away, chewing on his lower lip. “You’re—you’re not gonna want me to tell Pearl about this, right? You haven’t even told her about earlier.”

Scott nodded. “Look, I don’t think she’s even gonna believe me if I warn her of you, same with Jimmy. So I gotta do what I can to protect my loved ones, you see?”

Grian chuckled. “Don’t worry, I get it. I get how I’m probably really scary to you, which makes it even more astounding how Timmy and especially Pearl aren’t scared of me. And I—” They paused, wondering for a moment about how much to tell him, but decided to be honest. “If I was an ordinary human and you dropped some sort of powerful creature in front of me, I’d do what I can to protect my family too.”

“Glad we’re on the same page then,” Scott said, untangled his hands from his hair and looked up. “So you’re gonna move out?”

Grian nodded. “As soon as I have enough money, sure, but for that I’d need a job first, and Pearl said I’d need legal documentation for that.”

The corners of Scott’s mouth turned down at that. “Right,” he said. “So now she’s not gonna adopt you as her cousin and give you a home, but commit crimes for you too?”

“I guess?” Grian asked more than stated, playing with the rim of their hat. They didn’t know what that actually entailed.

“Just make sure you get independent fast,” Scott said and got up, fishing for the house key. “And then leave her and Jimmy alone, got that?”

“Sure,” Grian said, even though they did feel bad about it. “I can do that.”

Then they followed Scott into the house.

Grian couldn’t sleep that night. Too loud were Scott’s thoughts echoing in their mind that night, which meant they found themself back on the roof, staring out at the stars.

It wasn’t that Grian couldn’t understand where Scott was coming from; they did. And that made it worse, they thought. Because if they imagined themself in Scott’s position, they would be scared too. And yet here they were, the dangerous being they were, still spending time in his house, spending time with his boyfriend and his friend. If Grian really did understand, shouldn’t he just leave them behind?

On the other hand, they were the first people Grian had met. The only people aside from Scott that they actually knew, not just here on this planet but in all the universe. Well, and that stupid voice that followed them wherever they went, but that refused to talk to them.

“What do you think?” they asked nonetheless. “Is he right?”

As soon as the words left their mouth, the hairs in their neck stood as they could fear the voice’s gaze zeroing in on them. Grian refused to curl up in the anxiety that rose in them, threatening to overflow. Instead they stared at the spot they felt the gaze come from.

“I don’t think so,” the voice said when they almost gave up on ever receiving an answer, and they sat up straighter.

“You’re back,” they exclaimed in joy, and the voice chuckled.

“You don’t even know who I am.”

Grian shrugged. “You said you’re my friend. That tells me you know who I am, even though I don’t understand why you’re so adamant on not telling me.”

The voice didn’t respond to that, and Grian sighed, cuddling deeper into their blankets. Maybe they shouldn’t have pressed the matter, after all last time, the voice had disappeared when they had asked, and today was the first time they sought a conversation about something other than their origin, which meant the voice was willing to talk to them about other things. Or at least not completely opposed.

“I understand Scott’s fears,” the voice said then, making Grian jump in surprise. “And sure, maybe you’ve hurt people in the past, but who doesn’t? It happens to the best of us. You just happen to be more powerful and thus can hurt people more easily. That doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person.”

“But that means when I do hurt them, I hurt them worse, too,” Grian mused, not happy with the answer they got.

“You know,” the voice said after a moment, “Sometimes we can’t help but hurt the people around us. Sometimes it’s difficult to predict what we’re going to do will hurt someone because we simply don’t know better. Sometimes we want to hurt people because we’re upset or bored or simply hurt, and then we regret it afterwards. You know what’s important though?”

“What?”

They could feel a hand on their shoulder then, a body leaning against theirs, but when they looked they only found a transparent silhouette in the same silvery-blue glow as the last time. “What’s important is what you do after you hurt them. Do you simply apologize, or not even that, and not try to prevent it from happening again? Or do you genuinely want to change so you won’t hurt them again?”

Grian hummed, lost in thought, then turned to the voice, tilting their head with a mischieveous smile. “What if I told you you were hurting your dear friend by not telling them who they are?”

The body next to theirs was vibrating, quietly at first, and then accompanied by laughter. “You,” it said, a hand manifesting out of thin air and jabbing him gently, “are a menace.”

Grian couldn’t help but laugh, a loud, floaty thing that soared into the sky along with the voice’s laughter. They hadn’t felt this light, so free, so normal since their memories began.

But the moment didn’t last, and all too soon they found themself alone on the roof, without answers.

When Scott woke up the next morning, it was with a start. He sighed and ran his hands over his face, then carefully unwrapped Jimmy’s arm from around his waist, gently so he didn’t wake him. With a kiss on his hair he tucked him in once more and made his way to the bathroom with a set of clothes he grabbed from the wardrobe. The alarm clock had shown it was about half an hour before the time he usually got up, anyway.

Scott started the shower and let it run for a minute while he sat on the toilet so it had time to get warm, then he squeezed some toothpaste onto his toothbrush before hanging it in his mouth and stepping into the shower. Brushing his teeth when showering was easier, even though he wasn’t quite sure why that was. He’d seen the tip online some years ago and tried it because he often struggled to brush it teeth and, well, it helped so he never stopped.

When he was done, he openet the door to the shower just wide enough so he could chuck the toothbrush into the sink, spitting the remaining toothpaste towards the drain. Then he leaned his head back, enjoying the water pouring onto his face, letting it wash away the reminders of his nightmare. He couldn’t even remember what had happened in it, just that Grian had been in it, with their multiple eyes and glowing hair. He shuddered, then thought about the appointment he had this afternoon. How was he even going to begin explaining all this to his therapist without sounding absolutely delusional?

He slid down the wall of the shower, burying his hands in his hair. He hadn’t thought getting Grian to stay away from Jimmy and Pearl would be easy, and yet … Somehow this conversation he’d had with them seemed too easy. They were too understanding, too reasonable. It didn’t fit into what Scott thought they should be. It didn’t fit with what was revealed when they lost their grip on their disguise.

Scott hated this. Is this why Pearl and Jimmy trusted them? Because while they seemed scary at first, they where kind and warm and harmless when one got to know them? But because Pearl and Jimmy trusted them, that meant Scott couldn’t. Because it was an act, nothing more. Scott had to believe that Grian was out to hurt them, because if he fell for them and something happened, he would never be able to forgive himself. So, no matter how genuine and kind as Grian seemed, he couldn’t trust him, if only for Pearl and Jimmy’s sake.

Scott sat with this resolution for what felt like forever before he could find it in himself to actually use the time he had left in the shower to wash up. Then he squeegeed the water on the door and the walls before stepping out onto a towel and drying off, then leaning the toothbrush in the sink. Only after that did he get dressed and walked to the living room, checking the time on his way. He still had time until Jimmy, Pearl and Grian wanted to join them, determined to spend their last morning here together.

Except when he opened the door, Grian was already sitting there, nursing a cup of coffee. They looked up and the moment their eyes met, Scott shut the door and turned around. Before he even had a chance to enter the kitchen across the hall, the door behind him opened and Grian announced way too cheerfully for the time of day and the conversations they’ve had yesterday, “You can sit with me, I’ve made coffee!”

Scott froze with his hand on the door handle, reminding himself of his resolve. “How can I trust you haven’t messed with it?” he asked and shot them an icy glare that froze Grian’s grin into something forced.

“Just wanted to be nice,” Grian grumbled and pouted, then ducked back into the living room, closing the door behind themself.

Scott sighed, moving into the kitchen to make himself his own coffee, leaning against the counter while he sipped on it. There went his quiet morning, and he just grumbled to himself to let out his frustrations at that.

Luckily it didn’t take too long until he could hear steps on the stairs and see Jimmy and Pearl arrive through the window in the door. He moved to gather some things for breakfast on a tray to pretend that’s what he’s been doing all along when he heard Jimmy ask, “Where’s Scott?”

“Kitchen,” he and Grian exclaimed simultaneously, making Scott cringe. He opened the door quickly to distract himself and handed Pearl, who stood closer to him, the filled tray. “You can put that on the dining table,” he said. “I’ll be there with the rest in a moment.”

Scott gathered the rest of the stuff they’d need in his arms and walked through the open doors. He almost reached the table when the half-open pack of cheese right on top of the pile slid off and he instinctively leaned forward to catch it, letting more of the stuff in his arms tumble to the ground. But before anything could hit the ground, a purple cloud of light formed around the things and let them hover in the air before they floated over to the table and sat down on there.

Scott took a deep breath to compose himself, then stood up normally and stared, not quite glared, at Grian who ducked their head sheepishly and looked away. Then he walked to the table to put the few things that had remained in their arms onto the table, sitting down on the last free seat at the table. Right across Grian, of course.

This was going to be a long morning.

Grian tried their best to not irritate Scott any more, making sure to keep their legs under their half of the table and not looking over to him. He seemed incredibly pissed at them this morning, and while Grian had attempted a peace offering earlier, it seemed to only have made it worse. So it would just be best to upset him as little as possible, so Grian just feigned tiredness because he hadn’t slept well and was quiet. They would have enough time to hang out with Timmy after Scott left for work, after all.

Breakfast was over soon, and then Pearl and Grian accompanied Scott to the door to say goodbye to him. Pearl went first, wrapping her wings around them both like she never wanted to let him go. Grian could hear them whisper quietly, and they leaned against the wall, looking at their phone as they waited for her to say her goodbyes.

When Pearl finally let go of him, Grian waved a simple goodbye and turned to leave, but Scott was next to him within two seconds.

“Not so fast,” Scott said and pulled him in, startling Grian. It wasn’t a hug, far from it. No, he just wrapped his elbow around their neck, pulling them in until their chests barely touched, whispering in their ear, “I’ll be watching you, got it? And if you do anything, anything to hurt them, you’ll regret it.”

“Gotcha,” Grian whispered back, then a grin spread on his face when he got an idea. He lifted his arms and wrapped them around Scott who froze at that, saying sweetly, “It was so nice to meet you, Scott, and I hope we can meet again soon and do a repeat of yesterday.”

“Ew,” Scott hissed into their ear. “Don’t ever fucking do that again.”

Grian just giggled at that and freed him. “See you around!” they said cheerily, and Scott tried to level them with his glare.

“I hope you fucking die,” he hissed under his breath before turning around to Pearl with an apologetic smile. “Okay, but now I really gotta go if I don’t want to be late.”

“See you,” she said with an oblivious smile, and Grian had to hold back laughter, settling on a grin as they waved Scott goodbye, who shot one final warning glare back at them before closing the door. They were on their way back to the living room when Grian’s phone vibrated in their pocket, and only then could they hear the car drive away. They pulled it out of their pocket to check the message they got.

Scott

Scott

smajor1985

This is the beginning your direct message history with Scott.

28 February 2025

	Scott 7:32 AM Go jump off a bridge
	🌞⭐🌙 7:33 AM o7

Message @Scott

Grian almost laughed out loud at the message, mentally planning to find a bridge later to jump off, sending him a video of it. They could already imagine the exasperated glare Scott would give his phone upon seeing it.

The rest of the morning, they spent mostly talkting. Timmy told them about his progress in searching for a therapist—“why does no one have any openings?”—while Pearl talked of Gem’s plans to come visit on Sunday to finally meet Grian properly.

And Grian—Grian sat mostly silently and watched, distracted by thoughts of Scott and their sister and the disembodied voice. But it seemed like Timmy and Pearl were perfectly content just talking among the two of them, so they didn’t push themself to talk even though they didn’t feel like it. They glanced at their phone instead, checking their dashboard and eventually finding a confused message from Scott that made them giggle.

Scott

Scott 7:57 AM Wdym o7????? [1] [1] Grian??????

Message @Scott

9 AM came faster than anticipated, which meant that it was time to bring the rest of their stuff to Pearl’s car and say goodbye to Timmy now, too. It was more difficult than biding Scott farewell, in any case, and it wouldn’t be quite as funny and amusing, either.

For the beginning of it, Grian just awkwardly stood behind Pearl as the cousins hugged each other, tapping at their phone. Then Pearl stepped aside to give them a chance to say goodbye too, wiping at her eyes. In Timmy’s eyes, too, was a suspicious glint.

“Timmy,” Grian said simply as they stepped in front of their not-quite-but-actually-kind-of cousin, giving him a hesitant smile.

Timmy snorted at that, a sad smile making a home on his face. “You’re never gonna stop with that, are you?”

Grian shook their head with a grin. “Never,” they confirmed, and then they suddenly found themself wrapped in strong arms and wings, pulled in so tight they couldn’t find the ground beneath their feet.

“I’m gonna miss you, Grian,” Timmy said and squeezed them, so Grian did their best to squeeze back. “Even though we haven’t known each other for long.”

“I’ll miss you too,” Grian responded, not quite sure about it when the words left their lips, but the doubts vanished quickly.

Grian’s feet found their way back onto the ground soon after that, and when Timmy finally released them, they both smiled at each other awkwardly, so Grian took a step back to fill the silence. They held out their flat hands, forming a rectangle with his thumbs and index fingers, then took a bow. “I shall Watch over you,” they said solemnly, and when they straightened up, they found Timmy and Pearl staring at them. Suddenly anxious, they rubbed the back of their neck. “Was that weird?”

“Kinda,” Timmy said.

“What was that you were doing?” Pearl asked and tried to mimic the sign they did with her hands.

“Don’t curl your fingers,” Grian corrected and showed the sign to her again. “All your fingers are straight, like so.”

“What does the sign mean?” Timmy asked, and Grian shrugged.

“I forgot. Honestly, that was just muscle memory, I think.”

“And what do the words mean?” Pearl asked, then clarified, “You weren’t speaking English, or any language I know.”

Grian frowned and thought back to what they said. “It’s … I was saying that I’ll Watch over you,” they explained then. “I don’t know why I would, or what that’s even supposed to mean but … I think it’s supposed to be reassuring. Like, ‘nothing bad shall befall you until we meet again because I’m keeping watch and protecting you,’ kind of.”

“Well then,” Timmy said, then attempted to mimic the sign and bowed. “I’ll Watch over you too, then.”

Even though Grian didn’t fully understand what it was supposed to mean, the notion made them laugh, and they wrapped their arms back around Timmy. Pearl joined in the hug, too, and it took several minutes until they let go of each other again.

The drive to Hermitopia was quiet for the most part. Due to the hour there wasn’t too much traffic, and Grian got lost in their phone for the most part. They should have guessed it wouldn’t stay that way for too long.

“You’ve been quiet for the last few days,” Pearl noted about an hour into their drive. “Is everything okay?”

“It’s just—it just irks me that I don’t really know anything about myself, you know?” Grian barely even looked at her as they answered, shrugging.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Grian sighed. “I mean, I fell from the sky and you and Timmy found me and took me in—which I’m grateful for, don’t get me wrong—but I have no clue who I am. What I am. Who and what I left behind and why I even left. If it was even voluntary or not. What if I never even want to leave, and now I’m stuck here with no memories?” They stared outside the window, which seemed so much easier than looking at Pearl right now. They had no idea what Pearl would think about all this, the things that had happened yesterday with Scott, and this strange voice that’s been watching them. “I just … I don’t know anything, and that just became so much more obvious when I ent to see the impact crater. It feels like I need to find out who I am to be whole again, without knowing anything about who I was.”

“Is there anything you can remember?” Pearl asked then, and Grian just shrugged.

“Nothing specific. Mostly feelings and some thoughts here and there.” They looked up, relieved to find Pearl looking straight ahead on the road. “Like, I know looking at the night sky makes me feel like home, stuff like that. I know I like to feel cute and that I don’t give a fuck about gender. I know I go numb and quiet sometimes, and that I prefer to watch rather than being watched, and than being involved sometimes.”

And then there was the thing with the disembodied voice that they could feel watching them right now, too, like it didn’t even know nor care about the discomfort it caused. Grian … still wasn’t sure what they wanted Pearl to know about it, if they even wanted her to know about it.

“And that doesn’t really answer the question of who you are,” Pearl mused before Grian could come to a conclusion.

They nodded, kind of glad that the moment to tell her about the voice was over now. “It’s not really helpful, you know? And I—I don’t even remember which of those things were already there before I lost my memories, and what’s a result of the memory loss.”

“Sounds really difficult,” Pearl said and quickly glanced towards Grian before looking back on the road. “Maybe I could help you try some more stuff later, to jog your memory?” she suggested, and Grian shrugged, not sure how much that would help. Not when it seemed like they didn’t even originate on this planet.

“Maybe,” they just said non-committally. Besides, after Scott’s threat, they weren’t even sure whether they wanted to involve Pearl further, after all, so they changed the topic, “When’s our appointment later?”

“Around 2 PM,” Pearl explained. “Depending on traffic we should be in Hermitopia around 11, 11:30 maybe. That means we’ll have enough time to go home and order lunch, maybe even do some unpacking before we gotta go. We gotta stop by the bank and a photo booth on our way, too.”

“And after the appointment?” Grian asked.

“Well, I’d leave you to unpack your stuff, mostly. I don’t really have plans for today, though, so we can hang out if you want.” Pearl shot a quick smile at them. “And tomorrow, I was thinking, we could go to IKEA and a home improvement store, just to get some decor because my guest room is still rather plain. It’s pretty much all white as of now so you might wanna bring some color into it. I just won’t be able to get you all-new furniture, that’ll have to wait until you get your first paycheck, but I do have enough for some foil that you could put on furniture to make it less white. Some curtains might be good too, maybe some plants. Are you good with plants?”

Grian shrugged. “No clue.”

“Maybe fake plants then,” Pearl mused. “But yeah, just a handful of stuff to make it feel more homey,” she explains. “Since you’re gonna spend most of the near future in that room.”

“Good idea,” they said, hoping Pearl wouldn’t notice the hesitation in it. The envelope full of cash that Scott had given them late last night felt like it was burning a hole into Grian’s jeans pocket.

She didn’t have to know.

2 PM arrived way too quickly for Pearl’s tastes. She had double, triple-checked the address Ren had given her before punching it into her GPS, her stomach in knots when she realized it was in one of the more dangerous areas in town. Still, she trusted Ren and that he wouldn’t send her to a criminal that would take advantage of them, even though her body didn’t want to believe it as the car turned into a big, empty parking lot that belonged to an abandoned warehouse. The building was grey and grimy, any color it might have once had been painted hidden underneath years of dirt. There was a sign near the entrance but it was completely overgrown at this point.

Pearl pressed her teeth together, closed her eyes and forced herself to take a deep breath. Ren wouldn’t send her to someone dangerous, she reminded herself. He said that Doc was a close friend, trusted. He might seem big and scary and dangerous—‘but on the inside he’s just a cute, fluffy little goat,’ Ren had assured her. ‘Though you probably shouldn’t tell him I said that.’

“You okay?” Grian asked quietly from the passenger seat, and Pearl sighed, taking another deep breath.

“Just a little nervous,” she lied and freed the steering wheel from the vice grip she had on it, then making sure she had everything—money for the deposit, Grian’s ID photos, her phone—, then she stepped out of the car, Grian swiftly following suit. She checked the building they were in front of against the information Ren had given her one last time, then she walked around the building towards the side entrance. Grian followed her like a baby chick, which was adorable and made her smile, momentarily allowing her to forget about her anxiety.

She stopped in front of the door Ren had told her was the entrance, checking her phone one last time before sliding it back into her pocket and knocking, hard. There was no doorbell according to Ren.

It was quiet inside the warehouse, and for a moment Pearl worried if she was even at the right abandoned warehouse, until the door opened, revealing what must be a goat and creeper hybrid. He must be about five inches taller than even Pearl, barely fitting into the doorframe without ducking. Green fur covered almost his entire body, but his right arm was covered in metal, same as the left side of his face down to his chest where it was hidden under his lab coat. His left eye glowed red, threatening, and the horns curling on the side of his head looked sharp and pointy. Pearl shivered.

“You must be Doc,” she said then, reaching out a hand, remembering what Ren had told her. He could smell fear, apparently, and he was not above frightening the people that came to him for illegal business into silence, should the need arise. ‘But if you’re firm and confident, he shouldn’t make any problems.’

Doc met her shaky gaze, eyes narrow in consideration, then he took her hand, squeezing it hard—why did she have to give him her right hand?—and a small smile spread on his face. “Pearl, is it?” he said with an unmistakeable German accent.

“Pearl Moon, nice to meet you,” she said. Doc just raised an eyebrow at that.

“You really think it wise to give me your full name?” he asked, amused, and finally let go of her hand. She covertly rubbed it behind her back after inspecting the red lines the edges of his prosthetic left on it.

“You’re gonna get their full name in a minute,” Pearl said defensively. “It’s not gonna be much of a stretch to figure out who I am once you know that.”

Doc laughed at that, tilting his head. “You’re not wrong there.” He turned his head to Grian. “And you are my customer for today?”

“I think so,” Grian nodded hesitantly, and that’s when a sharp grin revealed Doc’s teeth. Pearl really should have told them what Ren had told her.

“Come in then,” Doc said and stepped aside, holding out an arm to showcase the meager furnishings in the little office room. There was a big desk with a swivel chair behind it, and in front of it two simple wooden chairs. There wasn’t any decor, just a plant on the desk that seemed to be thriving, not quite fitting into the dingy atmosphere.

Pearl walked ahead and sat down on one of the wooden chairs, Grian sitting down next to her. Doc sat on the swivel chair, even sitting down still towering over both of them.

“So,” Doc said, glancing down at the file that lay in front of him. “My dear friend Ren told me you would come today. What is it you want, then?”

“I need some legal documents for my, uhm, cousin,” Pearl said, cursing the stammer. “He—his documents got lost on the move here.”

Doc looked up, raising his eyebrows. “There is no need to lie to me, Pearl,” he said then. “I know what you are really here fore.” He pointed at the file. “Create a footprint for a man that appeared out of nowhere.”

“Not a man,” Pearl corrected, heart beating faster with fear as Doc frowned at that.

“No? Well, a person that appeared out of nowhere then.”

“That’s correct,” Grian said, and Pearl really hoped they would shut up. She was anxious enough even without Grian being unpredictable in the background.

“So your cousin appeared out of nowhere and now needs documents,” Doc gathered. “You came to me because you need someone to hack into government databases to make sure they are there should anyone suspect they are not here legally. Where are you from?” he then turned to Grian.

“Uh—” Grian glanced to Pearl, and Doc tutted. “I want to hear it from you, kleiner Ara (little macaw).”

Great. That was it. Doc would decide they’re not worthy of his time and refuse them. It had been stupid anyway to think this big career criminal would simply let them off the hook this easily, just faking them their necessary documents without asking any questions.

“Ich weiß nicht, wo ich herkomme (I don’t know where I’m from),” Grian explained then, shrugging like this wasn’t a huge deal. “Ich hab mein Gedächtnis verloren; das erste, woran ich mich erinnern kann, war vielleicht vor ‘ner Woche (I lost my memories, the first thing I can remember was, like, a week ago).” Pearl winced at the words she couldn’t understand.

“So not cousins,” Doc noted, perceptively, looking from Grian to Pearl.

“No,” Pearl dared, and Doc stared at her.

“I wasn’t finished with them yet.”

Pearl rose her hands defensively, then Doc turned back to Grian. “Are you German, by chance?”

Grian frowned. “Not that I know of, no.”

“Warum sprechen Sie dann Deutsch, kleiner Ara? (Then why are you speaking German, little macaw?)” Doc asked, and Grian frowned.

“Ich weiß nicht einmal, was das ist, (I don’t even know what that is)” they responded, and Doc laughed, surprised.

“Curious,” he said with an amused twinkle in his eyes. “Most curious, indeed.”

“Can we get back to business?” Pearl demanded, and Doc looked at her again.

“So impatient,” he chided, but at least it guided them back on topic. “What kind of documents do you need, then?”

Pearl pulled out her phone, showing Doc the list she made. Doc wrote the points into his file, then asked for Grian’s full name, where they were supposed to have gone for school, their supposed last and their current address. But he asked way more in-depth than she could have possibly prepared: past medical incidents, any surgeries, extended stays at hospital, names of family and friends—

“You aren’t merely booking a service for false documentation,” Doc had explained when she asked about it. “You have booked a full legal footprint for your little Ara (macaw) friend. That entails insurance data too, as well as a social media presence. I’ve really got my work cut out for me, because I need to invent a full person completely from scratch. There is no rushing this.” He gave her a sharp smile. “And to family and friend prices at that! Be glad you know Ren or else I would have had all your savings for this.”

Pearl hadn’t been so thankful for Ren in all the time she knew him, and she let him know in a long voice message when Doc finally let them leave, the sun already dipping behind the buildings around.

By the time Grian and Pearl left, Doc was positively ecstatic. When Ren had approached him earlier this week to blackmail a favor for a friend out of him, he had already resigned himself to a boring afternoon.

He hadn’t expected someone like Grian Astra Moon—what a name—to walk in the door. Someone who, as soon as he laid eyes on them, would send a shiver of fear and excitement alike down his spine.

Grian was … indescribably unique. Even between the two languages at his disposal, Doc struggled to find any words that could come even close to describing what they made him feel and think. It was the most wonderful thing.

While Doc stowed Grian’s file away, he punched a number into his phone, already giddy with excitement.

“How was your appointment?” Ren asked after his phone rang twice, sounding awfully smug.

“They were the most incredible customer I’ve had all year!” Doc exclaimed, laughing when his husband’s smugness turned to confusion.

“I’m sorry?”

“You wouldn’t have expected little goody-two-shoes Pearl to bring me my most interesting customer yet, huh?” Doc grinned as he made his way to his car.

“Pearl?” Ren asked, incredulously. “Pearl Moon, red macaw? That Pearl? You sure she didn’t get her information stolen by a different Pearl?”

Doc almost giggled. “That’s the one, Post Master Pearl. No identity theft. Believe me, I checked.”

“I still have no clue why she would need your services in the first place,” Ren sighed. “What could she possibly need a fake identity for?”

“Her so-called ‘cousin,’” Doc explained, pinning his phone between his ear and his shoulder as he opened the car door. “Amnesiac, allegedly. Did she ever tell you about this cousin of hers?”

Ren was quiet for a moment as he considered the question. “Jimmy,” he said then. “Canary, I think. On her mom’s side.”

“Ah! Well, this one’s a … what’s it called, Ara (macaw)—the same thing she is. On her dad’s side, from England. Supposedly lived there until they moved in with Pearl late last week. Does that ring any bells?”

Ren denied that.

“Yeah, I don’t buy it either,” Doc explained, then put the call on speaker as he pulled the car door closed. “I’m not entirely convinced they’re related, let alone that they knew each other before last week. Call it intuition.” He dropped his phone into the chest pocket of his lab coat, then started the car. “Also, her cousin—her cousin is fucking weird. Not just your bog-standard socially-awkward weird. They’re that too, no question, but they’re weird-weird. Can’t quite put my finger on it. It’s—there’s something about them, Ren. Something terrifying, something exhilarating, and I will not stop before I found out what it is.”

“Now, hold your horses,” Ren piped up. “Maybe you should try to not scare them away before you finished the deal. Wouldn’t want them to catch wind of your invesigation and refuse to show up again, or worse, just vanish.”

Doc scoffed. “Please. We both know there’s no-one that can escape me when I set my eyes on them, whether they want to or not. Besides, you offered them a deal they can’t refuse. Friend-and-family discount, fifty dollars for new documents, plus creating a paper trail? As fast and thorough as I am? No one can offer them anything close.”

“That’s exactly what I mean,” Ren interrupted him. “Your service is unparalleled, sure, but if they have the money, they might consider shilling out a lot more to go somewhere less … risky. Honestly, you can be glad I vouched for you and that Pearl isn’t knowledgeable enough about the criminal underworld to have recognized you. Otherwise, the way I know her, she would’ve booked it out of there already. Working with the Doc? Unimaginably terrifying for most people. I’m convinced she would find a half-decent alternative, just because she’s Pearl.”

“Fine,” Doc relented. “But let’s assume she did, no-one would be able to conceal their paper trail from me. It would be useless anyway. So let me have my fun, dear.”

Ren just groaned. “You were supposed to be bored!” he complained. “It was supposed to be funny to see you bitch and moan about this boring-ass case that you never would have taken on your own volition. I hate it here.”

Doc laughed at his husband’s misery. “Wouldn’t you prefer me to infodump about this wonderfully intriguing client I’ve found, instead?”

“It’s just not the same,” Ren pouted. “Can’t a man laugh about the misery of his husband in peace, anymore? Honestly, it’s quite homophobic of you to deny me this fundamental human right.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m the most homophobic in all the lands, I know,” Doc just said casually and turned into the street with Ren’s favorite take-out place. “You know, if I’m really such a bad husband, I don’t think I should bring you your favorite dinner on my way home then. That’s not what bad husbands would do, don’t you think?”

“No!” Ren shouted. “I mean, you’re not that homophobic, all things considered,” he quickly reassured Doc. “And you’re the best husband I could imagine. Yes. I will never blackmail you again, promise.”

“That’s a lie,” Doc pointed out, raising his eyebrows even though Ren couldn’t see him.

“Fine, yes, you caught me,” Ren sighed. “But the rest is true!”

“You’re just spreading honey around my mouth so I bring you home your favorite.” Doc frowned. No, that was a German saying, wasn’t it? “You get what I mean.”

Ren laughed. “Sure thing, I can put some honey around your mouth later if that’s what you’re into,” he teased.

“You’re the worst. I’m gonna eat your favorite all by myself then, and you’ll have to watch,” Doc threatened, but he could hear that his husband didn’t buy it in the way he laughed. Ren knew that Doc didn’t mean it—he never did.

On their way home, Grian and Pearl did a quick pit-stop at the grocery on their way because she had emptied or given away most of the groceries that were open before she visited Timmy and Scott. It was kind of overwhelming, Grian had to admit—all the different people, a cacophony of voices echoing from the ceiling. Pearl guided them through it though, walking them through the decisions she made—“so you can help with the groceries in the future,” she explained. They were done in around half an hour, and Pearl already showed Grian how to operate the self-checkout while she ducked into the stationary section to “grab a little something I’ve forgotten”—Grian wasn’t sure he liked the smug grin on her face as she said it.

She came back about two minutes later, triumphantly holding something cardboard wrapped in plastic in her hands, they couldn’t see what it was from so far away.

“For your room,” she explained and handed it to them to scan and—

“You got me a sexy HotGuy calendar?” Grian hissed with wide eyes, feeling heat rush to their cheeks. “Seriously?”

“You don’t like it?” Pearl asked, still looking incredibly self-satisfied.

Grian actually paused to look at it now. On the front cover was a photo of a shirtless HotGuy flexing his abs and biceps, his wide pants pulled down low. He still was wearing his characteristic glasses that hid his face, a confident grin underneath it. Grian was astonished at just how many scars littered his body, some red but most of them white, some of them visibly raised. Was being a vigilante really that dangerous?

They turned the calendar over, then, and found an overview of all twelve images on the back, quickly scanning them. They were incredibly hot, so without saying anything else, Grian just scanned it and put it into the bag.

On their short drive back to the apartment, Grian sent Gem a quick message to complain.

GeminiTay

28 February 2025

	🌞⭐🌙 5:41 PM Pearl got me a sexy HotGuy calendar (ᗒᗣᗕ)՞ Can you believe her?????? A sexy HotGuy calendar!!!!! ლ(ಠ_ಠ ლ)
	GeminiTay 5:42 PM Cant' see why ur complaining Do you not like it
	🌞⭐🌙 5:43 PM ～(　TロT)σ No it's It's good And hot And sexy
	GeminiTay 5:43 PM Where's the problem mister Ait is it ok if I call u mister or is that too gendered [1] Wait Ok mister If you like it and its just like advertised why r u upset
	🌞⭐🌙 5:44 PM She's making fun of me. I can feel it (┬┬﹏┬┬)
	GeminiTay 5:44 PM I think I'm missing some info here grian
	🌞⭐🌙 5:45 PM I'm not telling you （︶^︶） It's embarrassing
	GeminiTay 5:45 PM I'll ask Pearl
	🌞⭐🌙 5:45 PM Fine
	GeminiTay 5:45 PM (not actually tho) wAIT No take backsies
	🌞⭐🌙 5:46 PM You tricked me :((( No fair
	GeminiTay 5:46 PM Ok but u dont actually have to tell me if u dont wanna
	🌞⭐🌙 5:47 PM No, I must! As stated by the ancient laws of No Take-Backsies ಥ_ಥ [1]
	GeminiTay 5:47 PM Suit yourself then
	🌞⭐🌙 5:47 PM So bc I'm from England I have no clue who HotGuy is, right? So I asked Pearl about him when he was on the news and she introduced him. "Oh, that's HotGuy," she said You know what I said???
	GeminiTay 5:48 PM Omg what
	🌞⭐🌙 5:48 PM I said And I quote "That sure is a hot guy" I DIDN'T REAALIZE IT'S HIS NAME [1] Istg it was so embarrassing I lk wanna die ._. (not actually)
	GeminiTay 5:49 PM OMG I CANT BREATHE HOLD ON
	🌞⭐🌙 5:49 PM You ok???????? [1]
	GeminiTay 5:50 PM Yea i just need to remember how to bREATHE My sides hurt sm my goodness Idek why thats so funny it jsut. Is Thanks for the laugh xD
	🌞⭐🌙 5:52 PM :( Rood See that's why I'm leaving you now See you never [1] [1] (actually we just arrived at Pearl's so i gtg but text ya later ( ﾟдﾟ)つ Bye)
	GeminiTay 5:52 PM See ya later G

Message @GeminiTay

When Grian got out of the car, the sun had already settled deep behind the buildings, not really visible from here. They and Pearl each grabbed about half the bags, then they walked into the apartment building, happy about the elevator that would take them to their floor. Pearl showed Grian where everything went, then, and they stowed everything away except for two frozen pizzas that Pearl put into the oven. Then Pearl flopped down on the couch face-first, sighing. Grian joined her awkwardly, not sure if it was appropriate to vanish to their room for more than just dropping their new calendar there.

“Ugh,” Pearl groaned and contorted to reach a spot in her wings with her hand, patting around blindly for a bit, then lifted her head to look at them hesitantly. “Hey Grian? I think I must’ve messed up a feather earlier and it’s kinda painful. Can you maybe—”

“Sure,” Grian replied, and Pearl sat up, pushing her hair over her shoulder so it was out of the way.

“Right wing, near the base. One of the smaller ones towards the bottom.”

Grian scooted closer to inspect the wing near where she had patted around earlier. Pearl’s hoodie had a wide cut-out around her wings, and a smaller black sweatshirt was cut tighter around her wings, concealing some of the smaller feathers where the wings met her back. Their gaze scanned the area to find the culprit but they couldn’t see it well.

“I’m gonna touch you,” Grian warned and waited for a nod before they put a gentle hand onto the base of her wings.

“Oh, you’ve got warm hands,” Pearl sighed and leaned into the touch. “That’s nice.”

“You’re welcome,” Grian said absent-mindedly, relishing in the familiar feeling of feathers beneath his hands as they ruffled through them gently in their search, picking some odd bits of dirt and grime out as they went.

“A little higher,” Pearl said, and Grian’s hands followed. “Now to the right—there.”

Grian found a little feather that was wedged at an odd angle, half-hidden, and carefully pulled at it after a verbal warning. Pearl sqwawked in surprise, and Grian looked closer at it.

“It’s broken,” they explained. “Want me to pull it?”

Pearl hummed an affirmative.

“Okay,” Grian said and readjusted their grip on it to pull it out, holding the wing in place with their other hand. “On three. One … two … and three, there you go.”

A pained noise escaped from beyond Pearl’s gritted teeth, and then the little feather was free.

“You good?”

Pearl took a moment, then nodded, glancing back towards them. “It’s better now.” She motioned to pull back and Grian’s hands followed, making her frown.

“Don’t want me to finish preening you?” they asked, now pulling their hands back in confusion.

“You don’t have to,” Pearl shrugged and put her hair to the back where it fell to conceal the roots of her wings, then turned so that her back fell against the back of the couch. Her wings had felt grimy enough that the last cleaning had to be at least a week away.

“But what do you want?” Grian asked, gaze flicking across her wings. Now that they realized they haven’t been preened properly, it was easier to see the signs, especially towards her back where she couldn’t reach as easily.

“Huh?”

Grian’s gaze flicked up to meet her eyes, and the surprise and confusion in them broke their heart.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked, bewildered.

“You haven’t had your wings preened since we met, have you?” Grian asked. They hadn’t even realized, assuming her cousin would get them for her.

Pearl turned her face away, hiding it behind some hair too, not fast enough to hide the shame in it.

“I’m not judging,” they said quickly. “I mean, I haven’t either but I can just use my abilities for it. I imagine preening themself is a lot harder for the average avian.”

Pearl’s shoulders dropped a bit, but she still wouldn’t look at them.

“Hey,” Grian said and scooted a little closer. “You know what? If you do my wings I do yours. I don’t think I quite need it yet but it still feels nice. And when you’re done with mine and decide you don’t want yours done, that’s fine, too.”

“Why?” Pearl just asked, turning a tiny bit more to them. Grian thought they could catch her briefly looking at them, though they weren’t too sure.

“‘Cause you enjoyed it, ‘cause I like preening flock—which you are, remember?—and ‘cause I want to.”

Pearl was quiet for a while, then again—“why?”

Grian frowned. “I’m not doing this because I think I have to. I promise.”

Pearl opened her mouth again, but that’s when the timer for the pizza went off. She jumped up and was out of the room by the time Grian could process what happened. They followed her, watching as Pearl jumped into an explanation of where Grian could find cutlery and dishes and whatever else they could possibly need right now with frazzled movements. It was all they could do to watch her with an open mouth.

“Are you okay?” they interrupted her after a moment and she paused, staring at them with wide eyes, then—

“Of course I’m okay, Grian, why wouldn’t I be?” Her smile as she said this didn’t reach her eyes, but Grian didn’t push it.

Over dinner, Pearl had put a Stardew let’s play on the TV that Grian and her had started watching together a few days ago, but she couldn’t really focus on it. Her brain played the previous conversation on repeat in her head, and she couldn’t even really enjoy the pizza which kind of made her sad. Except that was a silly thing to be sad about so she pushed it aside.

At least Grian was quiet now. Didn’t notice things she didn’t want noticing, at least not out loud. Didn’t ask questions she didn’t want to think about, let alone answer. But somehow, this was worse, in a way, because now they just stared at the TV with a slight frown, glancing over to her every now and then with this look of pity on their face. She didn’t want to be pitied. She didn’t deserve to be pitied for something that was in her power to fix, that should have been easy to fix, and yet somehow she didn’t. Couldn’t. Because there was just something wrong with her, wasn’t there?

And that was when Jimmy’s voice popped into her head, worried, gentle, understanding. ‘It makes it difficult to see when you’re doing good, and when you mess up, it feels like that’s all you ever do.’

Was this the depression talking? The messed up chemicals in her brain? Was that the thing that was wrong with her? Was it really not just her?

She teared up and quickly turned away from Grian so they wouldn’t notice, sniffling. Jimmy did say it made things hard, even the things you loved. And Pearl saw having to take care of this meat sack of hers as a nuisance on the best of days, so wouldn’t that mean the things you didn’t like doing would be extra hard? Wouldn’t that mean it wasn’t her fault?

But that was a dangerous thought. If she went there, then she would have to acknowledge that depression fucked her up in all kinds of ways that weren’t her fault either, and that was a scary thought.

Pearl slammed her plate onto the coffee table way too hard, standing up in the same notion. She winced and automatically glanced at Grian, recoiling at the look on his face.

“I just—bathroom,” she pressed out quickly before she could break out in tears fully and fled. Only once she locked the door behind her and sank to the ground, wrapping her arms around herself tightly, did she let go. It was a foreign feeling, the sob shaking her body, the hot tears running down her cheeks and dripping onto her knees, her chest hurting with something raw and desperate. She couldn’t—she couldn’t breathe, only a shallow, broken thing that wasn’t enough to fill her lungs. It was all she could do to sit there and let the emotions ransack her body until there was nothing left but numbness. That was how it usually went, at least. She cried until there was nothing left to cry about and then go numb until she got overwhelmed by her emotions again, completely helpless in the face of them. That’s how it always was, that’s how it always would be. That’s how it’s supposed to be.

Except now, something had changed. Now, for the first time ever, she genuinely considered the possibility that it wasn’t normal, that it didn’t have to be this way. Now, a little something blossomed in her heart, small and fragile, and she was overcome with the urge to protect it. It yearned, it wanted—something she’d denied herself in years. To be seen. To be understood. To be okay, more than anything. She wasn’t just afraid of what would happen if she allowed herself this selfish desire, she was terrified. Even as her shaking hand pulled her phone out of her back pocket, something at her yelled at her that she was making a mistake. That she shouldn’t do it, she was being selfish and a burden, she had to deal with this alone, no matter what. And yet, she went into her contacts and dialed Jimmy’s number.

She almost hung up twice, in the short moment between hitting the call button and hearing Jimmy’s voice, rocking back and forth because she needed to do something to distract her from the thoughts that filled her head. He’s gonna hate me, he’s gonna hate me, he’s gonna hate me, he’s gonna—

“Hello?”

Pearl attempted to say it back but all that came out was a choked sob. She tried again, to say something, but all she could do was cry.

“Okay, I—Give me a moment.” Jimmy’s voice grew distant, more mumbling then, and then he came back. “Okay, I’m going to my room right now. It’s okay. Let it out.”

What else was she supposed to do? It wasn’t like she had control over the tears coming non-stop, the sobs that made it difficult to get a word in. She felt so helpless. She didn’t want to be helpless anymore.

“Okay,” Jimmy repeated after another moment. “Okay. Uhm—Do you want me to just stay here so you’re not alone?”

Pearl wasn’t sure she could talk right now anyway so she let out a small, broken, “uh-huh.”

Somehow, she wasn’t sure how, it actually helped. Just having someone here, even if it was just over the phone. It was scary but … Jimmy said it’s okay. He even offered to just stay on call with her. He knew the feeling too. He understood.

He’s gonna hate me—

But what if he didn’t? He didn’t hate Scott for being depressed. In fact, they seemed even closer now than they used to be, when Pearl last saw them.

It was a scary thought, so scary. Because all her life she’d believed that showing this … this side of her was dangerous. It would only lead to hurt. And yet, doing so was making her feel better, making her feel safer, which in turn made this mean voice in her head scream at her even louder that this wasn’t a good idea. She would ruin everything, again. Like she always did.

“Jimmy?” she forced out between sobs, because even though she was afraid to know, she had to.

“Yeah?” he asked, and Pearl braced herself for the impact of his answer before she even dared asking.

“Do you hate me?” That … was not what she meant to ask, and she froze at the words, completely blue-screening. “I-I mean I don’t—I didn’t mean to—I—I’m sorry.”

“Pearl,” Jimmy said, firmly but still gentle. “You’re okay, I promise. I don’t hate you, I never did. I don’t think I could hate you if I tried. And I—” He quieted down for a moment, but Pearl’s thoughts got even louder in turn. He was lying, had to be.

“I told you to go to therapy, right?”

Pearl forced out a little ‘uh-huh,’ bracing for the words that would follow. He told her to go therapy for her problems, not to him. He didn’t want to deal with her shit, that’s why he wanted her to go to therapy instead of helping her himself. Oh God he was going to hate her—

“What I mean is, I want you to get better. And I—I can’t stem all the work it’ll take alone to get you better but I still wanna help you. So thank you for calling me.”

And that was—Pearl couldn’t quite tell but it made her cry more, and if Jimmy minded, he didn’t say anything. Even if he did, if she was too much right now, she didn’t want to know right now. Because with every assurance, that blossom in her chest grew a little stronger, full with hope that maybe, she’d be okay. Maybe not completely, but at least a little more, because Jimmy was here. God, how she wanted to be okay. It was all she ever wanted, and now, with every reassurance her cousin uttered, it finally seemed like it was possible. Finally, she could breathe again, enough that the ache in her chest softened and faded away. Enough that the desparation pulsing through her veins ebbed, finally having reached the thing it was hoping for.

Her sobs started dying down and the flood of feelings simmered down to a manageable amount. Still way more than she was used to but now, with Jimmy by her side, she felt like she could handle it, leaning back against the door now because she wasn’t falling apart anymore.

“I’m sorry,” she said once she calmed enough that she felt she could speak without breaking again.

“No need to apologize, I want to be here for you,” Jimmy said, voice so gentle and understanding and like his help was the natural consequence to her despair that it made her heart ache.

“Sorry,” she apologized again.

“You’re apologizing for apologizing?” Jimmy asked, a hint of amusement in his voice.

Pearl winced. “Oh. Sorry—ugh, I did it again. Sorry.” She dropped her face in her free hand at that. Not even this simple thing she could do right. She was the worst.

“It’s fine, I—I do that too,” Jimmy admitted. “When Scott helps me. I keep apologizing too even if he says I don’t have to.” They were both quiet for a bit, Pearl in awe at the fact that Jimmy wasn’t mad at her for it.

“You know,” he added after a few moments, “The reason I say sorry too much is—I feel like I need to do shit on my own. Anyone else can do it, so why can’t I?” Pearl hummed in agreement. “But here’s the thing. Scott told me once that humans are social creatures. We’re literally built to help each other. You know how lots of baby animals learn to walk shortly after birth because that’s their most important survival mechanism? Now what do humans do?”

Pearl frowned, looking around in the room in thought without really taking anything in. “I don’t know. They just cry, don’t they?”

“Asking for help,” Jimmy confirmed. “Asking for help is our most important skill for survival. So it’s not necessary to be ashamed of it, even though it can be difficult to believe that. And—I have a point, I promise. If asking for help is nothing to be ashamed of, that means it’s nothing you need to apologize for. And saying sorry for something, it—it means what you did is bad, right? But if asking for help is inherent for our survival, it can’t be bad, but that’s what you internalize if you apologize for it.”

“Huh,” Pearl said. She’s never thought of it like this. “So I don’t need to apologize for calling you?”

Jimmy was silent for a moment which made her anxious, then he chuckled and said, “I just shook my head, by the way, sorry. Or, uh, not sorry, I guess. No need to apologize. I promise.”

Pearl couldn’t help but let out a laugh at that. It was a small thing, still weighed down by everything, but it was there. “Then …” she thought for a moment. If she wasn’t supposed to apologize, then what could she say to make sure he knew she appreciated this? “How about thank you?”

“That’s better,” Jimmy said with an audible grin.

“Thank you, really,” she repeated. “I—I don’t think I can find the words to tell you how thankful I am.”

“It’s okay,” Jimmy said, like his help wasn’t a big deal at all. “I—I get it. It’s—I know it’s difficult. Breaking down and feeling like you’re all on your own, and then suddenly you’re not. I’ve been there.”

Pearl drank in his words like they were the antidote to all her problems and—right now it seemed they were. He knew how she felt, he understood. He saw her, really, actually saw her. It was more than she could handle, causing a few more tears to spill out of her eyes. She was not alone.

I am not alone. She thought these words like a prayer, reverent, like they were all she needed to keep going.

“Thank you,” she repeated. “I—just, thank you. For everything.”

“Of course,” Jimmy replied, a smile evident in his voice. “You’re my baby cousin, remember?”

“I’m only a month younger than you!” Pearl protested, not able to help the giggle that escaped her chest.

“A month is a really long time, you know?” Jimmy asked, and Pearl scoffed.

“You just wanna feel special,” she retorted.

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Jimmy said, suddenly serious, and Pearl raised her shoulders, suddenly afraid she’d hurt him. “What I mean,” he elaborated then, “Is that it’s okay want to feel special some of the time. Even if it seems selfish. Hell, even being outright selfish is good some of the time. Like you calling me when you had a panic attack.”

Pearl didn’t respond to the first time, worrying it would make her heart overflow again, so she just said, “I didn’t have a panic attack.”

Jimmy was quiet for a moment. “Do you know what panic attacks look like?”

Pearl frowned. “I—I don’t think I’ve ever seen one.”

“It’s being so afraid of something you can’t think clearly. Struggling to breathe, some throw up from it. Feeling hot and sweaty all of a sudden or like you’re gonna pass out. Your thoughts are going a million miles a minute but nothing they say is helpful, they only make it worse. You spiral and spiral and spiral and can’t get out. Some cry it out, some lash out, some don’t show it and internalize it if they don’t feel safe showing it. They—I don’t think they’re a symptom of depression per se, but depression and anxiety disorders often go hand in hand.”

“Huh,” Pearl said. “I—I’m gonna file that away for later.”

“To much input for now?” Jimmy asked sympathetically. “Sorry. I mean—”

“You can say sorry, I don’t mind,” Pearl retorted.

Jimmy hummed. “I could send you some resources later.”

“Sure,” Pearl agreed. “Later. My, uh, my brain is kinda fried.”

“Thanks for letting me know.” Jimmy quieted down for a bit, then said, “By the way, while you were crying earlier, I texted Grian.”

Pearl stiffened. “You did?” she asked hesitantly.

“Well, technically he texted me first,” Jimmy corrected. “I think he was hesitant to come after you. Didn’t really tell me what was going on, just that you’re not feeling well. So he asked me if I could text you or something. Only saw the messages after you already called me though. So I just let him know that we’re on call so he didn’t worry. Or was that not okay?”

Pearl shrugged. “I—I think that’s fine. Means he’ll worry less.”

“Okay,” Jimmy said. “Just wanted to check in that that was okay.” They were quiet for a moment now, then he asked, “You wanna talk about what happened?”

Pearl hummed in thought. “I—I’m not sure.”

“What if you text me but we stay on call?”

“I think that’s fine,” Pearl said and moved to put Jimmy on speaker, but then she hesitated. “Actually, I wanna grab some water ‘cause I’m really dehydrated right now, and I’m gonna move to my room ‘cause the bathroom floor isn’t very comfortable. I’ll mute for like five minutes, alright?”

“Sure,” Jimmy said. “I’ll be here when you come back.”

“Thanks, Jimmy.” Then she hit the mute button, slid her phone into her pocket and grabbed a bottle of water from the kitchen. After hesitating in front of the living room for a bit, she opened the door to find it empty. The TV was still on, the video set to pause. Grian’s stuff was gone now, only Pearl's plate next to her glass were left. She frowned, worried they took her leaving crying earlier the wrong way. It took a moment to fight back against the voice berating her about having fucked up again, but then she found herself in front of Grian’s room, knocking at the door. The awaited answer didn’t come, and it send her thoughts spiraling again. Fuck, they probably hated her for ruining the nice evening they had planned for something stupid, she always did this and—

Pearl could feel herself start to panic again so she reached for her phone to talk to Jimmy, but that was when she noticed the little red circle with a ‘10’ in the top left corner. She tapped on it to find new messages from Grian, the last one only sent three minutes ago, and slumped against the wall in relief when she found they weren’t mad.

🌞⭐🌙

28 February 2025

	🌞⭐🌙 6:25 PM Are you okay? Stupid question, sorry Did I push too much? If so I'm sorry [1] Ok Timmy texted me back. I told him you weren't doing well bc I didn't know if you'd want to see me, I hope that was alright? [1] I'm glad you're calling rn honestly, you really didn't seem too well
	🌞⭐🌙 6:34 PM Ok, I'm done with dinner now and I'm getting a little anxious now. I paused the video when u left so we could watch the rest later? Also I'm gonna go out a bit. I get the urge to listen in sometimes when I get anxious so I wanna make sure I'm not gonna do that. Just going for a flight. Text me when I can come back? [1]
	🌞⭐🌙 6:51 PM Also I just wanted you to know I'm not upset you left bc sometimes you just need space to figure shit out, I get that too sometimes [1] [1] Or that you're talking to Timmy about it and not me. I mean you know him lots better than me [1] Ugh why does this sound so passive aggressive, I'm trying to be genuine here (ಡ‸ಡ) [1] Well anyway I'll leave you to your uh emotions now see ya okibyeeeee ＼(⌒▽⌒) [1]
	Pearlo 6:55 PM Hey G. I'm feeling better now, sorry for being so ... weird. And uh thanks for putting up with me. And for the offer earlier i just didnt really know how to react? Its not really that you pushed too much, just that im not good with dealing with some things, iderk why tbh I'm glad ur not upset, I was kidna worried abour that bc i didnt see ur message at first so thx for clarifying! Im gonna talk to Jimmy some more, mainly via text so u can come back when ur ready See ya

Message @🌞⭐🌙