Project: Neverbound (A Double Life AU fanfic)

19 - Canary in the Coal Mine

Speaking of that, if he was dead, then so was Tango. Jimmy dreaded the fact that his downfall brought not just someone else, but his boyfriend no less, to his demise with him. To be completely honest, that was he dreaded most about being soulbound. Not feeling every little bit of pain, not that Tango spent his middle and high school days fighting whoever and whatever, blissfully unaware of Jimmy curled up and crying in the middle of his family's fields or in his bed because of the creature's sustained injuries, but that one of them would be to blame for both of their deaths. One act of carelessness and two people were 6 feet under with weeping families and one of them left confused as to why they suddenly just up and died, only to find out that it was of no fault to their own. Imagine that conversation, meeting with your soulbound as ghosts and having to explain that you'd been in a freak accident.

But Jimmy was getting ahead of himself. He didn't even know if he was dead. He was surprised that his thoughts traveled that far when he seemed to be able to conjure up nothing else in his mind.

Then a flash. A beam of light, for just a fleeting moment. Then another. He suddenly felt his fingers again, and the feeling slowly ran up his arms and legs, to his torso and head and... something else. Something that felt like it was protruding from his back, flicking to life as his back regained feeling and felt something soft and... feathery.

Feathery. They were wings.

He didn't even have a moment to question this when, as the rest of his body popped back into existence (as well as a canary tail that also didn't exist before this), so did the world around him. Blue walls and ceiling accompanied a birch wood floor, white outer trims pulling the pieces of the room together. A dresser, nightstand, TV stand, multiple decorations, and a desk for a computer made the room feel much more personal than it already was. It was clear to tell it was a bedroom what with the blue sheeted bed against the far corner, but it was also clear to Jimmy who's bedroom it was.

It was his. More specifically, it was his from when he was 17, still in high school but awaiting graduation in the following month. Literally the second his older sister, Confine (or Connie as his twin liked to call her), moved out to live with her now wife, Jimmy finally got a room all to himself, as opposed to the room he shared with his twin sister, Leah, up until a couple years before. Thankfully Connie's wallpaper taste was as plain and blue as Jimmy would've liked it, so there was no trouble in changing it when it didn't need to be.

On the far end away from his door was his poster of a screenshot taken from Bo Burnham's "Welcome to the Internet" music video, hung just above his window where the light of the afternoon shined through. Another poster, on the far corner of the wall his bed was against, was the cover for 100 Gecs's "1000 Gecs" album, and just above his bed was the teal, blue, and white stripes of his pride flag. On his nightstand was a basic table lamp and a metal travel cup that he always had filled with water, but solemnly drank out of unless he was just coming inside from a day out in the farm, in which case he would chug the whole thing twice over. His desk held his PC, of course, but it also held a custom made Funko Pop figure of himself, old blue bandana and all, which Leah bought as a gift for their shared 16th birthday.

There were plenty of other little knickknacks and things on his dresser and TV stand, but to list all of them would probably double the word count, so let's just say he was the owner of many things, from Marvel hero action figures (especially the Captain America ones), to a medium sized Lego build of the T-Rex from the first Jurassic Park movie. Of course he had some framed photos of his family, the most upfront one being of him, his parents, and his sisters minus his younger one, Lilac, who would've been in the photo had she been born yet at the time of the picture. Jimmy was pretty sure this was during Connie's 19th birthday, where he and Leah would've been 13, and Lilac wasn't born until they were 14.