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delimeful · 1 year

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to know that song (and all its words) (6)

warnings: brief moment of panic, mentions of unhealthy sleeping habits

It was a good thing he’d brought them to the washroom near the end of the tour, because the humans seemed dead-set on taking advantage of their newly-discovered facilities.

He didn’t begrudge them that. If he’d been stuck without access to any hygiene stations, he’d probably be just as enthusiastic to finally get clean.

Unfortunately, since Square was being gently cajoled into participating in the impromptu grooming session, there were no unoccupied humans left to keep Virgil from traversing the halls unsupervised and messing with the control room to regain control of his ship. As such, he wasn’t allowed to leave the room until they finished.

He’d protested this, since literally all he wanted to do was go to sleep, but Square wasn’t having it. They’d shot him a narrow-eyed look that was probably meant to be intimidating for Humans but actually came across to Virgil as an expression of awkward friendliness. The fact that the glare was partially due to the vision reduction from Noisy stealing their lenses right off their face only added to the hilarity.

By that point, he’d basically accepted his fate. Honestly, he wouldn’t have let a hostage run around unsupervised, either. It was annoying that now of all times they would choose to be better at hostage-keeping, but whatever.

Resigned, he swept his arm to the side in defeat, and then when all three Humans turned to look in that direction, he clarified the gesture verbally: “Fine, have it your way. I’ll stay here.”

Really, the phrase associated with that motion would have been something more like, “You’ve washed away my protests,” hence the sweeping tide gesture, but ‘wash’ also had the cleanliness meaning— they were in a washroom— and Virgil didn’t want to confuse them.

The rumors about Humans partaking in a ‘survival of the fittest’ sort of society seemed to hold less water than he’d thought: Square was the apparent leader of the group, and their vision impairment was severe, going by how much jumpier they were without their lenses. Virgil had originally planned to pace circles to keep himself awake (being asleep near a Human once was more than enough for him, thanks), but each loop only seemed to increase Square’s (stress-anxiety-danger) tension, their head twitching around to follow Virgil’s movements around the room with sudden jerks that made some primal part of his brain think predator.

Wow, astute, he thought back to himself sarcastically, and then decided that now was as good a time as any to bathe, a task that completely coincidentally meant he’d stay in one stationary, easy-to-keep-track-of spot.

His dustbox had the bonus of being mounted high up along the wall, too, the distance soothing his nerves and giving him a better vantage point on the Humans.

Seeing as they’d all just watched him easily haul himself up the rigid grips set into the wall with an intent, direct fascination, he felt no qualms about studying their own grooming session out of the corner of his vision.

They’d shed a fair amount of what Virgil was assuming was Human-style clothing, but not all of it, either because he was still in the room or because Humans had complex modesty standards. The cloth had already gotten all soaked during their impromptu celebration, so it didn’t matter much regardless.

The first few moments were quiet, dedicated to simply scrubbing themselves free of grime, and also fiddling with the pressure knobs for a bizarre amount of time until they were satisfied. The proper level of water pressure for comfortably cleaning a Human was apparently strong enough that Virgil would have gotten internal bruising just from stepping under it, because of course it was.

Despite the shine of oil to it, their hair didn’t seem to have any hydrophobic qualities, because they only had to dunk their heads under the spigots’ spray a time or two for even the longer pieces to go damp and slick against their heads. It made them look oddly mild, the flattened-down effect almost reminding Virgil of smooth feathers and pressed-back antennae. Like they were trusting him or something.

Stupid. He fluffed up a bit, pushing the thought away, and then surveyed the small ditch he’d dug into the cleansing powder, deeming the wallow deep enough to settle in.

From there, it was a simple, mindless routine to start shuffling his limbs and torso down through the dust, working the thin silver dirt through his feathers thoroughly.

There was a sharp inhale, and then a burst of noise from the Humans, and when he hurriedly glanced over, they were all looking directly at him.

He almost froze, not close enough to feel out their emotions, but he’d picked up on some Human body language trends at this point, and the current display didn’t actually seem that threatening. Noisy had a hand clapped over his mouth, barely covering the way he was grinning, and Heartfelt was making some sort of high-pitched squeal, eyes as wide as tree rings. Even Square had reclaimed their lenses briefly to see what they were reacting so strongly to. Their lips upturned slightly at the sight of him.

… Nope, he wasn’t going to unpack all of that.

Instead, Virgil gestured rudely at them and wriggled so that he sunk deeper into the dust, only his eyes and the top of his head visible over the edge of the box.

Heartfelt’s noise reached a level of pitch beyond his hearing, Noisy bursting into gleeful Human chatter, and Square ended up having to drag both of their companions’ attention away with a few pointed sentences.

The three of them had moved to sit at some point in the process, and now Heartfelt scooted across the smooth floor to position themself directly in front of Noisy, leaning backwards into his lap with a meaningful, almost imploring stare.

Noisy laughed, already continuing on with his long-winded rambling, and buried his hands in Heartfelt’s hair.

Virgil very carefully didn’t jolt, still peering down at them from his box, but the motions of narrow fingers carefully working through the tangled bits, rearranging the hair until it lay smooth and undisturbed— it was undeniably a sort of preening.

Heartfelt made grabby hands at Square, beckoning them over without moving their head, and Square rolled their eyes upwards but shuffled over anyhow. As soon as they got in range, they, too, were pulled into place in front of Heartfelt, creating a makeshift grooming line.

Square’s hair was longer, more matted at the ends, but Heartfelt worked at each knot dedicatedly until they could carefully card their fingers through sections of it without resistance.

The patch of hair along their heads was so small, compared to the all-over insulation on most mammalian species with fur. Virgil hadn’t been able to discern the purpose of it, still didn’t see how the neatening of it would help in terms of surviving a deathworld.

Even from a distance, he could see the way the motions relaxed them anyhow. He was no stranger to the mental and social effects of communal preening. He’d just never expected to see it displayed by Humans, of all creatures.

A memory of waking up to Heartfelt curled around him flickered to the front of his mind, and for the first time, he considered it not from the angle of a beast guarding prey, but a sallfish drawn towards a shining bit of metal, or maybe the head of a flower irresistibly following the path of the sun’s light.

The way they clung to each other in moments of stress and boredom alike… It all pointed towards a desire for casual contact, indicating the kind of social, touch-oriented behavior that was completely antithetical for most deathworlders.

... Maybe Humans and Ampen had more in common than he’d imagined.

By the time the Humans were finally done with the washroom, Virgil was cleaner than he'd been in ages.

He'd had enough spare time to thoroughly cover every over-oiled feather with dust, scrub every bit of old dead skin from his body, and tug a few of his more damaged or loose feathers free for good measure.

He’d also made the mistake of trying to shake off the last of the bathing dust with the help of the air dryer in the corner. The Humans had recognized something familiar in its function, especially Noisy, who immediately stuck his head under the motorized fan to dry his sodden hair off.

Once they’d finished with that, Virgil was at the point of practically nipping at their heels to get them into the hall so he could go to sleep already, only to be stalled by Square stopping in the middle of the hallway. Virgil just barely held back the urge to chuff-growl, the way he would when corralling annoying baby cousins back to their nestpile back home.

(Stars below and seas above, he really was tired.)

Square made a cough-rumble noise in the back of their throat for attention, and then said something in that carefully measured cadence, which was normal. They gestured down the hall in the opposite direction, where the nav area was, which was also normal.

Noisy and Heartfelt exchanged a charged sideways glance, their combined aether lighting up with (stubbornness-frustration-determination) intention a heartsbeat before they charged Square, one of them grabbing onto either shoulder, and hauled their leader clear off their feet. Which was, for the record, extremely abnormal.

Square let out an honest-to-starshine yelp, a comically out-of-character high-pitched noise that Virgil would have laughed his feathers off at, if he wasn’t too busy witnessing a mutiny.

He skittered after the two of them as they dragged Square off down the hall, his mind going white-hot with panic. Why was this happening? What had gone so terribly wrong, for them to attack one of their own? What was he supposed to do?

Even weighed down, the Humans and their damnable long legs easily outstripped any Ampen, and Virgil was falling significantly behind by the time they finally vanished into an actual room.

He scrambled to follow, the echoes of every mutiny horror story he’d ever heard about ringing in his ears, accompanied by visions of bodies flung out of ejection chutes or stuffed into cold storage.

When he burst through the doorway after them, heaving for air, he was greeted instead with the sight of… all three of them piled on their blanket nest?

More specifically, Square had been unceremoniously bundled into the deepest divot in the nest, and the other two had flopped down directly on top of them, keeping them trapped in the galaxy’s softest prison.

They had all looked up at his arrival with startled eyes, and for once, Virgil didn’t have the energy to feel the usual shock of apprehension that came with being stared at by Humans.

(This may or may not have been due to the fact that his stress had already reached the highest level it could hit. His body mass may or may not have been composed of at least 50% overextended feathers and fluff at that point, too.)

“What,” he started, paused as Common failed to provide words that would encompass his strung-out bewilderment, and ultimately resorted to waving his arms in an encompassing circle at the bunch of them. “What!!!”

“Oh, shit,” Noisy said, utilizing one of the few words he’d annoying Virgil into sharing. He was radiating sheepishness, confirming that the perpetrators had totally forgotten about their whole entire hostage like dumbasses.

Square grumbled something at them, and Heartfelt obligingly shifted a padded blanket out of the way so Virgil could properly see the Human’s face. Going by the slightly-pinched expression, that wasn’t precisely what Square had requested.

“No danger, only idiots,” Square told him succinctly. “They are demanding that I sleep, but I have work to perform.”

“Noooo,” the other two moaned in sync, apparently recognizing enough of the explanation to protest.

“It is vitals,” Square continued as though they weren’t there, radiating a stubborn dignity that was completely undercut by the fact that they’d just accidentally mixed up the Common word for ‘important’ with the one for ‘pulse’. “Additionally, you need sleep, you sleep in a separate room, and you cannot be without guard.”

Going by their aether, Square was extremely smug about this perfect counter argument. Noisy and Heartfelt both turned to give Virgil that same deeply imploring stare from earlier, which was so ridiculous that it somehow looped back around to feeling authentic.

Virgil considered the fact that Square’s sleeping shifts were both much less frequent and significantly shorter than the others’.

He also considered the fact that this was the same Human that was in charge of navigating their course through the hazardous outer reaches of space.

Finally, he considered the fact that he was really, truly, extremely tired.

“Good luck escaping them,” he said, and turned to promptly clamber up the tallest piece of workout equipment in the room, snagging a small blanket along the way.

He perched himself on top of a secure bit of shelving and immediately flopped into his curled up sleeping position, too exhausted to overthink the situation.

Down below, there were two victorious cheers, and one betrayed groan.

Despite all of Square’s protests, Virgil swore he could feel the distinct sensation of wry fondness filling the room in the few moments before he was out like a light.

#sanders sides fic #ts virgil #ts patton #ts logan #ts roman #space au #tktsaaiw #to know that song and all its words #wibar #ampen virgil #my writing #writing

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