Brock shoved the repeatedly resurfacing anxiety in his chest back down, not allowing his fingers to shake as he carefully stretched Jonathan's right wing. The slowly waking Omega shifted slightly, but made no noise. Brock ran his fingers over blue feathers, grateful when he felt no hollow broken bones. He moved to Jonathan's other side, stretching out his left wing with just as much care. However, Jonathan let out a piercing cry, the sound making John snarl before he swallowed it and stepped back. Brock muttered an apology, running his hand over the sensitive wings before wincing.
The splintered and crushed remains of bone were all that remained underneath the layer of sapphire feathers and droplets of blood.
Brock sighed, delicately shifting the wing back closed before running cold fingers down his face.
It did little to stop the migraine that had settled into his skull.
"What's wrong?"
Smitty pressed, John already getting back to work. Brock grit his teeth, dropping his hands to look at the bruising Omega on the table.
"His wing,"
Brock mumbled, trying to ignore the bile that was threatening to rise in his churning stomach.
"What about it?"
Smitt questioned, clearly not fond of Brock trying to drop the subject. The eagle let out a quiet groan before brushing his fingers along the unpreeened mess of cerulean feathers in front of him.
"It's broken,"
Brock said curtly, his heart tightening as he moved to the other side of the table in a vain attempt to drop the topic.
"How broken?"
Brock shifted his feet uncomfortably as he grabbed another washcloth to clean more blood off of the jay's other wing. Sometimes he hated Smitty's determination.
"Bad enough,"
The eagle retorted, softly wiping and preening the unbroken wing in front of him. There was a silence before Smitty spoke again,
"Will he be able to fly?"
There was no "again" at the end of the comment, making Brock's heart heavier and stomach lurch. He almost lost his dinner as the answer bounced around his head.
The poor Jay had never even been able to properly hold himself in the air yet-
"No,"
The eagle answered finally.
Smitty's face fell, and Brock had to turn away when he saw dark eyes filling with tears.
"He never got to fly..."
Smitty whimpered, his voice cracked and splintered with sorrow. Brock forced down his own his own grief, taking lungfuls of Heat-scent that did nothing to soothe his nerves.
They had to be optimistic.
"At least Jonathan is alive,"
Brock said quietly, surprising even himself at the stability in his voice,
"He will be able to live another day, and if his ability to fly is all he lost, I'd say he's more or less lucky."
"It could have been worse,"
Smitty agreed, taking a deep breath before returning to patching up the jay.
***
Swirling, tumbling.
Churning, tossing, aggravating.
His stomach felt like it was spinning around a washing machine, it was so twisted and spiraled.
Numb pain swam through his heavy limbs, pumping and spreading like blood through his veins.
"Do you think he's waking up?"
Voices.
Warped and marbled so he could hardly understand them.
His eyelids finally flickered open, instantly filling with bright, blinding light. He squinted them closed again, wincing as a slow throb began wrapping around his head.
"He's waking up!"
Came the voice again, Jon faintly recognizing it as Smitty. Jonathan blinked heavily as he looked around the room, finally recognizing Smitty and Brock beside him. He didn't recognize the room they were in though.
"Wh're 're we?"
Jonathan mumbled groggily, his lips hardly with enough strength to shape his words. He started trying to sit up, not realizing Brock was trying to stop him until a knife of pain sliced through his right arm. He let out a cry, dropping heavily back onto the warm metal beneath him.
"You got hurt really bad,"
Brock began, gently pressing a cold hand to Jonathan's bare chest. The cold made the jay hiss and flinch away, the eagle quickly removing his fingers and sighing,
"How much do you remember?"
"Ugh,"
Jonathan whimpered, slowly lifting his not-injured arm to rub at his temple. The migraine that was steadily eating away at him didn't stop, but the worst of it receded slightly.
"I remember...Tyler,"
Jonathan began, hissing when the memory made the migraine worse.
"It's fine, you don't need to worry about it right now,"
Brock soothed. Jon hummed an agreement, covering his eyes from the harsh light that wasn't helping.
"Pain meds?"
Smitty asked quietly, and Jonathan only nodded an answer. A few pills were pressed into his palm, and then a cup of water. Jonathan quickly swallowed the meds, and downed the entire cup.
The cold felt nice in his warmth.
A Whine suddenly pulled from his throat, stomach lurching violently as he covered his mouth to stop the bile.
"Here's a trash can."
The jay turned toward Smitty's voice, a pair of hands helping prop him up to empty what little he had in his stomach before laying him back down.
Acid burned the back of his throat, and he groaned unhappily before taking a deep breath.
A wave of heat swirled through his gut.
""S-Smitt?"
He whined, the dove looking up from the bottle of pills,
"Yeah?"
"I-I need to go to my room."
"Heat?"
Brock asked, the jay-wing nodding weakly. Brock offered to carry him upstairs, but the primal Whine and fist that held onto Smitty's blood-soaked hoodie proved who Jonathan felt safer with.
Brock helped heft the broken Omega into the dove-wing's arms, then they began the hike.
Jonathan kept his eyes half-lidded, both because of the drowning warmth and the migraine that was steadily pulling and stomping on his head. When they left the blood and chemical-smelling room, the first thing Jonathan smelled was pine.
Like an entire forest had been created in the middle of their base.
His stomach stilled at the scent, head growing a bit clearer.
He wanted more of it.
When Smitty kept walking and the scent began to dwindle, Jonathan Omega Whined.
The wail silenced whatever quiet growling had been conspiring inside the offending room, and Jonathan weakly reached for a surface, anything he could hold to smell it for a bit longer.
"S-Smitt...please..."
Jon whimpered, hands tightening his hold on the hoodie as a sadness began spilling into him.
"I-I-I want to go back. I want-"
"I know, I know,"
Smitty calmed, giving Jonathan a gentle squeeze in his arms,
"You'll be okay. You have to trust me. Do you trust me?"
Jonathan felt tears beginning streaming from his eyes at the loss of the sweetening pine, but nodded against the fellow Omega's chest anyway.
He nestled himself into the dove's chest, letting himself drift off to the steady beat of the Omega's heart.
He wasn't sure how long it took for his back to hit soft sheets, but as soon as he was delicately laid on the bed he began shifting to pull blankets toward him. His right wing extended to drape the sheets and blankets in vanilla and lavender, not registering his left wing was bound to his side or that he could identify the components of his scent. Smitty helped him in pulling more blankets from the closet, piling them high onto the bed until Jonathan had his own nest.
He had never performed the strange action before, having looked himself in a moldy bathroom where he desperately scratched at crumbling tile when he was alone.
He'd never felt so warm and cared for, shrouded in heat and a soft mix of both his own and Smitty's milk and cherries.
From the depths of his nest, Jonathan saw the dove quietly sinking into the wrap of blankets to join him.
The jay quickly curled himself around the cooler Omega, letting out a pleased hum when Smitty ran a soft hand over his right wing that covered them both.
"Hey, Smitt?"
He mumbled sleepily after a few moments.
"Hm?"
Jonathan could feel heat beginning to build in the dove, his foggy mind glad to have someone ride out Heat with him.
"I love you."
"I love you too, Jonny."
There was a pause.
"Like-like brothers."
Smitty chuckled, voice beginning to husk with Heat,
"Like brothers."