Work Text:
The road is dry, and they have struggled with the heat all day; their wings provide meagre shelter from the sun. There are buildings jutting into the horizon.
“We can’t just assume that there’s nothing in there. There’s plenty of places to hide, there clearly used be to be something here, something that built all this.”
Paranoid is trembling all the way out to the tips of his wings. He hates the arguing, arguing, arguing. They were free, yet they still are all stuck together, even now - still trapped. Nothing’s changed - a bigger basement, another narrator, now unheard as He is unseen.
“I’m not saying we assume there’s nothing there, I’m saying it’s our best shot.” Skeptic has begun to shout, not very loudly but enough to try and outcompete the other arguments. “We need resources. Food, clothing."
“Clothing?” Contrarian snorts.
“Protection against the elements.” Skeptic growls.
Undeterred from his position, Cheated returns to defending his position.
“If we stay out here, nothing can sneak up on us! At least until we find some weapons!”
“Can you all shut up, we can’t keep going on and on, around and around. We need someone to make these fucking decisions.” Paranoid’s scolding has a way of cutting through bickering.
A moment of blessed silence reveals no argument.
“I think Skeptic, then.”
Cold has said so few words these last hours that the entire group turns to look at him.
“That is a terrible idea.” Broken’s voice, while more common, is not usually so steady or venomous. “He would have us all die to prove himself right.”
Cold lifts a shoulder.
“What about me, then?” Cheated’s crow is quickly cowed by the derision of the group.
“Like you’re any different. At least know I shouldn’t be in charge.” Stubborn snorts, “If we get to veto, I veto the grouch.”
It’s unclear whether he’s indicating Cheated or Skeptic with that, but the group is happy to write them both up as options. In the end, only one voice stands with no vetos against him.
“I don’t know why we spent so long arguing about this, it’s obviously going to be Hero.” Paranoid hisses, pissy from hunger and exhaustion. The day is almost over, they are all physically worn through, barely standing.
None of them want to stop moving until they find food, but time is running out; they need to sleep and most of them have a healthy fear of travelling in the dark. Paranoid’s glances towards Cold on instinct, noting how he seems very invested in the proceedings. Probably still a decent chance of this volatility exploding then, they’re been worrying about it since the conversation started.
So of course it’s only just begun.
“No way am I having someone else make my decisions. I’ve had quite enough of that, thanks.” Opportunist uses his long stride to arrive at the front of the group in a huff, shouldering his way past Paranoid’s flared wings unpleasantly.
No. They cannot go around again.
“We’ll have two deciders, then.” Smitten offers with his usual amount of sunny enthusiasm tainted by the same tiredness weighing down their feet and tempers.
“Can’t do that.” Contrarian cries, “Then we’d just be in a tie all the time and we don’t have a Him to blame our shit on anymore.”
“You’re both right.” Because they are, but everyone’s looking at him now, so Paranoid feels compelled to continue. “We should have three. It’s a strong number, and then the rest of us will be Four.”
“Makes enough sense.” Skeptic grunts.
“Ignoring the nonsense second bit, yeah. So who's it gonna be?” Cheated had accepted his disqualification ungracefully, but he has accepted it.
“What about you, Nerves? You’re great at keeping us alive” Opportunist gestures to one of the more malleable voices, who flinches away from the attention.
“That sounds like a really terrible position to be in, no thank you.”
“It was your suggestion in the first place.” Stubborn takes Paranoid’s narrow shoulders under his wing.
“You can suggest something without wanting to do it.” Cold offers, not heard by some of the others in the back who have begun arguing.
“We’ve got an offence, and a defence.” An argument is avoided as no one forces Cheated to clarify who is which, “So what’s missing?”
Half a dozen sets eyes turn to Hunted, who has not been paying much attention, staying ahead of the group to search for scents.
And so the Deciders are decided. And their first decision is an unanimous one, to stop and search for shelter and food so they are not rushing against the dark. The decision on which horizon to follow will come tomorrow morning, all of them intimate with the knowledge of how poorly a tired mind fares under duress.
The piles of rubble have heaped into mountains, obscuring more and more of the horizon as they enter what might have once been a city. It is as empty and faded here as the clear horizon they leave behind. Hunted takes the rooftops until they almost break a leg, and so now trail behind the group, seeking safety in numbers while on the ground.
“I really think that I could.” Hero is flexing his wings out, shaking them, half a dozen others watching the movement with overt appreciation, only Opportunist testing his own wingspan.
“Give it your best shot, just our luck that we got all these wings and they’re just liabilities.”
No one notices Cold turn a corner, except Skeptic. Cold doesn’t notice he’s being followed, eyes tracing along the collapsed storefronts, moderately careful of the shattered glass that shine like stars across the blacktop. The gleam of them bright under the apocalypse sun, nearly blinding him. He stumbles to a halt before thinking to shield his eyes with a wing, catching Cold’s shape within the shine.
Only a few steps until he’s free of the glare, and stops beside where Cold has fixated his attentions, a half dozen plastic bodies all piled up, most of them dressed in clothing. Cold steps in, only remembering to watch his step after Skeptic snaps at him.
“They’re everywhere.” Cold’s close enough to touch one now, pushes it over to watch them all collapse before stepping into the disturbed sediment.
“Buildings?”
“Bodies.” Cold clarifies, shaking a cap clean, tucking it and a few other accessories into a jacket, tosses the parcel into Skeptic’s waiting arms. Skeptic tucks it under a wing, clutching it close, steps closer to offer Cold a hand out. Cold considers him, puts their palms together after a long moment, doesn’t let go, steps too close. “I can’t decide if this is what the world was like. So much of it seems designed to hurt us, seems like an unlikely accident.”
Skeptic guides them both away from the obvious hazards but doesn’t let Cold stray an inch. There’s a chorus of shouts from now far away, Hero’s voice too distorted to understand, but recognizable in its joy.
“Of course its not accidental.”
“So it’s Hell, then.”
Skeptic sneers instead of flinching at Cold’s cool assessment. Prideful to know that Cold is discussing this with him because the others couldn’t handle it. They’ve all got their little alliances within the group, and Skeptic feels safer now Cold has confirmed they’re confidants.
“Pretty shitty attempt at Hell, what with all the reference material. It’s just… it’s just quiet, that’s all.”
“Just us here.” Cold sighs, agreeable, leaning in to get inappropriately close.
Skeptic’s hand shifts to touch the base of Cold’s wings, he wears them like a cape. “So it can’t be all that bad.”
He doesn’t know what stops him from closing the distance, exhaustion, maybe. Or fear.
Regardless, they return to the others with a respectable distance between them.
“Worrying over nothing?”
Cold steps up and reaches for a cigarette, they’d found cartons of them in the abandoned E-Z-Mart, none of them can agree on what the letters are supposed to communicate.
Skeptic thinks that ‘easy’ is too simple, but he’s struggling to make sense of another one. The blown out plastic of its signage is visible from the front steps, what with all the buildings in between them levelled to rubble.
“Track me down just to give me shit?”
“You have the lighter.” Cold explains, holding his pilfered fag out expectantly.
Skeptic lights it. Cold smokes it. They stand and wait, Skeptic patiently watching the horizon, turning the world as they know it over and over in his head. No other signs of life, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything else anywhere. More creatures that look like them, or ones that look like her, or new ones. They’ve just got to gather enough resources to try and find another place to shelter. There’s got to be a better place than this dilapidated townhouse.
“I’ll get you one. Just takes a little care to put them back together.”
They only find pieces of things, usually, and it takes time to make them all fit and function properly. Not like there’s guidebooks. Cold is slowly but surely shuffling over and Skeptic grunts out a half assed complaint before opening up his wing to take Cold underneath it. The kid slouches like a motherfucker, and he still barely fits into the shape of Skeptic’s feathers.
The sound of communal cooking, or some frail attempt at putting together some kind of meal from what they’d found, echoes from the skeletal frame of what was maybe once a home.
“I could help you search.”
“Suppose you could. I’ll haul you with me next time, but I don’t want any lip while we’re out there.”
Cold slowly mimes zipping his mouth shut, and then silently requests a second cigarette. Skeptic doses two and they both start at the same time, both intending to keep pace with the other for no reason in particular.
“We should sleep together.” Enough of a beat that Skeptic knows it’s intentional, the calculated fucker.
Trying not to let on that there’s a flush heating up under his feathers, Skeptic shrugs and nods at the same time, “Don’t see why not.”
“It’s settled then, we’ll find somewhere private tonight.”
It’s a good thing Skeptic was almost done with that cigarette because he forgets to keep a hold of it for just a second and it’s gone, rolling down the stones into the wet street; it’s been raining on and off since they got here; trapping them inside.
“Why?” It’s a growl, and he regrets it, sees the trap the moment he triggers it’s jaws.
“It’s easier to try new things in private.” Cold says, unreasonably. “You always get so flustered when there’s too many of us around.”
He leans in, his intent obvious, broadcasted in the tilt of his chin. Their mouths almost touch, but Skeptic flinches, pulls back. Cold’s expression shifts into intense curiosity and for a second, Skeptic feels as if he’s been snared.
Shouting, a half dozen names hollered out into the dampened air.
It gives Skeptic a great excuse to grunt and return back into the house.
Folding wings together under a starless void is one thing, protecting bodies against the whipping winds that start up seemingly at random. Practical, necessary. This is different, an unknown variable. Cold is closing the door to one of the few freestanding rooms, there’s a small window facing an empty, desolate road, but at least there’s no decrepit signage.
They’ve all been set to bed early, there’s not enough food, or water, or anything to be able to stay here another night. But it's a shelter, so they’re taking advantage of the feeling of security for a few hours to close their eyes.
Skeptic stays standing, there’s a mattress, the broken bits of bedframe picked out of it so that there’s a chance for it to be comfortable. Why did he follow Cold? Why didn’t Skeptic just settle in with the majority, who are settled into the nest made of all the bits of furniture that could be rounded up?
He doesn’t like the obvious answer, so he’s looking for another one.
Cold is ignorant to his uncertainty, willingly or otherwise.
Steps into Skeptic’s personal space and touches talons to his chestfeathers, which are a bit dense from humidity that still lingers; even now the storm has passed.
“We don’t have to try anything.”
Is Cold, in his own strange way, trying to comfort him? Skeptic bristles against the thought, defences drawing up around his ego, his shoulders lift towards his jaw. Long tawny wings speak louder, sweeping forward, grey brown feathering tugging Cold closer.
“You don’t need to point out the obvious.”
Cold hmms noncommittally, but slips his wings forward to settle between the spaces available, so their upper halves are nested together. A moment of hesitation before Cold closes the distance between their mouths. The kiss feels natural, then, both voices have mouths full of sharp teeth but they move with care, testing to see what works. Cold is more cautious than Skeptic has been expecting, despite his soft-spoken nature, he can move like a bullet when appropriately motivated.
But it’s peaceful, simple, to learn how to open their mouths to one another, and it’s Cold who tests the depth of the kiss. The wet touch to his lip heats Skeptic up at the middle, unsure of what to do next, so he matches it and the very tips of their tongues pet one another in the millimetres of space left to them.
Cold makes a soft noise, distinctly content, settling their chest together, using his hands to get a grip on Skeptic’s ribs. He can’t help but warm towards it, bend towards where Cold is clearly eager to do this. It must mean something, he chose Skeptic, right? It must mean that they do have some kind of special connection.
“Hmmm.” The sigh is happy as they part, “You’re very good at that.”
Which is, Skeptic has to admit, highly suspicious. So when Cold leans back in to start again, Skeptic instead leans back, eyeing the blankly open expression.
“Who else have you kissed?” There’s obviously a point of comparison.
Cold’s head tilts slowly to the side, measuring Skeptic’s tone, his expression, how his wings are securing Cold even more tightly into their embrace.
“Paranoid.” A beat, considered. “And I suppose Hunted.”
“You suppose?” Skeptic doesn’t know when his talons started digging into Cold’s hips but he watches his eyes flutter and so only grips harder.
“We didn’t kiss.” Cold's leaning towards impatience, eyes firmly on Skeptic's mouth when they remain open.
Skeptic stares, confused for a moment before he remembers, “When Hero caught you...”
“He assumed we were fighting.”
They’ve all been embodied for less than a week and Cold’s already racking up a body count. Cold shifts in closer, broadcasting his intent to return to carnality, but Skeptic's worries get into the air first.
“Did you fuck Nerves or did you kiss him?”
“Both, I think.”
Indulging the obvious request for a kiss feels like the only next reasonable thing to do; if only to give himself a moment to think. He feels like a fucking idiot, an infatuated fool, how he’d ached for Cold’s cool presence when his skin was wrought through with iron, no matter how it began, no matter how it ended, and that bloody hot pain sits at the surface of every memory.
Cold isn’t chilled now, the skin under his feathers is warm, his mouth is welcoming, his hands clutch like he needs this but this isn’t special. Cold’s discovered sex and is enjoying it all he can, Skeptic’s just the next sucker in the lineup. If he knew what was good for him, Skeptic would return to the group, to the safety of numbers.
Instead he sees if Cold will accept his tongue in his mouth, and when the other sweetly sucks on it, his arousal beginning to respond. Clearly, they’re tuned into the same frequency, because one of Cold’s hand skims down the length of Skeptic’s torso to curiously feel what the feathers between his legs obscure.
“Nothing special.” Skeptic is unsettled by his own self consciousness.
But Cold only traces the outline of the Skeptic’s mound, and feels a familiar, solid heat at the front.
“I think we match.” Cold observes fondly, grinding the heel of his palm lightly against the pressure and Skeptic feels the pleasure resonate through every bone. He’s got no idea what ‘turned on’ feels like, so the awareness that he’s wildly aroused comes as more of a shock to him than it does to Cold.
“Yeah, seems like it.” It’s not Skeptic knows what’s going to happen if Cold keeps touching him between the legs, it’s getting warm enough that it’s real heat, makes him want to move, his body trying to process the new feeling. Pain is easy, expected and endless, they’re all tempered against it - but he’s got no defences against pleasure.
His slit is fingered open, the edges teased with a gentle curiousness until they begin to swell and part. Cold’s taking his time touching, learning the details of how the tender flesh fills hot with blood. Fingers curiously exploring the bits that make themselves more obvious, now they’re flush and plumping.
The wetness is unexpected, he feels it on Cold’s fingers first, dragging it up the length of his slit until his fingertips find the apex. The pressure is suddenly throbbing and lush, Skeptic’s knees almost buckling as Cold drags his slick touch in maddening circles around a bundle of nerves that seem to be wired directly to his heart.
“Christ, Cold. Where - fuck.” No, he doesn’t want to know, he doesn’t want to know if Cold’s practised on others, or himself, either answer is going to snap him right in two and Skeptic’s got to keep a level head.
There’s a tiny mercy, infinite cruelty, in how Cold misunderstands, adjusting his free hand to take Skeptic’s wrist, drags it between his own thighs.
“Here, just about the same.”
Cold’s already wet, he’s so much thinner, and barely the length of bronze talons. He’s seen Hunted’s cock, how the fuck does it fit?
Skeptic forces his hand away to grab Cold’s wrist, stopping the little movements that are starting to make his bones go molten.
“We gotta lie down.”
“Oh, please.” He’ll have to emotionally process how needy Cold sounds later. “I want to know how you feel on top of me.”
A lot of emotional processing then, Skeptic’ll have to schedule out at least a day just to try and make peace with this. Or at least, get started on the plan of how to survive it. Or survive not having it more than once, it’s only just started and Skeptic’s worrying about losing what hasn’t happened yet.
Their wings brace the fall as they abandon their weight to the mattress, which creaks its protest, but otherwise bears them just fine. Skeptic’s wings are bent under Cold’s back; any discomfort easily ignored when Cold is leaning up to kiss him again, knee shifting against thigh. The friction of their feathers feels good, neither of them are particularly fluffy, and their bodies move together like they were made for this. Made for clutching at each other until Cold’s hips lift and roll and search for friction, Skeptic moves to meet him and this time they groan into each other’s mouth.
It’s inevitable that the others are going to hear, so Skeptic uselessly commands him to up caring, pressing Cold down hard into the relatively soft mattress and thrusting them together. It’s not just their throats making too much noise, all the feathering of their inner thighs slicked down, messy friction getting louder as they get more frantic.
Mindless, animal rutting, the friction is good enough to drown out common sense. Surely sex is more than this, more complicated, more deliberate, but Cold is dragging him down with both sets of talons and all of his wings.
“You’re so rough.” Cold sighs, smiling into their next kiss, so Skeptic just takes it as permission to push harder, the slide of their soaked slits starting to wind him impossibly tight. He’s not even sure of what exactly feels this good, but Cold was right, they do match, the perfect friction proving as much.
This feels good, it feels real, solid and provable, Cold is here, here when Skeptic presses him into the mattress, here when their mouths lick and bite.. It’s entirely uncoordinated, both of them frantically chasing sensation and comfort and a trust they can never truly feel safe in. Chasing it nonetheless with the frantic scraping of talons.
Every breath is heavy, his head is thick and there’s something, something, an unknowable something, surging up inside him.
It’s frightening.
Skeptic jolts to a stop, and Cold, who has mostly just been holding on and taking it, slows his own movement to a similar halt. Panting into one another’s mouths, waiting for the next move, both of them.
“I can’t.” It’s all he’s got, they’re the only words that’ll load into his mind, his mouth, his anything. He can’t push past it, the instinct of self protection; walling up and closing down.
Cold’s laugh is humourless, short and forgiving,
“We’re not in a rush.” Dark talons hands loosen from where they’d been clawed around his shoulders and upper arm to instead loop his arms snugly around Skeptic’s neck. “We could continue kissing.”
And they do, because they both want it, because it’s not an inferno, a dragging tide, it’s only sensation that’s easily understood and effortlessly controlled. He’s going to have to let his head go under eventually, it’s an innate part of what they’re doing, he’s pretty sure. But he can spend some time procrastinating first, searching for every option before inevitably finding himself with only one left.
Cold pushes them together with a roll of his waist and his eyes flutter, mouth opening on a soft, happy noise. It’s not as intense, now that it’s not Skeptic’s body following every filthy impulse, now that the movement isn’t optimized for his sensation.
Easier to breathe as Cold works them together, and it’s better to focus on the external anyways, to focus on what he’s seeing, where his hands are; turns out they’re digging into Cold’s sides hard enough to draw blood. So he forces them free, digs his talons into the mattress and ignores Cold’s wordless complaint. The others’ll have too many weird, intrusive questions if Cold comes out of this room bleeding. He’s not fucking Hunted, he’s not an animal.
He still remembers dabbing rust coloured blood from Cold’s wounds, thought he’d been patching him up after a scuffle. Would it have been different, if he knew the truth behind why Cold returned to the campfire with oozing wounds?
Regardless, Skeptic hates being left in the dark.
Ignorant to what’s grinding away in Skeptic’s head, Cold steals another kiss, and then another, until Skeptic is kissing him back and his body takes all of his attention again. He can see why Cold might like this, gets him out of his head for a bit.
Skeptic’s certainly starting to see the appeal.
Intoxicating how they’re moving together, how natural this feels. How Cold is hitching his hips in tight circle, grinding them together hard enough that Skeptic’s losing himself to it.
Cold stutters what is definitely an orgasm down his throat, breath hitching over every pulse of pleasure, his body straining to be as close as he can. Skeptic can feel the heat of it soak between them, the faint pain of Cold's talons digging in; clinging to Skeptic's shoulders.
Consider him a convert.
Forgets himself, grinds down and Cold goes stiff all over, and not like how he was a second ago. Skeptic remembers the thin hiss of Cold’s breath when he’d suffered an inch of nail into his heel, and he breathes the same way now.
“It hurts?” He has to know, Cold nods, eyes closed, to Skeptic backs off even though he knows it’s not what Cold wants.
“It’s excellent.” But he won’t fight it, will allow Skeptic to kiss him softly, as his hands wander down to continue what Skeptic won’t.
Black talons cup Skeptic’s core, the base of his palm feeling out Skeptic’s mound. The squeeze is distinctly appreciative, and sends a shockwave of sensation through him, feathers ruffling. Cold presses the length of his hand over Skeptic’s clitoris, nestling the swell into the meat of his palm as he sinks two fingers to the second knuckle into his heat like he belongs there.
“Didn’t know you could retract.” Skeptic’s surprised at the sound of his own voice, rough and breathless, completely overwhelmed. Cold rocks two digits in deeper;
“Neither did I.” Scoots himself up, having to adjust his wings up, and uses all four to embrace Skeptic, to stabilize him. Takes half of Skeptic’s weight, more, if he’s being honest. “You should use my hand.”
Grateful for the guidance, Skeptic does, grinding himself forward and it’s easier with Cold holding him with one arm, bearing his weight. It’s more bearable, this time, the pressure, the feeling of a fire so insular and inescapable that it will burn you out before you have a chance to scream. Cold’s there, he’d just done it, let it happen, and he’d sounded so fucking pretty.
It’s instinct to find a rhythm and Cold is measuring his every movement, easing him along; “I like how much of you there is.”
Skeptic finishes with a bitten of curse in an attempt to have that, at least, be just for them. A moment of lazy kisses and Skeptic leans his weight to the side, collapsing as heavily as any corpse.
Cold doesn’t move, just faintly smiling up at the ceiling, but he’s barely visible so maybe Skeptic’s just imagining the happiness.
But it’s Cold that speaks first; “That was fun.”
There is enough genuine awe in Cold’s voice that Skeptic turns to look, finds dark eyes waiting for him. Skeptic reaches for Cold’s hand and Cold meets him halfway, tangling their fingers.
“It was good, yeah.”
Breakfast is served by Hero and Paranoid at the stove. Cold arrives last, he’s always only up as early as he strictly needs to be, and so half of them are already gone and packing up anything they can carry on their backs. Hunted claims to have caught scent on the wind and they intend to follow the best nose available.
Skeptic is waiting, he’s disguising it as having a conversation with Opportunist on the subject of priority communal needs, but he’s waiting for the pile of feathers he left behind to arrive. And when he does, can’t help but look over and watch Cold grab cold toast and warm jelly, ignoring the portions of protein left out for him. He shuffles into Skeptic’s side, chewing resentfully.
He tries to continue the conversation but Opportunist is not playing along. He gestures to the pair of them;
“What the fuck?” He asks, concisely.
“It’s nothing. If we have a safe way to carry the kettle, we should bring it.”
A moment of exaggerated shock before Opportunist gives into Skeptic’s determined refusal to acknowledge the fact he’s being cuddled.
“Don’t know why we put you in charge of this shit. Fine, but I’m not carrying it. Put it on the oaf.”
Cold finishes the last of his toast, turns his head to take a kiss and then moves at a more normal pace out of the kitchen. Opportunist is watching Skeptic with no small amount of amusement, sipping his tea.
“Yeah, that's totally normal.”
Skeptic continues to ignore him.