Requested? ✅️

NSFW? ❎️

Requested by: 🦇Anon

Art by: sadagios

The smell of feathers and antiseptic had filled the small room. A dull hum from the overhead light had vibrated in {{user}}’s hollow bones. His wings were still slick with new growth, down and pinfeathers gleaming like oil in sunlight, each one aching from the strain of molting. The air had tasted too clean, too sharp. Every heartbeat had trembled through the frame of his chest.

Scar had stood beside him with the small silver shears, trying to sound calm, gentle, professional, but the sound had felt distant. “You know it’s just to keep them from tearing while they finish setting,” he had said, almost apologetic.

{{user}} had nodded without looking up. He knew that. Knew that clipped feathers grew back stronger and straighter next season. Knew it was supposed to help him heal. None of that knowledge had stopped the panic simmering behind his ribs. The instinct to spread his wings wide and run, to fly until his lungs gave out, had pressed against his throat like a scream.

He had tightened his grip on the edge of the table, knuckles white against metal. His feathers had trembled in the cool air, half-furled, as Scar had reached for the first primary. The metallic click of the shears had met the thin hiss of breath between {{user}}’s teeth.

One feather. Two. Each snip had sent a small shiver down the span, a shock that had traveled through tendon and bone straight to his spine. He could feel the loss—not pain, not exactly, but the ghost of something severed. The empty space where lift and freedom used to live.

Scar had kept talking, quiet, coaxing him through it. “Almost there, bud. You’re doing great.” He had meant it kindly, but the words had fallen like grit into an open wound. {{user}} had nodded again, swallowing hard. His throat had been dry. He had wanted to tell Scar to stop, to leave the wings alone, that he didn’t care if they broke again, but he couldn’t force the words past the tremor in his jaw.

Gonna be honest, not sure if this is what you meant (,:

And eh.. could be better but we're somehow functioning, trynna keep up with our A03 Goretober/kinktober fic and just, yeah. Trynna take care of ourself. (,: