Ruffled feathers
Chapter 3: Nails and claws
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Emile hoped out of the van his hooves tapping against the gravel road.
He was glad to be back after his sudden vacation.
The halls were filled with a familiar smell of moss and metal with special addition of food aroma near the kitchen and fresh laundry near living quarters.
He missed it. It was his second home, sometimes it was more comfortable than his actual home.
Logan and Janus were about to leave for their undercover mission and they only got to exchange greetings. This ment the facility was left under careful supervision of the twins. The fawn felt a bunch of goosebumps at the thought of that.
He bet he had 3 hours until some kind of disaster. « Doctor! Nice seeing you!» greeted one of the aforementioned twins.
« Roman,» Emile smiled as the human came closer and took one of the boxes from his hands. « How have you been lately?»
« I'm quite fine. Thank you for asking,» came the answer. They kept up the small talk as they went toward the med area.
«How do our guests feeling?» the fawn wondered.
He didn't like the frown that crossed Roman's face, but he waited for the answer.
At their first meeting he thought the twins were pretty easy to read. He soon learned how many thoughts they had, so their emotions could be related to any of them, which made their reactions a tad different from their real opinions.
« They're fine, » Roman finally decided. « Moody is still living up to the nickname. Oh and Patton is finally talking with us! Did you know that he's actually the older one?!» he revealed with excitement.
« We haven't met yet,» the medic reminded him.
« Oh right, sorry,» the twin apologized as they set boxes on the table. Emile smiled at him,
« I was planning on doing it after setting up the med bay. You can help of course.»
And soon the boxes were unpacked. There was some fresh supplies, some medicine in neat antique bottles which the fawn had a special fondness for, and some equipment to replace a few broken ones he left there before going away.
Everything he might need to start his work.
Moody and Sweetie were now adapting to the facility and frequently left their enclosure. Although one of the brothers was gone more often than the other finding them both was a challenge.
Virgil with his loud purple and cyan feathers was surprisingly hard to spot among the trees.
« Oh my goodness! A nest!» Emile exclaimed as soon as he saw it.
« O my goodness! A new friend!» echoed a bird that popped out it of it.
The brown and blue feathered Avian quickly jumped out and bounced towards the new face.
« Hi. I'm Patton. Oh wow I’ve never seen anyone like you!»
« Pleasure to meet you, Patton. I'm doctor Emile. My species is called a Fawn,» greeted Doc and extended his hand for a handshake.
Patton looked at the hand confused. Emile quickly caught his mistake.
« Sorry, I've been working with humans for a long time. It's a human greeting called a handshake. You take it with your hand and slightly move it up and down a few times,» he explained.
The avian excitedly followed the instructions for a handshake. Fawn smiled, « I know avian's usually use their wings or ear feathers for a greeting, but I unfortunately have neither, and I'm not very good at chirping,» he apologized.
« Oh no worries. Handshake is actually quite nice! How do fawns usually greet each other?» wondered Pat, his wings spreading out from anticipation.
Emile was only pleased to show. He stepped with his hoof making a clank sound and bowed his head.
Patton instinctively bowed back and giggled, « I like this one too~»
« I don't usually greet anyone like that. I've grown up among humans mostly,» the fawn admitted shyly.
« That's a waste of a funny greeting right there,» pouted Pat.
Amiable chatter filled the room.
Patton was fine and dandy health wise.
His wings started to molt and some new shiny feathers already popped out.
Then Emile noticed the claws.
« Do you bite them off on purpose?» he wondered gently.
Patton looked down, oblivious at first, but the moment he understood the topic, he immediately paled.
« It's fine! I'm not worried about them,» he tried to reassure the doctor.
The way his wings folded spoke volumes.
They were pressed against his back so tightly it was painful, almost like a binding was back on them.
« It's not healthy Patton,» Doc slowly reached out, afraid to cause a negative reaction, and placed his hand on top of Patton's.
« I know it must have been hard for you two out there. Some habits are a pain to get rid of,» he stroked avians hands with his.
« But I need you to know that it's going to be ok. First step is always to figure out that you have a problem,» he reassured.
Patton relaxed a little still holding this wings behind his back, but not in a painful position like before.
« Could you do that for me?»
« We're going to work together on it, ok? All you need to do is stop yourself from biting them. And it's fine if at first you can't help yourself, more important is the effort,» the fawn told him.
Patton nodded with an apologetic smile.
He was going to try. He knew he would fail, but Emile didn't care, so why should he? He can keep trying.
It was extremely hard to control the urge to bite into his claws when his brother ran into the room at full speed, clearly being chased.
After him, almost missing the door because of a wild drift, came the twins.
« Get him!» yelled Roman.
« The Bastard stole our last spoon!» added Remus.
Here comes the disaster. And it hardly had been an hour.
The black avian swiftly passed his brother and the doctor, and with a powerful jump reached his safe zone in the line of trees.
The twin duo came to a stop, both understanding that they wouldn't be able to follow a bird in its natural habitat.
« Give back the spoon, you thief!» demanded one of them.
Patton lightly tapped the actor's shoulder.
« You stole a whole drawer of cutlery already! Where do you even keep those things?» pleaded the other.
« Can I?» he asked.
After the duo exchanged looks and gave him a nod he jumped and stood on their shoulders with his hand in a demanding gesture towards his brother.
« Virgil,» he said sternly, « The spoon.»
Virgil growled with the cutlery in question between his teeth.
« Now,» Patton insisted until his brother finally gave up and spit it out.
« The other ones too.” The younger avian huffed and disappeared into the little forest that was their enclosure. He returned with a dozen or more spoons. But before he can fully emerge the older brother added «Forks and knives too.»
So he went back to his secret stache and brought back the same amount of other cutlery. « Good,» Patton nodded and hopped back on the ground.
Twins looked at the cutlery bewildered. Some of it was bend as if Virgil had slept on them.
Avians loved shiny things.
With how many avians they hosted in this facility the rescue team knew that for sure.
Many of the avian tribes had a habit or hoarding shiny things they liked.
The older brother was more careful with the shinies. He played with them where he found them and left them in their place.
Patton and Virgil weren't an exception. Although both of them had a different approach on the topic.
The younger one on the other hand. He was a stealing menace.
Janus tried several times to locate his stache of stolen goodies, but all in vein.
Virgil knew how to hide.
After a few first forks went missing from Patton's nest he figured it wasn't the right place to store them in. And since then no one could locate anything.
If the thing went missing there was a fair chance that Moody had stolen it.
Roman already lost five of his rings. Only because he took them of for a couple of minutes.
Janus was missing his expensive makeup brush he forgot to put away. Remus once left his holographic top unattended.
Logan couldn't locate most of their stationery. And they've been gradually loosing cutlery.
Roman sighed.
The culprit? A kleptomaniac bird with trust issues.
Moody looked so hurt after parting ways with his collection.
He took a pocket mirror out of his jacket and handed it to the avian.
Virgil looked at him confused.
« A trade for the cutlery,» he explained.
« We can't have your collection dwindling after all~» he smiled and was delighted to see a soft pink blush spreading on the emo's face.
« Thanks,» Virgil whispered before disappearing in the trees again, likely to hide his new treasure.
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