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“God, you’re so fuckin’ ugly,” Ze snickered under his breath after glancing over at Regect.
Regect’s feathers ruffled as he turned sharply in the chair by the computer, “Dude, what the fuck?! That is so uncalled for what the hell did I do to you??”
Ze tilted his head in a way he knew would piss Regect off and smirked, “I don’t know, just inserting yourself in my life and making me look at your ugly ass every day?”
“Jesus fucking Christ dude. You’re just mean today. Can I have some goddamn peace while I-”
“While you GAMBLE? On MY fucking computer with MY fucking money? Yeah no, fuck you.” Ze snapped. He just wanted to provoke the fucker, honestly.
Regect actually stood, “YOU DIDNT HAVE TO BRING YOUR COMPUTER DIPSHIT. YOU LET THIS HAPPEN. I DO WHAT I FUCKIN’ WANT!” He pointed an accusatory claw at Ze.
“Doesn’t mean you have to look ugly while you do it.” Ze picked at his nails, not even giving Regect the privilege of his gaze.
Regect pouted, butthurt, “I can’t control what I look like, you don’t have to be a bitch about it, god.”
“I mean I’m forced to stare at your scraggly fuckin’ feathers all day so-“
“You can LEAVE THE ROOM! And- My feathers are NOT scraggly, dude”
“Yeah they are, you’re the scraggliest motherfucker I’ve seen in my entire life. No wonder you forget to fly, your SINGULAR ugly ass wing doesn’t even look flight-worthy.”
Regect wrapped his wing around his front and cradled it. “HOW THE HELL WOULD YOU KNOW THAT? I BET YOU DON’T KNOW THE FIRST FUCKIN’ THING ABOUT BIRDS!”
“I had a bird for a few years as a kid, dumbass.”
“Oh.” Regect hunched slightly, almost shying away from him. He started to grumble to himself, “Man you don’t gotta call me out on it… stupid fuckin’ feathers, goddamn ugly ass wings and- ugh stupid fuckin’ Ze, I’m not that ugly.” He stormed out of the room. Ze almost felt bad… but he didn’t cuz it was Regect. But that wasn’t the intended reaction, normally, bickering was more fun. He went down the stairs towards the purple-carpeted living room, Ze stood and peered after him. He flattened down on the couch, tucking his wing close as not to take up space. Regect sighed dramatically. He turned towards Moe, who was drawing something, “Moe, am I ugly?”
“Honk! Honk, honk!”
“Thank you, Moe. Ze is being a dick today.”
“Honk honk.”
Regect giggled, “Yeah, yeah, he is.”
“I’m not ALWAYS a dick!” Ze called defensively.
“YEAH, YEAH, SURE.” Regect yelled satirically.
***
Later, Ze was sitting on the ground against the couch, reading an article on his phone. They didn’t actually have anything to do that day and didn’t feel like recording something. Luckily, Regect had left him alone so he could look things up in peace.
“Whatcha readin’?” A deep voice startled Ze, he powered off his phone.
“JESUS CHRIST! FUCK DUDE DON’T SCARE ME LIKE THAT!” A swivel around revealed that Regect was leaning directly over Ze’s shoulder with his arms bracing himself at the end of the couch. His body bent at a weird angle and his legs rested against the top of the cushions. What a fucking weirdo. “Why’re you peering over my shoulder like a fuckin’ creep?”
“God forbid I get curious.” Ze shoved him so hard that he lost his position on the couch and laid awkwardly in the corner. He yelled, “HEY!” But Ze could hear the laughter in his tone.
“It’s none of your business anyway,” Ze commented as Regect righted himself in a sitting position. He crossed his legs all weird and leaned over to be closer to Ze (who was still on the floor).
Regect hummed, “I’m pretty sure it IS my business when you’re reading something about corvid grooming habits.” There was a small pause. “I happen to be our resident corvid, you kno-”
“So you KNEW what I was reading and you asked anyway? What are you, stupid? And yes, I know you’re a bird, I don’t CARE.” Ze snapped.
Regect swayed to the side, maybe tilting his nonexistent head, “It seems like you do, though,” he teased.
“Dumbass…” Ze muttered with an eye roll. Okay, sure, he was concerned for Regect’s well being. The idiot clearly hadn’t been preening and if Ze remembered correctly from owning a budgie for a few months as a kid, that’s like… a sign of stress or something. He pursed his lips, frowning upon the words he planned to say, “Is something wrong? Like genuinely, dude.”
This seemed to take Regect off guard. He stiffened and then tried to relax himself like Ze wouldn’t notice, “Well that came out of nowhere, what the hell are you talking about? Is mister bird expert over here-”
“I never said that. But it’s basic instinct for YOUR KIND to take care of themselves. So either you’re fucking stupid or just so miserable you aren’t keeping your wings… er- wing… in check. It’s bird shit, man, you should know this.”
Regect started to get agitated, “I’m not fucking incompetent, shithead. It’s bird shit, yeah, but I’m barely a fuckin’ bird. I- It’s not my fault if I didn’t know that. WHICH I DID, BY THE WAY.”
Ze paused and stared at him. Things were clicking into place. Of COURSE Regect didn’t know how to take care of himself like a bird, he was probably just pulled from thin air by those fuckass eyes, and they don’t give two SHITS about him. Why would he have known? He referred to himself as a “thing.” He didn’t have the SLIGHTEST idea on what birds were supposed to do. Ze sighed, “Do you want me to show you how to preen your feathers?”
“WHAT? NO! EW!” Regect ruffled at the idea, going as far as to scoot away from Ze.
Ze raised his tone, “IT’S NOT LIKE THAT DUDE! IT’S LIKE… A SOCIAL THING. WITH BIRDS. If don’t learn how to do this, your wing is gonna hurt and it’s only gonna get worse! It’s not that big of deal!”
“NO! NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT!” “COME ON, MAN, IT’S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!” “DONT COME ANYWHERE NEAR ME YOU FUHREAK!!” “I SWEAR TO GOD- GET BACK HERE!” Regect fled the room and Ze followed in pursuit. He chased him around the house for about 20 minutes before he finally caught Regect and managed to pin him down.
“Stop squirming!!” “MOE! MOE! MOE HELP MEEE!!!” “MOE WON’T SAVE YOU!”
A bit more struggling later.
“OKAY. Either I start fixing your stupid feathers on the floor and we sit uncomfortably for however long this takes, or I drag your ass upstairs and we sit on one of our beds like civilized people,” Ze stared Regect down. Literally. Because he was underneath him.
Regect snarled, “Whatever gets your fatass off me.”
Ze took a breath of relief and swung his leg off of Regect. Ze stood and offered his hand to Regect. When he went to accept the help up, Ze pulled his hand away, like a bitch. Regect grumbled and went up the stairs using his own free will. (because technically he could just… not let Ze do this? But he gave in anyway. Gay.) Moe was at the computer, playing a video game or something, Ze wasn’t paying that much attention. She honked a greeting. The two returned it because while they don’t like eachother, they DO like Moe. Because Moe is awesome. With more pitiful grumbles and growls, Regect sat on the edge of his bed and slumped over with his arms propped on his knees. His wing flapped in frustration. "Will you cut out the moping? I'm doing something NICE for you." Regect put his hands on his invisible cheeks and sighed. Ze made his way around Regect and settled behind him. Regect sighed loudly and obviously AGAIN. Ze chose to ignore it. He studied the mess of iridescent black feathers before him. Because Regect insisted on making everything more difficult, Ze had to manually make him stretch his wing out by grabbing it at the joint and spreading it to see how bad it really was.
"DUDE." Regect sat up and looked over his shoulder at Ze.
"What? Do you think I can do all the preening with your wing folded up?"
Regect exhaled, "You could've just ASKED me to move."
"Well, I knew you were going to bitch about no matter what I did, so shut up and let me do my thing." Ze focused back on Regect's wing. The feathers weren't just crooked but they were grown in weird. Almost every bit was frayed and unzipped Certain fully grown feathers in their keratin shells here, brittle and stringy feathers there, god, it was a nightmare. "That's... Gotta hurt, right?"
Regect stayed silent, sulking in his own pity.
"Whatever." Ze didn't bother to start small, he took a feather that was surely stunted by a unbroken keratin case in his fingers and started working along it, trying to break the feather free.
"OW!" Regect flinched and pulled his wing away. Ze groaned in annoyance. "You never said it would hurt!"
Ze pulled it back towards him, "It only HURTS because you've never DONE IT BEFORE." He continued, ignoring how Regect jolted this way and that. He cracked through pin feather after pin feather, as if it would never end. He was so focused that he didn't even care if Regect was complaining anymore; his hands had a task so his mind wandered elsewhere. He thought out loud, "You don't have a beak to do this with, so it would be difficult with your claws, anyway. There's a reason that birds help eachother out with this."
Regect shuddered, "You don't know if I have a beak. Maybe I do!"
"You don't."
"... I don't." he admitted.
After a while of grunts, squeaks, complaints, and like a ton of keratin getting on the bedsheets, Ze ruffled through the mass of feather that he was finished with that portion of the groom. And he only drew blood in like... 5 places! "Okay, we're done with that par-"
Regect launched from his perch, clearly restless, "YOU'RE DONE??? OH THANK GOD! That SUCKED!"
"No," Ze corrected, "Not done. Sit back down, we're done with the hurt-part, you whiny bitch."
"You gotta be FUCKING KIDDING ME!" Regect slumped back down into the bed.
Ze took a deep breath. "This should actually feel nice, man."
"Won't feel nice if YOU'RE doing it!" Regect whined.
"Right, okay," he inhaled, "a main part of preening- like the whole point of it -is redistributing oils throughout the feathers. I know you're like- uh- an entity or whatever but I'm assuming that's what's going on here too. I don't really know how effective this is going to be because I'm gonna try to uh fix all this with just my hands and normally birds will do this with their beaks but uh-"
"GET ON WITH IT!"
"Okay! Okay!" Ze began with the down at the top of what he could see, being the back of Regect's neck. It appeared that he was right because the clustered feathers were quite greasy. He entered another focus state as he tried his best to right Regect's months of wrongs by carefully smoothing out each and every feather. Some were stubborn and refused to return to normal and some fell out entirely despite Ze's best efforts. Regect still squirmed every now and then under Ze's suddenly gentle touch but he felt no need to yell at him to stay still. He preened and caressed and- jesus he was being far too nice. Regect made a squeak and... Lowered his head? Ze didn't know for sure until Regect put his head in his hands. His visible leg started to bounce.
"Honk! Honk, honk honk," Moe gave them a glance and left the room.
Ze paused, did she say...? It was then that Ze remembered a crucial detail about birds. When they practiced allopreening (the act of preening another bird), it was mostly to reach spots on heads and necks that individuals couldn't preen themselves. You aren't SUPPOSED to pet a pet bird's back because it could frustrate them... Sexually. Ze had been sitting here, preening Regect's back and wings for the last hour. Moe said something along the lines of "honk, this seems private I'm outta here, honk" or whatever. Oh my god. Ze was fucking touching up on Regect this whole time. Oh god- what was he supposed to do? If he stopped- he would ACKNOWLEDGE it. And he couldn't do that. If he continued- ew holy shit he can't do that either. It dawned on him suddenly- as a cherry on top -that REGECT wasn't making any attempt to stop him! Ze just completely froze.
"... Huh? What'd she say? Regect looked up.
Ze shrugged, "Nothin' important, I don't think. Wasn't paying attention. Maybe she had somethin' to do?"
Ze could've sworn that Regect stared at him for a moment before he coughed into his fist and said, "Are you almost done?"
"Hey man it's your wings, if you think you're all good then you're probably all good. Hope I could help." Ze lifted his hands in surrender. He was playing it off well, right? His face WASN'T burning. Definitely.
Regect retracted his wing and extended it again, he made a hum of pleasant surprise. His claws reached out and sifted through his own feathers in awe. Then, he shifted slightly, looking back at Ze with something of hesitation or reluctance. He whipped around with a sulk, "I could've done that myself," he proclaimed.
Ze glared at him knowingly, "Right. Sure."
Regect did something that Ze didn't expect, he scratched the back of his neck and asked him, "Could you... Do the other one? Since you're like- conviently right here 'n' all..." Okay. Maybe this was a sign that it WASN'T turning him on.
"Do you even HAVE another wing? You didn't have a face when I tried to smother you in your sleep-" "I wasn't even sleeping." "and that's invisible all the same. How am I supposed to preen a wing that's invisible, anyway?"
To prove a point, Regect slapped Ze in the face by extending his invisible wing. "Figure it out, asshole."
"Fine." Ze felt along the previously non-existent appendage and started picking at keratin and pin feathers with much less accuracy than the last time. Regect was less of a bitch throughout the process this time, though. In fact, he even participated in locating the stubborn things and figuring out how to work them out himself. Again, Ze proceeded to the next stage of fixing these godawful wings earning a few flutters from Regect. He felt obligated to question it. "What?"
"Uh- whuh-? Oh- uh... I just- well you said it yourself- it's a bird bonding thing or whatever." Regect's voice was almost unsure but mostly just flustered. Holy shit. What was Ze doing? He was an idiot because it definitely WAS turning him on!
He had to stop. This was weird as hell. "... Ew." Okay. Step in the right direction. Get your hands off his filthy feathers, Ze.
Regect scoffed and crossed his arms playfully, "What? You don't wanna bond with me?"
Ze snorted, "Too late now, isn't it?" No. No it's not too late. You stop it.
"Eh, guess so!" Regect relaxed against Ze and leaned his back into him.
"You're gross," Ze commented with a SMILE on his face. What was HAPPENING?! "You're gonna get feathers in my mouth."
"Mm... Too bad, so sad." Ze wrapped his arms around Regect's waist. He was gone into the depths of homosexual hell for this. This was no where near platonic. Ze really hoped he would never have to do that again. But as he sat there in the moment, rubbing his fingers through Regect's down, he felt a sort of content that Regect wouldn't be in that much pain anymore. The air was light and giggly and somehow Ze ended up enveloped in those wings he swore were "ugly to look at." And really, in the sunlight, they reflected some truly gorgeous colors. Of course, Ze would never tell him that.