yassir (ياسر) guthrie | simurgh (سیمرغ) (simurgh) wrote in superbabies, @ 2013-04-07 19:25:00 |
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Entry tags: | sean wilson, yassir guthrie |
LOG: TRANSMUTATION & SIMURGH
WHO: Sean Wilson & Yassir Guthrie
WHEN: Early, early Sunday morning.
WHERE: Rooftops.
WHAT: As per Yassir's request, the two boys opt to watch the sunrise.
There was something to be said about waking up before everyone else: it was a blank slate, a day without influence and no demands. The quiet helped, undoubtedly. There was clarity of mind, peace and---well, a slew of several other metaphorical and philosophical statements that exude the general sentiment. Today was less about any of those things, however; today Yassir had invited someone to join him in his morning antics. Normally he started off with a shower, dressing in comfortable clothes and lazily slinking up to the rooftop to watch the sunrise before heading off to start his prayers. Today there would be no lazy or slinking, there would only be wide eyed frustration as he debated (far too earnestly) over whether or not it would be deemed as obviously trying too hard if he were to style his hair and dress in something other than jersey pants and a well-worn sweater. Inevitably the argument came down to a compromise in which he opted for clean pants but mellowed the overall look with floppy hair. This way no one could accuse him of working too hard to impress--right? Because there was absolutely no reason for him to be trying hard at all. This was just a simple matter of introducing a new friend to a beautiful view. The butterflies in his stomach had nothing to do with any of it. Though they were quite infuriating and took a bit of concentration to push down as he went about as planned--meeting up with Sean and flying him up to the highest rooftop. It was cold up there, in the darkness, but Yass hard worn several layers in preparation (as he had learned his lesson quite some time ago when he had tried to sit up on the roof in just his pajamas) and he had also brought with him a blanket. Just in case. Just in-- “Are you cold?” His voice shattered the silence abruptly, though it was hardly as loud as he feared it might have been. “Because I have this? Yeah?” Yassir lifted the blanket and offered it to Sean; comfort was key afterall. Sean had figured it was going to be chilly and had dressed warm, but he smiled at the offered blanket and shifted a little closer to Yassir, saying, “We could share it? If you’re cold. I mean, I assumed it was going to be cold anyway but a bit extra’s never a bad thing, you know?” He felt a little awkward, all things considered. He hadn’t known Yassir long and he knew the other boy was just coming out of a break-up; he didn’t want to come on too strong, but he couldn’t help the fact that he was attracted to Yassir. It was easy to be around him, easy to talk to him, in a way Sean hadn’t felt with the other students at his former school. But he didn’t want to push things. As Sean drew in nearer, Yass raised his brows sharply and swallowed hard against a fast-drying mouth. Would it have been too much to close in the space further? He scooted in some--a test--and watched the other’s face to see if his expression changed. So long as Sean didn’t scowl or frown at him all would be fine, he’d breathe a little easier. Truth was that he wanted to be much closer, but that would have been presumptuous, invading and possibly poor judgement on his part. Instead he smiled and passed the blanket off to Sean. “It’s okay, yeah, I can’t really--” As if following a cue, his wings stretched out and fidgeted. When not pressed tightly against his back their full size could be seen, they were at least twice as long as Yassir was tall. “It’s easier--no, not as--it’s a bit uncomfortable to keep them pressed all the time and I don’t think the blanket is big enough to accommodate them by itself.” No, it’d likely take a much larger blanket to wrap across his wings with still enough room to share. Yassir shifted a moment, he wondered if his words had been harsh or unfriendly in any way and it flustered him. Eyes grew wide and he looked worried for a moment. “But it’s not a big deal either. I’m used to this so I have a lot of layers.” He lifted his jacket to show the sweater underneath, the shirt beneath that, the thermal beneath that and the tank top beneath that; it took a while but eventually he’d find his own skin, drowning beneath far more fabric than was possibly necessary. “Honest, yeah? So, please, it’s okay. Take it.” Sean accepted the explanation with a nod, settling the blanket over his legs -- he’d worn enough layers to keep his upper body warm, but the cold was seeping up through the chilly roof slate enough that the extra warmth would be very welcome on his legs. When Yassir’s wings spread out, he unconsciously reached out before snatching his hand back, going a little red. Yassir might not like people to touch them. “Your wings are beautiful,” he said after a moment. “And they look warm.” Barely, just barely, Yassir had seen the hand reach towards his wings from the corner of his eye. At first he wasn’t sure, thought that maybe he had misinterpreted and entirely different action or that he was imagining things. But he was almost certain and, really, he wouldn’t have minded. “If you want,” a wing stretched out, lifted and pressed between them, “you can touch them?” “Actually,” Fingers picked at the red feathers, prying dust and debris out of them. It was a bit embarrassing really. “They’re messy, sorry. Let me try to clean them up first. Yeah? I mean, if you wanted to. I don’t mind either way.” As he shifted through his feathers--picking out this and that--a blush splashed across his face and ran up to the very tips of his ears. Without some manner of natural shedding his wings were quite prone to picking up and keeping several bits of anything, which did not make for very comfortable first impressions he felt. “Here, let me,” Sean offered, moving to kneel behind Yassir and run his fingers gently through the feathers, grooming them carefully the way he’d seen birds grooming after a storm. “It can’t be easy getting to the feathers along the humerus. My dad has a falcon and has this connection with a bunch of birds,” he added absently. “So I got to know how to treat feathers really early on.” Not that Yassir was a bird, or a pet, but feathers were feathers, and it had to be more comfortable when they were clean. It was strange, Yass thought, that anyone in the world might understand wings so well; particularly when they didn’t have any themselves. But he wasn’t going to complain or object--hardly. It was far more comfortable when his wings were clean, there was no denying that, and having someone groom his wings was very much in the same line as what it was like to have someone brush or play with your hair. Or to be pet, he imagined. He smiled, face pressed into his own wing, and pushed wayward hair off of his face. “My dad tried to teach me too, but I think it’s hard for him because he might not remember what it’s like as much.” Yassir shifted. “Do you--I mean, like your father, do you have the same connection to birds?” “I don’t think so,” Sean said, smoothing a few feathers back into place once he’d cleared away the clinging dust. “I mean, I’ve never really felt anything like he and Shay have. I just like animals. You know, he’s got these little brushes he can use if the birds get caught in a bad dust storm or something - I can ask him to send me the design and see if we can get a bigger one made that’ll help with your feathers, if you want. It seems like it’d take a long time to get them properly settled if you’re just using your fingers.” Yassir’s face brightened. “Yeah? You think that you could?” He brought his other wing around and began to pick at it as well, prying and needling between feathers to clean as deeply as possible. It’d ache or twinge, maybe it’d pinch and sometimes it even hurt, but he was used to it all. “You’d think they’d have made one already, yeah? I mean I know it’s not exactly in high demand, but some of us would like it.” And considering how often Yassir dealt with dust, dirt and sand, it really would have been the greatest thing for him. “It’s just that, there’s no molting or shedding. They all stay in place. And it just gets inconvenient.” He paused a moment, realizing what was happening and looked back over his shoulder at Sean. “You know you don’t have to do this, yeah? I didn’t mean to--it’s not like I brought you here to clean my wings. I’m sorry. You really don’t have to.” “I know I don’t have to,” Sean assured him, smiling. “I like it, though. I like doing things with my hands and your wings really are beautiful. I used to spend hours helping Dad groom the birds when I was a little kid. I don’t have a connection the way he does, or Shay, but I’ve always thought birds were... like something out of a fairy tale, you know? So free, more than anything else. If they didn’t want to stay somewhere, they could just fly away.” It had been something he’d been thinking about more often, lately. He’d never been particularly restless, always perfectly happy to stay in New York, but that was different to being trapped at the school. Sometimes he dreamed of just flying away somehow, away from everything. It hadn’t been his first reaction and he hadn’t meant for it to be the most vocal, but Yassir laughed. He had tried to keep it down, pass it off as a cough, but it bubbled up from inside him and broke free far, far too easily. “Really? No, no. I mean.” A chuckle. “I’ve never--when I want to leave, we take Hakeem’s car. It’s silly, but I’ve never really thought to just fly away.” It was like a perfectly wasted talent; Yass had the ability to fly but he rarely used it for reasons people thought he might have. “Sometimes I think that maybe someone else should have had been born with the wings. My eldest brother says I waste them a lot.” He smiled, calming down, and shrugged. “If I could, I’d give them to you.” As the words left his lips, his smile began to fade and a seriousness passed over Yassir. He relinquished his wing and tilted more so in Sean’s direction, brows furrowed. “Does it bother you? Being stuck here?” “You were born with them; you’re meant to have them,” Sean said softly. “I don’t think we’re given things we aren’t supposed to have, not when it’s something like this. Illnesses are a different matter, I don’t ascribe to the whole ‘God doesn’t give us more than we can handle’ thing because that’s really insulting to people who can’t handle the hard stuff they’ve got, but I don’t think you’re wasting them. Sometimes things don’t need to be anything more than beautiful. You might want to fly more with them one day, but if you don’t, I don’t think that’s a bad thing.” He was quiet for a moment after the question, watching his fingers gently combing through Yassir’s feathers, and eventually said, “Yeah. It does. The whole thing does, you know? Even if I didn’t mean to, I still killed someone. I’m going to be making up for that for a long time.” Yassir listened and he certainly understood, though he had his arguments. Wings were one thing, he could accept that there was a perfectly reasonable explanation why he had been born with them and others had not, but he was still less inclined to believe that he was supposed to evade death. It haunted him, frightened him and enraged him beyond compare most days. But this--the load of his internalized discontent--was not for Sean to carry. “Yeah, I guess so.” Words were mustered, borrowing every inch of his self-control, and he had even managed a bit of a smile in addition. Though he couldn’t say that he could manage much more beyond it. Not with the sadness he now found in Sean’s own words. His wings pushed downwards and pressed to his body, out of the other’s reach so that he could effectively turn around and meet Sean head-on now. “My mother has killed before. And I’m sure there are many here who have done the same--students, faculty, any of the residents. I haven’t, so I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know what that’s like, I’m sorry. But I don’t think that you should hate yourself or even be angry with yourself. You’re a good person as far as I can see. We all make mistakes, yeah? And, yeah, maybe some are bigger than others, but just because I’ve done one thing and you’ve done another doesn’t mean that I’m any better than you. Or that anyone is better than you.” He paused a moment, evaluating and debating before reaching out to set his hand on Sean’s arm. A tingle had run up his own arm; he shook it off. “Please, please believe this.” “I don’t hate myself for it,” Sean said quietly, looking down at Yassir’s hand on his arm. Strange. He’d been so afraid of the idea of touching people, but he’d touched Yassir without a second thought. “It was an accident, and even then, you couldn’t say I wasn’t provoked. He was going to hurt Lottie, he came at me with a knife. It was self-defense. But I still took a life. That’s something that means something to me. No matter what sort of person he was, there’s a hole in the world where he used to be. I have to make other lives better to make up for that.” He managed a bit of a smile, feeling suddenly self-conscious, and added, “It’s -- sorry. My beliefs are kind of difficult to explain.” A small sigh of relief had escaped without a fight at the other’s words, and Yassir nodded in quiet understanding. “Yeah, no. You don’t have to explain it, sometimes things really can’t be explained, I’m just happy that you don’t hate yourself. You are free to handle things your own way, yeah? Everyone is different in how they cope. But hating yourself should not be a part of it.” Incredibly aware of just how long he had kept his hand pressed against Sean, Yassir withdrew it suddenly and shoved it into his coat pocket. “I mean--um--I don’t think I really have much room to say anything or give advice, yeah? I get that. Just, I think it’s important you--and everyone else really--remember that you’re a good person.” “It helps to have people to remind me,” Sean said quietly, giving Yassir another smile. “Thanks. For all of this. Bringing me up here, letting me talk, letting me help with your wings -- it means a lot that you trust me enough to let me touch you. Means I can trust myself enough to touch you.” “Of course I’d trust you,” his inflection implied that he thought it preposterous that Sean might have thought he wouldn’t. “Why wouldn’t I?” Yassir shifted, fidgeted and had the definite look of someone who had quite a lot to say but either wasn’t sure how to say it or if he really wanted to. “It’s that--talking to you is like--you’re a very easy person to talk to you. I feel like I can’t talk to most people, except for my brother and Jack, but it’s easy, with you. I think that would make a good person. And, yeah, it means that I trust you.” “I’m glad,” Sean said, looking down for a moment, trying to hide the blush that was creeping up. “It’s easy for me to talk to you too. You’re just... something about being around you is so relaxing, after feeling like I need to be on guard with everyone else in case I say something that scares them after everything they’ve heard.” Giddy would be a close--though not entirely accurate--word to describe just what Yassir was feeling at that precise moment. He felt the need to crawl inwards, hide away inside of himself, but without the usual sense of discomfort or worry it usually accompanied. Rather, this time around Yass was grinning (much like a fool) and thought he might just burst with what could only be equated to something akin to excitement. Sean had paid him a compliment in a big way, but it struck him in an even bigger as it had come from someone Yassir had, most certainly, hoped to impress. He had a crush and he felt a bit ridiculous, a bit like a schoolgirl. “Yeah? Thank you.” Wary and eager, Yassir had made a quick movement to brush fingers through his hair in the hopes that if it were a mess he had resolved the problem. Just in case, as was his motto. “You’re always welcome to talk to me, yeah. I really enjoy it and if it makes you happy too--I don’t mind.” A pause. “And thank you, too, for helping with my wings.” “I’d like to help more, if you’d let me,” Sean offered. “It’s... don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s like petting a cat, you know? Soothing, a bit. And we can talk while I do it. I like having things to do with my hands, and it’s helping settle me about touching people, you know? Because if I can do this, I can touch people without hurting them. So it helps us both.” “Yeah.” He felt dumb, it was dumb; there was no way that this should have made him as happy as it did. But there he sat: wrapped in his arms, tangled in emotions, and drowning beneath the several breaths he had to take to feel connected to the moment. If he cared much to pry his hands out of his coat pockets he might have noticed that they were sweating, just at the palms, and that they were blanched, dead white at the knuckles from clenching into fists so tightly. “Yeah. I think I’d be up for that.” Yassir cleared his throat, “I don’t mind the grooming, and if it makes you comfortable--yeah. I’d be really happy to.” |