Vikk's P.O.V.
With a sigh of relief I unwrapped the bandages from around my chest, feeling my wings stretch out behind me after almost 12 hours of being bound to my back. I flapped them gently, pulling one of them around in front of me so I could preen the feathers and let myself relax in the privacy of my locked room.
The wings, those of a red tail hawk, stretched almost 6 feet in diameter total, each wing a little under 3 feet in length and it took at least an hour to properly groom them, what with them being hidden for the majority of the day.
Although I hated having to hide them, I didn't want to risk people finding out about them and turning against me. It had happened before and I didn't want it to happen again, so since the age of 7 I had kept them bound to my back in an effort to keep them from the world.
I continued to groom my wings, preening the feathers and letting my wings stretch of their own accord. My back was aching from having them tied down all day and even for as long as I had been doing it, it still hurt when I untied them at the end of the day.
I lay back on my bed, turning onto my stomach and tucking my wings in behind me. Normally I would sleep for a few hours and then wait for everyone to fall asleep so I could sneak downstairs, go outside and fly around for a little bit, giving myself and my normally hindered wings a bit of exercise.
Yawning, I closed my eyes and started to drift off. I didn't think I would go out that night, I was far too tired and needed the sleep more than I needed to stretch my wings, as I could go for a run in the morning even if it meant not stretching my wings.
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I sighed, squeezing my wings into my back. Picking up the ace bandages I had, I started to wrap them around my chest and then around my wings, binding them to my back so they weren't visible when I was wearing clothing.
I avoided wearing t-shirts as much as possible because the outline of my wings were normally visible, and people questioned me when they noticed it, so I tried to wear sweatshirts or thicker clothes whenever I could. I could tell whenever I wearing clothing that was too thin, because I got confused and sometimes awkward stares.
Just as I finished wrapping the bandages around my chest and was tucking it in so it wouldn't come undone, one of my wings suddenly clicked and moved down, making me almost scream. I muffled it with my hand, quickly undoing the bandage and letting it fall to the floor.
Tears were falling from my eyes, the pain was unimaginable and incredibly strong and I fell to my knees on the floor, bringing my injured wing in front of me and cradling it gently. I was wheezing in pain through my teeth and as I brought my hand through my feathers I felt something sticky.
Pulling my fingers back I almost screamed again when I saw that my fingers were covered in blood, coming from somewhere near the top of my wings and I closed my eyes, realising that this could be permanent. I didn't know anything other than the very basics of medical care and nothing about to care for wings when they were damaged.
I sighed to myself, reaching around to try and find where it was bleeding from.
As it turned out, it was bleeding from one of my joints where the feather met bone, and I wouldn't be able to fly for a while. The skin under the feathers had torn and I had to wrap a bandage around it before tying it back to my back, this time making doubly sure that there wasn't going to be any more injuries.
It was still incredibly painful, and it hurt to move around much.
Going downstairs I ran into Lachlan, who was heading up the stairs with a cup of coffee in his hands and a frown on his face. He looked exhausted and almost fell over as he passed me on the stairs, my hand going out to catch him before he did. He gave me a tired smile.
"You need to sleep Lachy..." He nodded, looking away.
"I know... but I've got work to d-" I placed a finger over his lips and shook my head, taking his hand.
"No. Lachlan, you're exhausted, you're going to bed, right now." He looked away from me, rubbing his eyes with his fist like a tired toddler and wobbling a little on his feet as he stood.
I took his hand and pulled him up the stairs, making sure that I was going slow enough that he could keep up with me, even though he had to walk a few steps behind me. As I reached the top of the stairs again, I stopped for a few seconds so Lachlan could take the few extra steps so he was beside me.
Just as he was on the step below me, he stopped for a couple of seconds and looked up, his eyes going wide as they fixed on my back. His hand reached up to the top of my back and his finger touched my t-shirt I pulled away, feeling a shot of pain as his fingers landed on the painful joints of my wings.
"Vikk? You're bleeding?" I groaned internally, as the bandage must have moved and the blood instead soaking into my t-shirt.
I tugged on his hand again and instead took him into my room, rather than his own, and sat down on my bed. He sat beside me, a confused look on his face, and his hand reached out for my back, but I pulled away while shaking my head.
"Please Vikk? I want to help, you're bleeding."
"I know... but there's something I haven't told you, or anyone else for that matter." My hands went to the hem of my shirt and I took in a deep breath, pulling my shirt over my head.
Because I was facing Lachlan, all he could see was the bandages around my chest and his eyes widened, his hand reaching out to touch them. He looked almost worried, a little bit shocked too.
"It's not what you think Lachy." I started to undo the bandages, letting them fall to the ground and I then waited a few seconds before spreading my wings out, feeling a flash of pain as I did so. He looked at me in awe.
"Can- Can I?" His hand was held out in front of him and was about a foot away from my wings. I nodded.
"Just- don't touch that one. It's sore." I pulled my sore wing away from his hand, which was still bleeding and still very painful. His fingers instead touched the ends of my feathers on my other wing, making me freeze, but I let him continue, feeling his light touches as his hand brushed the tawny brown feathers.
"Why did you never tell anyone Vikk?"
"I couldn't. Not after what happened." I knew he understood my words.
His head turned to my other wing, my sore one.
"Can I have a look at it?" I nodded again, lowering the wing gently so Lachlan could take a closer look at it, his fingers grabbing gently at the feathers and lifting a few of them so he could see what was wrong. When his hands reached the cut, that was still bleeding, I heard him hiss.
"Jesus Vikk, it's bad... I think it's infected 'cause it's quite swollen." I sighed, honestly not surprised.
"It's whatever Lachlan, I don't care." He gripped my hand.
"Vikk! Don't say that! You could lose your wing if it gets any worse!" I sighed to myself, burying my head into my knees and feeling the tears welling up in my eyes.
"I know." My voice was absolutely miserable. "Maybe it would be better that way."
Lachlan's hand landed under my chin, forcing me to look up at him.
"Vikk. You shouldn't be ashamed of your wings, they're beautiful. You're beautiful." I nudged my chin into his hand, just wanting the human comfort that came with his touch. And he noticed too.
"Vikk I just want you to be happy... Please this doesn't matter! Your wings make you, you and no one should care!" He paused, his eyes flashing angrily at the thought of what had happened. "I know I certainly don't."
My eyes finally connected with his and he smiled, his arms going around to hug me tightly. I leaned into him, pulling my wings back out of his reach and buried my head into his shoulder, sighing and closing my eyes. I smiled to myself as I felt his lips on my forehead.
"Let's get you sorted okay, then we can talk."
Part 2
Vikk's P.O.V.
"What type of wings are they? As in, what bird did they come from?" Lachlan was eyeing my wings still, which were held neatly against my back with a clean white bandage wrapped around where the cut had been.
"A red tail hawk, I didn't know until that long ago actually. I couldn't really ask anyone." He nodded, pushing the first-aid kit back off the bed, having sorted it out a little after rummaging through it.
"They're beautiful you know, no matter what anyone else says." I twisted my head away, tears welling up in my eyes. The people who knew called me a freak of nature, ugly and insulted my wings and me, the exact opposite of what Lachlan was telling me.
"Why're you telling me this? It's not true." I felt his hand lightly placed under my chin, lifting my eyes so they were level with his. His eyes were wide and starting to fill with tears, of both anger and sadness.
"Vikk. It is true. You're beautiful, your wings are beautiful, everything about you is beautiful. Don't listen to what anyone else says, they're all wrong." I lowered my eyes again, desperate to believe that what he was saying was true. There was a sigh from Lachlan.
"I can tell you don't believe me, you think I'm lying." I didn't even try and deny it.
"I'm not lying Vikk, I'm telling you the truth. No matter what anyone else tells you or has told you, you're beautiful and you aren't a freak. You're you." His hand gently glazed the ends of my feathers and I flinched but didn't pull away, stiffening as his other hand landed on my cheek.
"It's just- it's just, I've been told different basically my entire life and I'm just meant to start believing this no-" Lachlan placed his finger to my lips, stopping my ranting at once.
"I'm not asking you to believe me now, just to trust me for a while and I'll prove it to you." I lifted my head, looking him dead in the eyes.
He was looking right back at me and I could tell right at once that he was being honest. There was no hint of deceit or untruth in his body and I relaxed into him. It was okay.
His hand was trailing up and down my back between my wings gently, comforting me as best he could. He was constantly aware of the wings and avoided touching them as much as he could, knowing that I didn't want him touching them and he respected that. It was nice.
"I know you don't want to believe me, I know you don't believe me. I just need your trust."
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It was almost an hour later when I finally spoke up, my head resting firmly in Lachlan's shoulder. We had adjusted our position a few times so my wings were out of the way and we were comfortable, but it was relaxing.
Lachlan was warm, he was well aware of the wings and made sure that they were in a good position where the feathers wouldn't be bent and it wouldn't cause any pain to my wound. It was also comfortable where we lay, with a blanket draped over our shoulder and Lachlan's familiar smell in the room.
"Thank you Lachlan, so much. I'd never trusted myself to tell anyone about, well... anything really?" He smiled, a real, genuine smile.
"I'm glad that you could finally tell someone, even if it was by accident." He yawned, wiggling his shoulders a little and I closed my eyes, feeling completely insensitive.
"Lachlan! You should have told me you were tired, it was the reason I dragged you up here!" He stuck his bottom lip out at me like a toddler again and I raised my eyebrow at him.
"No. You've looked after me for now, now it's my turn to repay the favour. You're going to sleep, right here, right now." He glared at me, jokingly mind you, but he eventually gave in, pushing me to sit up off his shoulder and curling into a ball on the bed beside me.
I smiled to myself, reaching up to adjust my wings while being extremely careful of the bandages. I then tucked myself in next to Lachlan, grinning even more as he automatically curled into me, his fingers grabbing at my t-shirt and his hair being smoothed back as he happily buried his head in my side.
I could tell that he was smiling, very content to just fall asleep against me. I ran my closest hand through his hair and he squirmed closer, his hands balling into fists around the material of my shirt.
It didn't take long before he was asleep and only a few minutes later, I followed.
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"Vikk? Wake up." Lachlan's voice was low, filled with sleep and he sounded exhausted despite just being asleep.
I stirred, yelping as I rolled onto my wings without thinking. Most of the time I avoided lying on my wings without a second thought but because Lachlan was lying beside me there was nowhere for me to go and I had fallen on them.
Lachlan's hands helped me into a sitting position and my head fell into his chest limply. It took me a few seconds before I tried to pry open my eyes, knowing that the light behind my eyes was going to blind me.
"You awake now?" I groaned.
"No and what's the time?" There was scuffling and I felt Lachlan shift so he was lying down.
"4 o'clock. We should probably go downstairs, the boys 'ill be wondering where we are cause we've been asleep for..." A long pause. "2 hours?"
I groaned, not wanting to think of the others who would be wondering where we were and were also probably planning a prank on us. The more that I thought about it the more I cringed because I knew a huge prank was coming.
"I guess we should... be warned, there's probably going to be a huge prank coming now. The boys are kinda predictable." Lachlan nodded from where his face was resting in the pillow, a hand over his head which continually mussed up his hair and eyeing me sideways with sleepy eyes. He looked cute.
"Before we go out I'm just gonna look over your wings quickly to make sure it's healing properly." I nodded, shaking out my wings gently to avoid any pain. The bandage was still in place and still looked clean, so I assumed that the wound had stopped bleeding.
With shaky hands he undid the bandage and studied the wound for a few seconds before passing the bandage over to me.
"I need another bandage, hold still for a minute okay." He slid off the bed and grabbed the first-aid kit from the floor where he had dumped it the night before. Pulling out a new bandage he wrapped it around my wing, tying it off and falling back against me. "There you go. It's healing though, it's stopped bleeding."
"Good." I didn't know if he heard me, I kept my voice pretty low but he just continued to play with my wings, ruffling the feathers and then smoothing them down and picking out any sticking out parts.
"Do you want to go downstairs?" I sighed but nodded.
"Yeah but I'll have to tie down my wings, cause I'm not quite ready to tell everyone yet." He nodded, playing around with my feathers again. I liked the feeling of fingers on my wings, especially because he was able to reach some places that I couldn't reach.
"You know that if you tell them and they... they don't take it well, you can always come and stay with me." I turned around at him and he looked right back at me, eyes wide and full of honesty. I just smiled, it was nice to know that he was there.
"Thank you. I'm just going to hope that I won't need to take up that offer." There was another, shyer smile.
My hand reached out for his and he took it, a little uncertain. He was usually the more confident of the two of us but right then he didn't know what to do, jittering and glancing back and forwards between my eyes and his hand, which was still clutched in mine.
I nodded as a thank you, again.
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"We going downstairs now?" I nodded to Lachlan, where he stood by the door, as I pulled a hoodie over my head. I wasn't bothering to wear a t-shirt as it just created more restrictions to my already tied down wings.
Lachlan had helped tie down my wings with a loose layer of bandages, just to stop them sticking out but not so much that they started to hurt. I knew that Lachlan wanted me to tell everyone else so I could keep my wings out in the open and stopped restricting and damaging them, but I wasn't ready.
Just before we left the room Lachlan squeezed my hand and gave me a gentle smile. We knew that we were in for a lot of questions once we actually made it downstairs, given that it was close to 5 o'clock and both of us had been sleeping for most of the day.
Lachlan had an excuse; he was from Australia and was on a completely different timezone but me on the other hand didn't really and because the others knew that I hadn't been in my room they would know that I was with Lachlan.
I could hear them talking in the kitchen as the two of us came down the stairs and Lachlan squeezed my hand gently, smiling as much as he could. I took in a deep breath and squeezed his hand back before heading down the stairs to face the mob and barrage of questions.