Chapter Text
"Oh! You're new."
The gardens of House Waker can hardly be called gardens at all.
There should be more flowers, Jimmy thinks, more colorful flora filling up the aisles of gravel that he can hide within, instead of the dull greenery that leave his bright yellow wings to stand out like a sore thumb in the middle of the foliage.
"Are you… crying?"
Jimmy sniffles. "No."
His voice cracks, sending another wave of misery through his ruddy cheeks, trembling lips, aching throat, and growling stomach, and he slaps a hand over his mouth to stifle the sob that threatens to burst from him. He swallows thickly, and hugs his knees tighter to his chest.
The boy in front of him tilts his head, expression so blank it'd almost be uncanny if it weren't for the way his lips tip ever so slightly downwards, and his deep brown eyes squint the tiniest bit. His bright red jumper dwarfs him, dangling past his fingertips and hanging down nearly to his knees over similarly-sized grey slacks.
His nose twitches, shifting the square glasses that rest on its bridge.
"You're not hurt."
The boy is right. Sort of. Physically, Jimmy feels no pain other than the ache in his throat from holding back tears in front of the Waker family. But underneath that, everywhere, is a pain he couldn't even try to describe, squeezing his lungs and pulling at his heart and twisting in his guts.
"I don't have to be hurt to cry, y'know."
"Thought you weren't crying."
Jimmy really wishes this boy would take a hint and go away. He isn't helping in the slightest, and so far has only served to turn his wallowing into prickly irritation.
"Are you a servant, too?" the boy asks, head now tilting the other way. His eyes are freaky, Jimmy decides. He doesn't like that he can't seem to recall the boy blinking once since he popped up in front of Jimmy's hiding spot.
"Do you ever shut up?" Jimmy snaps, feathers puffing up along his wings. His tears have almost dried, the salty tracks down his face replaced by an angry flush and a headache blooming behind his eyes.
To his dismay, the boy laughs– a harsh, cackling sound that hurts Jimmy's ears– and steps forward onto the small stone brick wall lining the raised plant bed. He squats down to Jimmy's level with his hands on his knees, shiny multicoloured Macaw wings tucked neatly– fully, Jimmy notes, no clipped primaries there– against his back and the sides of his face. For a servant, the boy is strangely put together, aside from the patches of flour that coat the sleaves of his jumper. Jealously sparks in Jimmy's chest, alongside everything else.
"If I had a copper coin for every time someone told me I talk too much," he giggles, "I'd have…" he pauses, face dropping as he thinks for a moment. A long moment. Eventually, he gives up, smile returning full force like the lapse had never occurred. "Well, I'd have a lot, that's for sure."
Jimmy stares at him, bewildered and irritated. "What was the point of that?"
"The point of what?"
He groans, wrapping his wings around himself and tucking his head between his knees. "Oh– Just leave me alone, already!" He hates how he can feel the missing ends of his primary feathers against his ankles, but he'd rather cover himself in his own source of self-loathing than listen to the madness that is the servant boy any longer.
It's quiet, and Jimmy almost convinces himself the boy actually decided to listen to him and left. There's a soft rustling after a moment, before the boy speaks again.
"Nah, I'm good. Name's Grian, by the way."
Jimmy looks up, and the boy– Grian– is standing, his hand outstretched. The afternoon sun is setting directly behind him, casting his face in shadow and sending bright rays shining along the outline of his figure. Jimmy takes his hand hesitantly, startling at the unexpected strength in Grian's grip as he's tugged onto his feet.
"What kind of– woah– kind of a name is that?"
Grian releases him, crossing his arms across his chest with a smirk. "A special one. It's unique," he says, and his wings flare proudly.
"Oh, it's unique, all right," Jimmy grumbles, sliding around the other boy and hopping off the little wall. His trousers are coated in dirt now, but he can't bring himself to care. Not like the rest of his life hasn't fallen to ruin, already, anyway.
"You came from the market, right?" Grian's question is light, not intended to be harmful, but the question still stings like salt in his wounds. Jimmy nods. "So I take it you don't have a name, then?"
Jimmy bristles, whipping around to pin the other with a glare.
"I do have a name, thank you very much. It's Jimmy."
Grian frowns in distaste. "Jimmy?" He twists his mouth around oddly, like he's tasting the name, or something. "That's so… plain."
Blissfully plain, Jimmy thinks to himself, before all this Kingdom nonsense.
His father had given him that name, after his own father, and Jimmy felt he could say he bore it with pride. It's true that not many Avians in the Kingdom are given names like Jimmy's– some sort of power play by the humans, his father had told him. He's grateful he was able to grow up within the Eve, a neutral no-man's-land stretching between the northern and southern coasts of the continent for as long as he did.
Well, for as long as he could manage.
"How old are you?"
Jimmy sighs, resigning himself to more personal questions from the strange boy.
"Twelve."
Grian laughs again. "I'm older than you, then! I'm just about fourteen– I've got you beat by two years." Jimmy's expression sours further. He rolls his eyes and moves to sit on the stone wall on the opposite side of the pathway, idly plucking at loosened feathers along his wings. He needs to sit down and preen them properly, but he's never done it outside of his nest back home. It scares him, if he's being honest, but he tells himself it's a necessity.
Smiling still, Grian mirrors him, plopping himself down on his own wall and staring at Jimmy.
"Why were you crying?" Jimmy tenses again, and accidentally yanks out a clump of feathers that weren't ready quite yet. He winces, fresh tears pricking at his eyes.
"None of your business."
Grian hums, tilting his head in that strange way of his and looking Jimmy up and down. "You look like someone riddled with insecurity," he muses, tapping a finger to his pursed lips.
"Am not!" The retort bursts from him like a reflex, and he can feel his face go warm at the obvious crack in his voice. Curse you, stupid bloody puberty.
The Macaw chuckles at his clear embarrassment, before his eyes light up, face splitting into a grin. "That's it!" Jimmy swallows. "Your wings– you're a Canary going through puberty! Your voice cracks whenever you sing, doesn't it?!"
Jimmy grits his teeth as Grian outright laughs in his face, his aural wings folding in to hide his flush on instinct.
"Oh, skies–" He's gasping through laughter, now, leaning forward to get his teasing out in between bouts of giggles. "I can picture it– you getting all ready to sing for the Wakers– your first day, too, innit?– and on the first note, your voice pitches up all high and silly– oh, oh!"
He somehow perks up even more, grinning ear-to-ear and slapping his own leg giddily. "I bet your voice went all tinny, didn't it! I should call you that from now on, Tim, that's brilliant!"
As Grian descends back into laughter out in the poor excuse for a garden, Jimmy decides to not waste his limited patience on ill-humoured pesky birds, and turns on his heel, marching back into the house to find his room and wrestle with the gnarled mess that is his wings.
~~~~~~~~~~
~12 years later~
~~~~~~~~~~
Grian is a whirlwind of vibrant feathers and half-squawked complaints as he barrels into their shared room, immediately collapsing into his nest face- down. His tirade doesn't falter, just continues on into the tattered fabric of his pillowcase, muffled and yet not any quieter than before. Jimmy continues his sewing, diligently patching up the newest hole Grian's worn into his favourite jumper by hand.
He lets Grian wear himself out into grumbles and the occasional groan or curse before he decides to eventually bite.
"You wanna talk about it?"
Grian turns his head to the side with a huff. "I'm done," he spits, and does not elaborate.
Jimmy rolls his eyes. "Okay, and?"
"I'm done, Tim. With everything– this manor, my job, my bloody life, Tim. I'm just done."
"What is it this time?" Grian had gone on this exact rant at least once a month. Every time, without fail, he declares that he's officially had enough and is going to run away tomorrow to personally kill King Feyar himself. Jimmy starts a mental timer until he gets to the part where he talks about plucking out the King's eyeballs, and settles in for a monologue.
"That little bedwetter Lady Waker tried to pluck one of my feathers," Grian grits out, "and when I dared to shift away, the governess slapped me." His voice is dark and bitter, and the way he's staring blankly at the floor is starting to make Jimmy worry if his frustrations might be taken out on the governess, instead.
Gingerly, like trying not to startle a feral cat, Jimmy sets down his sewing, swinging his legs over the edge of his nest to come crouch in front of Grian. If a mildly spiteful Grian is something to be wary of, then a furious Grian is downright dangerous.
"Grian," he tries in what he hopes is a soothing voice. "It's gonna be okay–"
Grian cuts him off before he can really say anything. "I could do it."
"...w-what?" Jimmy frankly fears whatever nonsense is about to come out of Grian's mouth.
"I could kill them. The humans." The words are spat out like they taste bad, dripping with venom. "Could steal a kitchen knife– the butcher's, be efficient with it. Sneak into their bedroom, middle of the night. Headless by morning with hardly a sound." He looks at Jimmy for the first time since entering the room, but Jimmy isn't sure he's really looking at him. His eyes are glazed over, staring into a future far away but close enough to catch the faintest whiff of hope.
"We could be free, Tim."
Images flash in front of Jimmy's eyes– endless forests of green and brown, dappled sunlight shining through the boughs high above, squirrels and foxes dashing through the undergrowth, sending leaves and mulch flying up in their wake. He can almost hear the faint birdsong echoing around the lanky trunks, his own calls sung back in reply, can feel the sweet breeze trickle through his feathers– all of them, his primaries grown back to their natural length as if by magic.
He wants it. It aches in his throat, twists in his belly, squirms in the tips of his feathers. It weighs down his shoulders, the want, itching his legs with the urge to just run.
He could have that.
His fingers twitch atop his knees, knelt there on the floor next to Grian's nest. Trapped in their tiny room in the cellar of the manor they belong to. Belong to.
Jimmy sighs, running a shaking hand through his hair. He places it on Grian's back, rubbing small, half-hearted circles below his wings and hoping beyond hope itself that it conveys even half of the emotions running through him
"Look, G," he starts, sitting himself gently on the edge of Grian's nest and trying not to jostle anything of particular importance. "I want to get out of here, too. Skies, I do." He bites his lip, willing the words to come to him. "But we can't just rush into it. Killing someone is… it's– it's just not worth it, y'know? We can.. we can escape without… all that. I know it."
Grian still hasn't moved, laying still and silent while Jimmy fumbles, no doubt plotting the exact amount of strength he'd need to swing down that butcher's knife.
"We'll, er, make a plan! That's it, Grian, we'll make an escape plan, take as long as we need. Pick the right day, the right time, right route. East, right? We'll head east, to the Eve. Maybe even Eventide, if we can make it that far, find a town in Cavefaire. S'not that big a continent, is it? We could do that…"
Jimmy mutters some more, coming up with the perfect life for them, free from humans and laws and cages and anything else keeping them down. He rambles on into the night, ignoring the way Grian's fingers curl into his pillows, eyes clenching shut and chest stuttering slightly.
When he runs out of things to say about the sunrises in Cavefaire, the stories about glittering seaside horizons and salty breezes that are somehow sweeter than wine, and Grian's breath has eventually evened out and slowed, Jimmy reaches down to ever-so-gently slide the Macaw's glasses off his nose, placing them neatly on the cloth he leaves on the floor for this very purpose. He takes a deep breath, and returns to his own nest, curling up into a ball, covering himself with his clipped wings, and trying to lull himself to sleep with memories of touching the sunrays just as they slipped through the holes in the tree canopies of the Eve's forests.
That kind of happiness can only be found in his dreams, these days, anyway.