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Tamakoma's roof held the last warmth of the day in its concrete, even after the sky overhead had gone fully dark. Yuma came up through the door first, his wings catching the breeze the moment they cleared the stairwell. He folded himself down near the ledge without waiting to be asked. He'd counted enough nights up here by now to know a clear one when he saw it. And tonight, the stars had pushed through the haze in greater numbers than usual, scattered faint and silver above the city glow.
The raven wings sat small and tight against his shoulder blades, tense with held-in pressure from days spent clamped too tight instead of let loose. While his sparrow pair hung half-open, restless, the muscle along the joint visibly twitching with the effort of not spreading wider.
Osamu came up a few minutes after and lowered himself down behind him. "You've been holding these wrong all day again." His fingers found the tension at the joint immediately, no need to search for it. "Relax it. Here."
"Oof. Didn't notice."
"That's why I'm reminding you, Yuma." Osamu pressed firmly on that spot until his muscle slowly unclenched, wings dropping an inch, then two. A chuff rattled low in Yuma's chest, relief and complaint in equal measure. He let his head loll forward, wings sagging the rest of the way under the touch.
"What a mess." Osamu complained, although there was no heat in it. He kept his thumb there a moment longer to be sure it held, then moved on to the feathers. He started at the leading edge of the left sparrow wing, working in toward the body with the ease of someone so experienced, so confident in his ability. A few pin feathers sat half-emerged along the lower covert row, still capped in their sheaths, and he cracked one open with a clean press of his nail, flicking the dead casing aside without breaking rhythm. Yuma jolted, a short, surprised chirp, then melted as the itch beneath it finally eased.
"There's more of those than usual. You let this go too long, Yuma"
"I was busy."
Osamu snorted at his ace’s lie, resisting the childish urge to flick Yuma’s forehead. Instead, he cracked the next sheath with a bit more pressure, just enough force to make a short chirp came out in respond.
Yuma huffed, twisting half around to fix him with a halfhearted glare, though it carried no real weight, not with his wings still hanging loose and content under Osamu's hands.
Further down, a cluster of ingrown feathers sat raised and irritated near the base. Osamu worked them loose with slow, deliberate pressure, reading the shift in Yuma's breathing to know exactly how hard to push, and received a noise that was half croak, half coo.
Yuma let his eyes drift up while Osamu worked, tracking the stars brave enough to show themselves through the city haze, and a moon sitting fat and close to full above the skyline. In these past months, he'd gotten better at remembering things and stories, no matter big or small, to share with Replica when they will meet again. This felt like one of those.
"You're quiet tonight," Osamu said, after a while.
"Just thinking."
"About?"
"How strange it is." Yuma considered how to say it without making it bigger than it was. "That I want to stay here forever"
Osamu's hands paused, just slightly, before continuing. "That's not strange. That's just what home is supposed to feel like."
"Mm." Yuma let that settle into him, into his body, into his mind, into his thoughts. He tipped his head back further, until the moon filled his view, round and bright against the dark. "The moon is beautiful, isn't it?"
Osamu glanced up, his hands never stopped. "Yeah. It really is." A beat later, his voice become a little more careful, more gentle. "I love you too, if that's what you're asking."
"I didn’t ask that." Yuma’s voice cracked slightly on the lie, ears warming.
"Sure you weren't." Osamu didn't let Yuma squirm long. He leaned down and pressed a brief kiss to the corner of Yuma’s mouth. Then he sat back and went right on smoothing the next feather, looking entirely unbothered, though the color in his face said otherwise.
Yuma sat very still, wings frozen mid-spread. He made a sound that wasn't quite a chirp and wasn't quite anything human either, both startled and pleased all at once.
Osamu hummed in respond. "Turn left a little, I'm not done."
Yuma turned, but his mind had gone quiet in a different way after that. Mate, some wordless part of him decided, simple as that, no fanfare to it at all. Mine, my flock, my mate, mine, mine, mine.
The silence between them sit comfortably after that. At some point Yuma's hand found its way up into Osamu’s hair instead, fingers dragging slow through it with far more attention than the gesture needed.
"Bird instinct?" Osamu ask, not stopping his own work.
Yuma purr in respond.
When Osamu reached the joint where wing met shoulder, the place that would make most avians flinch no matter how careful their caregiver are, he didn't slow down or test the waters first. His captain simply touched it with the firm belief that it would be welcomed, and indeed it was. Yuma leaned harder into it, head dropping, throat working out a long, broken trill that fell apart into smaller chirps. A held-fast feather worked loose under the pressure, and he arched back so hard he nearly knocked them both sideways.
"Careful." Osamu's other hand braced against his back, steadying him without missing a beat.
"Wasn't hurting. Felt so good. More"
Osamu's mouth twitched, fond. "Greedy." But his hands obliged anyway, pressing into the next spot before Yuma had even finished asking.
By the time it’s the smaller wings’ turn, the city lights below had blurred to a smear of orange and white, the moon climbing higher, washing pale light over both of them. Yuma stopped talking, wings spread wide open across Osamu's lap, every feathers exposed, nothing held back and just let his instincts take over his mind. Some distant part of him noted that he hadn't held anything back from his captain in a long time, not since the first time those hands had found a stuck feather and known exactly how to free it without hurting him.
The traffic hummed faint and far below, a car horn somewhere blocks away, the city's low constant breathing. Neither of them spoke for a while.
"Comfortable?" Osamu asked quietly.
"Yeah." Yuma's voice had gone thick with the drowsiness of comfort. "Don't stop. Please."
Osamu didn't.
His fingers kept their slow, even pace through the raven feathers, working out the last of the day's tension one stroke at a time, until Yuma's breathing had gone slow and even to match.
When the last feather lay smooth, Yuma turned and pressed his head against Osamu's jaw, nuzzling until he’s comfortable.
"There. Happy?"
"Mm." Yuma didn't pull away. Just stayed there, breathing in that forest scent still lingering on his captain, his brain cataloguing the warmth, the steadiness he feel, filing it all under the same word he'd already decided on without saying it aloud.
A feather had come loose in Osamu's hand somewhere in the middle of it all, black, smooth and still warm. Before Osamu could set it aside, Yuma plucked it gently from his fingers and tucked it into the collar of Osamu's shirt. A small, pleased chirp slipping out after, not for any reason he could have explained, just because something in him wanted a piece of himself resting against this particular person, like the way passerines shed their most important feathers in the nest they always meant to come back to.
Osamu didn't question it. He let it there, one arm settling loosely around Yuma's shoulders.
They sat like that a long while, black wings folded soft around them both. Yuma's quiet chirping rising and falling in no pattern at all, just the small, unconscious sound of something entirely at ease, answered every so often by the press of Osamu's hand against his back, slow and soft. Below them the city carried on, and neither of them moved away from each other.