Word Count: 857
Some kind of experimentation AU thing, it's pretty short....
...
"I just want-" he sucked in a breath, his shoulders shaking slightly at the leftover tears, black feathers shaking as the saltwater traced down the dull scales embedded in his skin, "I just want to be normal."
Of course, it was what everyone here wanted, Shiro wanted it, God he wanted it so bad. He wanted to walk down the streets without someone giving him a scared look, he wanted to spend just a day being normal, away from all this. Away from the cells and tubes and syringes and the sterile smell that coated the lab at every turn. He didn't want to be crammed in a cage like an animal, poked at and prodded at. He just wanted to be normal, and he could see his own fierce hunger for that buried in the boy's eyes in front of him bubbling up to the surface now that they were alone and Shiro didn't blame him, it was hard acting as though your skin was made of stone, when scientists tore through it like paper.
And it was killing him to see the teen like this. Shiro had been locked up in the underground facility for as long as he can remember. He's seen experiments come and go and lost count of how many times he would wake up in the middle of the night to the weak cries of poor souls being wheeled in for the night. Most never made past the morning.
Even after so many years, Shiro had little knowledge of what the underground government lab's purpose was. As far as he could tell, the people were just throwing together animal DNA and injecting it into humans just because they could. But Keith, Keith was something else.
Shiro had heard so much about his hybrid, the boy was labeled as a "failure" and handed from lab to lab just as an excuse to run tests and find a way to fix the mistake that had been melted into his DNA by the same people that now didn't want anything to do with him.
Keith's raven wings were large, shoved against the bars of the cage, bits of feathers swapped out for hard, red scales in some places, making them a sick collage of science gone wrong. The scales scattering over his skin shining against the dull lights of the room made Shiro's heart ache for the poor boy. He didn't deserve this life, he deserved a normal life, of going to a high school, and long summer nights of just staying up because he can.
He didn't deserve this at all.
A sad, understanding smile filled Shiro at that moment, and he reached out his fingers through the bars of his own cage, reaching as far as he could to the other boy. Keith's own fingers finding Shiro's and he just held the pale boy's hand, trying to radiate as much understanding and trust as he could through that single touch alone.
"We're going to get out of here, Keith," he looked in wide violet eyes with his own icy calm, "I promise." And even though Shiro comforted and helped as best he could with the other "experiments" that found themselves close enough to his cage to hold a conversation with, he felt deep down, for once, that his words meant something in his own ears.
Shiro's tail twitched as he scooted back into a somewhat comfortable position on the cool metal floor, watching the teen as he wiped the tears from his eyes, and finally curling up on the floor of his cage to sleep, his wings enveloping the small frame like a blanket.
Squinting a little as the overhead lights dimmed for the night, Shiro's mind ran through what Keith could possibly be a hybrid of.
Shiro's own genes was a mix between a common housecat and the king of all cats. What came out wasn't anything too severe. Shiro's only physical anomaly were cat-like ears perched on the top of his head, and a dark-furred tail, a small white tuff decorating the end.
But Keith seemed to show something much more different about the animal DNA floating through his bloodstream.
If Shiro had to guess, someone was trying to create a dragon hybrid using two completely different animals to get it done. The ruby scales decorating Keith's face and lower arms made Shiro think of something lizard-like, while his wings resembled that of a crow's.
Now Shiro didn't know much about science, but he knew enough that it was a major risk taking two animal's blood that wasn't even related to each other, and injecting it like this.
For one sickening moment, Shiro could see why the scientists had been ecstatic when the experiment had worked in the first place, but that understanding was quickly replaced by horror.
Who would do such a thing to a kid?
His cat-like eyes narrowed as he looked over Keith again, a deep sense of protectiveness came over him then, he was going to protect this boy, or die trying, because they were going to get out.
Whether the government liked it or not.