Chapter Text
Derlod stared at the window.
His wings twitched, scuffed and dirtied. The once shimmering black feathers were dull and messy, their golden shine nowhere to be seen. Some part of him was glad for that.
He stared harder.
They itched. The bigger part of him was annoyed about that fact.
The wings on the side of his head twitched, flaring out before settling back against his helmet. He did not want to preen himself. His hands were still aching after breaking through the stone. Avery had bandaged them and he wasn’t inclined to dirty them.
“Der?” Speak of the devil. “Are you okay?”
The slime hybrid leaned against the backrest of the couch, crossing his arms as he watched his companion stare at the window.
“Fine” The avian bit out, ignoring the way his wings flexed, like they were trying to prove him wrong.
“You don't...look fine” He offered. Derlord scowled at the window. “Are you trying to figure out if there is a window there? Because I can assure you there is-”
“That is not my problem” He flushed, embarrassment making his head wings flare, stuck between wanting to cover his face and bristle in mock annoyance.
“Ah, but there is a problem” Avery grinned, his tone smug.
Derlord paused, realizing he had unintentionally proven the slime’s theory. Ugh. When had he learned how to play him like this? It was humiliating.
“Come on, two heads are better than one” He tried coaxing, switching tactics.
“My head is filled with infinite knowledge. I think I count as more than one head” Look, he knew he was being difficult, but- Preening was intimate. Something shared with only your family, your flock. Not that Avery wasn’t, he couldn’t not be his flock, after he had saved him and nursed him back to health, after he had learned every little habit of his that made him so painfully endearing. But the point still stood.
“Okay, fair, but- Check this out” His companion breezed over his complaints as easy as breathing, rounding the couch and flopping next to him. “I have a new perspective on things”
He paused, considering his words.
Would it really be so bad to…?
“Hm” Was all he said, then promptly remembered something that needed to be done right now and left.
That was how the next week went, with Avery trying to nudge him into blurting out bits and pieces that would reveal to him what the avian’s problem was and with Derlord finding more and more ridiculous but incredibly pressing matters that need my utmost attention, Avery, I don’t have time for this.
When he finally spilled the secrets tucked close to his chest, it was after a long day of work in the sun, dust and grime gathering under his wings and leaving him antsy. The avian had just finished taking a bath and had walked out in a pair of loose sweaters and a tank top, his helmet reluctantly left behind on his nightstand. He sat himself down on the couch, next to Avery.
Something wasn’t right. His instincts complained quite loudly at the new position, his feathers itching and chipping away at his self restraint. Okay. He took a deep breath, threw down a pillow and promptly sat himself down, the slime hybrid’s knee almost pressing against his shoulder.
“Floor time?” Avery muttered, half asleep as he nudged his knee against the scarred flesh of his shoulder. Derlord fought back a coo at the feeling, something inside of his chest swelling with affection for his flock.
“I…” He started, trying to reorganize his thoughts. He could ask. Nothing was holding him back and it wasn’t like he didn’t know Avery would do a good job or that he would somehow deny helping him. He probably would’ve offered himself to preen him if he knew that was an activity that was required for avians.
So why was it so hard to just say it?
He spread his wings, low and unassuming as he chewed over the words he wanted to say, the words that had been on his mind since last Monday. He could ask. The slime would be glad to help.
“Der?” Avery asked, sounding a little more awake. It seemed he had probably sensed the weight of his silence, different from the usual companionable silence that followed a long day of work.
“Could you? Preen my wings?” The avian blurted out, skin prickling with vulnerability. He regretted leaving his helmet behind.
There was a pause, long enough that his face wings bristled in embarrassment and he shifted, about to rise and flee to his bedroom when Avery made a small confused sound.
“Preen?” I don’t know what that means, I want to help, but I don’t know how, how can I help.
A small coo left his throat, feeling more than hearing the unspoken words that seemed to radiate from the man behind his right shoulder. Flock, his instincts chanted.
“It is…” He cleared his throat, tilting his face to the left, his face wings covering his face. “It is the act of tidying and cleaning one’s feathers” Letting the infinite knowledge answer was easy. That still didn’t help the heat in his cheeks. “I can’t…reach the back of my wings. It is- Difficult”
And Avery looked at him, his gaze heavy in the way that told him he was watching, he was learning, he was cataloguing the things Derlord said with careful attention, like this was something important to him. His chest squeezed, affection threatening to suffocate him.
It was…nice, he admitted in the quiet of his own mind, being the object of such intensity, of such importance.
“Show me?” The slime hybrid asked, quiet, so unlike his boisterous energy that he had almost constantly, quiet like he was with the things that mattered.
How was Derlord supposed to refuse him, when he got like that? So, he showed him how to preen his wings, using the inside of his right wing to teach him. The hybrid was staring intensely, gaze focused and Derlord had to fight back the heat in his face.
Flock, flock is good, flock cares, flock is family, Avery is flock.
He couldn’t even be embarrassed about his instincts, not when the man was so careful, his fingers gentle as they tugged free feathers and swiped the rag he had brought from the kitchen over his wings, settled behind the avian to reach every spot. Maybe the couch would be a better place to do this, but they were already on the floor and the fire was warm and Derlord couldn’t stop the small coos and trills leaving him.
Preening always left him loose lipped, muscles relaxing. It was a chore moving his own hands to clean the inside of his wings, eyes slipping closed every now and then. Not even the few times Avery had pulled on feathers that were not quite ready to fall were enough to pull him out of this daze.
“Der” The slime hybrid called, his knees pressing against the avian’s lower back. “It’s okay. I’ll take care of it”
And wasn’t that a thrilling thought? That Derlord could relax, could finally lower his guard without fear of someone taking advantage of the state he was in?
He couldn’t help the whistle that left him as he folded his hands in his lap, so so grateful for the slime’s presence, in their cabin in the woods, in his home that he had invited the avian into, the cabin that held so much warmth even the pain of infinite knowledge couldn’t taint this, couldn’t take from the softness that he felt in this moment.
“You’re…so nice to me” He muttered, leaning back into his companion’s touch with trills and coos and every single sound that his bird hindbrain could make to show his enjoyment.
The hands on his wings paused for a moment and he was about to complain but they started again before he could really open his mouth.
“That’s…” The slime huffed a small laugh. “Of course I am. You…deserve good things”
It wasn’t like he didn’t know that, on some theoretical level at least, but the world had shown him again and again that just simply wasn’t true, that his hand in life wasn’t the best. It was- Hard to truly believe his words, but when Avery said it like that, like there wasn’t any comprehensible reason for that statement to not be true- He was a strong man. That said, he still couldn’t help the way his breath stuttered, his ears turning hot.
The hybrid’s hands, which had won countless Skywars tournaments, which had killed countless of other players, hands which knew how to be rough, were gentle as they wiped his feathers, gentle as he manhandled his wings to allow him to reach everywhere, gentle, gentle, gentle. He wanted those hands to hold him, wanted his hands to cradle his face as the slime kissed him, wanted…So many selfish things.
Avery looked at Derlord, at this genius of a man, who was currently laying with his head on his lap, his eyes closed and chest rising and falling in quiet breaths. He was preening the inside of the avian’s wings, making small sounds slip from the man’s throat even in his sleep. It was so adorable he sort of wanted to punch something, to work out this feeling into manageable levels.
He felt a little stupid for not realizing that this was what had Derlord so riled up this past week- and a little more than that, he realized, his eyes following the scar cutting through his left eyebrow. In hindsight, it was obvious he needed help reaching the back of his wings, especially when he couldn’t rely on a mirror to help.
(He still remembered the first time he had seen Derlord get startled by the mirror in the hallway. He had just left the bath, steam following him as he opened the door, his vision partially blocked by the towel he was using to dry his hair when he had jolted, dropping the towel and spreading his wings in an attempt to make himself bigger. He had stared at the mirror for a while after that before realizing what happened and deflating. Derlord had not talked to him for the whole afternoon because he couldn’t help laughing.)
((In his defense, it was adorable and he really had tried to stop the laughter from leaving his lips))
That said, he was extremely grateful and honored to be actually helping him, especially once he had realized his worries stemmed from the fact that apparently he got extremely relaxed, his guard lowered. It was also extremely flattering to be trusted so much- He had even taken his helmet off!
Always delightful to see his bare face, in his humble opinion. He couldn’t help but trace his strong eyebrows, his sharp nose- not even the scars he had on his face (the one on his eyebrow, another one curling over his jaw and a third one over the bridge of his nose) or his eyebags couldn’t take away from his beauty, no matter how much he grumbled about how that wasn’t true, Avery, flattery will get you nowhere.
And his lips- They were full and plump, bitten by Derlord himself and the slime deliriously thought he would like to be the one doing so.
Still.
Still- He couldn’t ruin this, he couldn’t turn the trust the avian had bestowed him with and turn it into distrust and (his chest hurt just thinking about this possibility) disgust. After all, how could Derlord, who knew every single thing the universe was made out of, look at the mess Avery was, and think “Yes, I’d like to choose him as my partner”. The chances were so below zero it was sort of funny in a very sad way. So, he contented himself with looking, and even that, only in small glances, feeling like a creep whenever he did for too long.
Derlord twisted his head slightly, his nose pressing against the slime’s thigh and he sighed, content. His core squeezed in response, forcing him to take a small pause to just breathe through the feeling. He was so in love with the avian it was a little pathetic. His face wing shivered once before extending over his dreads, a small unconscious movement.
He was so cute.
It took a long hour after Derlord had fallen asleep to finish the inside of his wings, a small pile of feathers next to his hip and the man had still not woken up. The slime hybrid didn’t want to move, didn’t want to cut off the contact. And. So. He did what anyone would do in his situation and leaned his head against the couch, closing his eyes and following the avian’s footsteps by falling asleep.
In the morning, when Derlord would wake up, warmer and more comfortable than he had ever been, he would find himself with his arms wrapped around Avery’s middle, a crick in his back and wings preened to almost perfection.
When Avery would wake up, stiff and with a crick in his neck, his legs completely asleep, he wouldn’t complain at all, especially when he would find Derlord had come to his aid with a cup of coffee and knowledge of how to get rid of the pain before it really even settled in.