Chapter Text
Xelqua laughed as Timmy tripped over a rock. The six year old had skidded a few feet after they had fallen, gaining a scrape on his face that healed before their eyes, and eight year old, older brother, Xelqua found that amusing. Pearl punched him in the shoulder, glaring more jokingly than not, their cousin was the same age as Xelqua but they joked that they were twins as their birthdays fell on the same week. Xelqua rolled his eyes and helped Jimmy up.
“What did mums want you for?” Pearl asked, almost jumping, her small owl wings twitching and her bigger eyes wide with a mischievous grin. She just wanted the scoop, like any other eight year old.
Jimmy huffed trying to brush grass off his favorite shirt. “Mum wants to let us learn that dinner will be good in an hour.” Jimmy said proudly in his six year old grammar and vocabulary.
Xelqua smirked and patted Timmy on the head. “Okay.” Then the eight year old turned to his ‘twin.’ “What should we play?”
“I wanna’ play that game where we,” Jimmy paused thinking. “Where I chase you around.”
“Tag?” Pearl responded and Jimmy nodded.
Xelqua huffed this time. “I don’t wanna play that, what if we draw?”
“No.” Jimmy stated. “Drawing’s boring.” Jimmy dragged out the last word, emphasizing the R.
Pearl attempted to raise an eyebrow but only succeeded in raising both. “What if we walk to the park? Martyn’s usually there right now.”
Jimmy perked up, his bright yellow wings extending excitedly. “Big Dog?”
Xelqua nodded at the suggestion. “Okay. Should we tell mums?”
Pearl shrugged.
“I'll do it.” Jimmy volunteers again to go inside and talk to the parents. No-one stopped Jimmy as he ran up to the house.
Xelqua smothered a smile and started walking in the direction of the park that 9 year old Martyn frequented. “XEL!” Pearl punched him in the arm again.
Xelqua snickered. “Ow that hurts.” Xel joked flopping onto the grass of their front yard, though both knew Pearl didn’t punch hard enough to hurt.
Jimmy came running out a second later, skipping, his wings flapping hard behind him, only giving him a little bit of lift despite the oversized canary wings making up a quarter of the child’s body weight.
“They said it' fine.” Jimmy chirped happily crossing the yard over to their fallen brother and standing cousin.
Xelqua pushed himself up and ran to catch up to the two that had started on without him. Xel spread his light brown wings that matched his dusty blond hair and flapped gaining air and glided over Pearl and Jimmy.
Jimmy pouted and muttered under his breath though all three knew they could hear. “Not fair.”
“You'll get there Jim. Xel’s just older and an early flyer.” Pearl reassured Jimmy. “Xel stop showing off.” Pearl yelled at the frolicking Xelqua who was repeatedly running, jumping, and gliding towards the park.
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“Martyn, Martyn, Martyn.” Xelqua called to the older kid who was sitting on a swing, and even though he had earmuffs and was half a block away the nine year old looked up and towards Xelqua. Martyn waved at him and closed his book. Xelqua ran again, jumping at an angle with his wings extended again and glided from higher than he had before and managed to get all the way to the swingset that Martyn was still on.
“Hey.” Martyn greeted before fuddling with a few buttons on the side of his earmuffs. “‘K all good.”
Xelqua perked after that. “How’s you? And new earmuffs?”
“Yeah,” Martyn smiled. “They're better than the last one’s, they only canceled out noise for like a meter or two radius.” Xelqua nodded like he knew what that was. Martyn was the smartest out of the four, thought to be fair Jimmy just started second grade. Martyn was doing 2 grades ahead of Xelqua even though they were in the same grade. “These ones let me filter how far of the sound I want and how much for each area.” Martyn continued explaining before looking behind Xel and waving at the approaching two.
Jimmy ran up to Martyn and hugged him, moving Martyn enough to make his earmuffs slide off one ear causing Martyn to freeze up. Xelqua had taken a step back when he had seen Jimmy coming but moved forward and fixed Martyn’s earmuff when he saw what happened. Martyn gave Xel a grateful look and hugged Jimmy back.
“Big dog!” Jimmy let go of the hug. “I haven’t seen you in forever.” Jimmy over exaggerated the word.
“I saw you yesterday?” Martyn responded.
“Tim,” Xel reminded Jimmy. “Remember to be careful when you startle Martyn, his ear muffs slipped off.” It wasn’t intended in a mean way, just a best friend reminding a brother of a downside of a power but Jimmy immediately looked guilty and looked down.
“Hey Big Dog,” Martyn responded with the inside joke. “It’s not your fault, the new earmuffs aren’t quite right yet so they slipped a bit off. Then Xel fixed it, all good see?” Martyn gestured up to his covered ears and smiled. That cheered Jimmy up a small bit.
Pearl finally meandered up to the congregation at the swingset kicking at the soft pad, meant to soften a fall for children. “Hey Martyn.”
Martyn looked up at the younger girl in acknowledgement before Jimmy took back his attention.
“Can we play hide-” Jimmy stuttered for a second thinking. “Hide and seek?”
“Sure!” Martyn agreed with the six year old canary.
Xelqua shrugged. “That doesn’t sound too bad, but Martyn can’t be the seeker.” Xelqua said before muttering under his breath, though they all could hear him. “Cheater.” It was light hearted teasing.
“Oh-oh-” Jimmy flicked his wings back, overeager and excited. “I'll be it!”
Pearl snorted. “M-kay, count to 30.”
Jimmy nodded and started counting. “1, -2, 3,”
The older three looked at each other and scattered. Xelqua opted for a tree that had high branches and climbed it like a cat gripping at the bark and using his wings to help him up. Martyn climbed under a bush being as quiet as humanly possible. Pearl bolted for the actual playground, it was a jungle gym with hidey holes every few meters. Pearl found an obscure one low to the ground and curled in and she shifted the shadows, covering her in a blanket while making it seem like there were nothing but odd shadows in the hidey hole.
“10, 1-11, 12,”
Xelqua nestled into some of the highest branches and closed his eyes letting his mind drift away from his body and he glided over to where his little brother was counting. Xelqua’s spector form stood around Jimmy and gave an intentional huff of air towards him.
“24, -Ack Xel!” Jimmy startled at the cold air blown on him. Xelqua snickered silently in spector form. Jimmy made a face but kept his eyes squeezed shut.
“24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30!” Jimmy’s eyes popped open and he started looking around. “Ready or not, here I come!”
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Jimmy flicked his wings back grinning as he scampered around the playground looking for Pearl’s hidey holes. His older sister loved her shadow tricks and the playground had the most shadowy spots, Xel always loved the trees and Martyn sometimes hid in the bushes. They all thought Jimmy couldn’t put their patterns together, but Jimmy was clever like his Mum always said, even if Xelqua teased him and he was clumsy, he was a clever kid. Jimmy peeked into a shadowy hidden spot under a dome climb thing, there was a smidge of off looking shadows, it was Pearl almost guaranteed.
“Found you!” Jimmy grinned like the overexcited six year old he was.
Pearl didn’t move, and Jimmy scowled, flattening his wings to his back. He didn’t like small spaces like Pearl did, she loved hiding in bigger boxes that would allow her and under her bed. Jimmy felt like everything would collapse onto him if he stayed in a small place too long, and it crept up on him seeping into his hollow bones.
Jimmy reached up and taped where he suspected Pearl was, he tapped her on her favorite sweater, Pearl dropped the shadows jokingly scowling.
“I thought you were just saying that to every suspicious shadow.” Pearl joked, crawling out from under her hiding spot pulling Jimmy up and brushing off a smidge of dirt that got on his dark blue shirt and canary wings.
“Nuh-uh” Jimmy stuck his nose up at her. “I just better ‘an you.”
Pearl scrambled up the thing she was hiding under and sat down expectantly. Jimmy pouted at her lack of help but ran off towards the bushes to find Martyn. Jimmy didn’t go for the trees yet because Xelqua always loved to be found last and it made Jimmy happy to see his older brother happy even if said older brother teased him.
Jimmy ran around glancing into the bushes looking for Martyn’s bright green shirt that would stick out even in the lighter green bushes.
Jimmy spotted the odd green and jumped into the bush surely getting leaves and twigs in his hair and wings. Mum would understand and help him fix his wings later when he gets home.
Martyn jumped a little at the sudden appearance of the younger, he must have had his new earmuffs on a low setting. Martyn pressed a few buttons on the side of his earmuffs.
“Hey Big Dog.” Martyn smiled. “Good job finding me.”
Jimmy smiled and clawed his way out of the tangle called a bush.
“Jim?” Martyn spoke up once he got out of the bush too. “Something-” Martyn sighed.
“What?” Jimmy looked up to his friend.
“Nothing.” Martyn shook his head, the nine year old looking around like he was confused.
Jimmy hesitated. Something wasn’t quite right but Martyn said it was fine, so it should be okay. Jimmy looked back at Martyn concerned, though he didn’t know the word for the feeling. Martyn smiled at him. “It’s fine.” Martyn reassured. “I think I just turned them up too high.” Martyn gestured up to his earmuffs.
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Xelqua watched Jimmy stare up into the trees looking for him. Jimmy squinted up Xelqua’s tree, before seemingly deciding that their brother wasn’t up there. Jimmy turned away walking over to the next tree, causing Xelqua to smother a giggle. Xelqua watched Jimmy struggle in finding him. Xelqua shifted in his tree top taking his attention off his brother for a minute to adjust so that his wren wings didn’t ache from being squished.
Xelqua turned his attention back to Jimmy then and he froze. Xelqua jumped up leaping off his branch and tucking his wings behind him in a way that would let him glide while also going faster than he had ever gone. Jimmy was looking confused at an odd stranger that made Xelqua want to puff up his wings and fan them out behind him making him look bigger than the small eight year old he was.
Xelqua skidded to a stop in front of Jimmy, his glide having gotten him there in seconds.
“Hey.” The stranger put his hands up in a sort of surrender. “It’s okay.”
“Who are you?” Xelqua snapped, his wings puffing up, blocking Jimmy from sight.
“I’m from the house over there,” They pointed to a random house. “And I saw him wandering around by himself.”
Xelqua scoffed, he knew who lived there. “Liar. Impulse lives there.”
Xelqua knew Impulse well enough, the 14 year old babysat Jimmy, him, and Pearl a few times with his friend Skizz.
The stranger scoffed. “Alright then the hard way it is.”
The stranger moved like a blur reaching behind the eight year old. Xelqua backed up pushing a dazed looking Jimmy back too. The stranger instead of reaching for Jimmy grabbed Xelqua’s wings, pulling them around and surprising Xelqua. Another stranger appeared grabbing Jimmy like the first did Xelqua. Jimmy still looked dazed, the six year old’s eyes staring off into nothing and being easily dragged away out of Xelqua’s reach.
“Tim!” Xelqua yelled before an arm wrapped around his face covering his mouth. Xelqua reached up scratching at the arm with claws that only avians or other hybrids have. The stranger cursed and hit Xelqua on the head with a fist. Pain exploded in Xelqua’s head and the two strangers picked the two small avian’s up.
“Drug ‘em.” Xelqua heard from the first of the two. They dropped the brothers in the back of a white van, Xelqua kicked at them yelling once the arm on his face was let go. The second kidnapper climbed into the back of the van, closing the door behind them.
“Let us go!” Xelqua yelled, scrambling to the back of the van, fear and terror crawling down his spine as he glanced around. Jimmy was dazed but could tell there was a reason to be panicked and breathing hard, Pearl and Martyn were dumped in the van too, Pearl’s wings drooped to the side of her sitting figure, her eyes half lidded, Martyn was curled onto the floor his earmuffs missing and him clutching his ears but with the same half lidded shallow breathing like Pearl.
A fuzz started creeping into Xelqua’s head.
“Hey it’s ok.” The man in front of him reassured a wicked grin on their face. Panic bubbled in Xelqua’s throat. Mind numbing fuzz creeped closer.
Mind control, and kidnapping. That pounded through Xelqua’s head. “Get away from me!” Xelqua hissed lunging for the much bigger person’s legs, clawing at them. The fuzz retreated at the sudden attack before coming back with overwhelming force.
“Listen here you little-” The kidnapper pulled him back by his wings, causing Xelqua to freeze up in pain at the rough attack. The fuzz ate at Xelqua’s brain. He was the only one who could stop this, he had too, Pearl, Martyn, Jimmy, Timmy depended on it. Xelqua reached up and dug his talons into their arms.
They yelped, it clearly startling and hurting them. “D̸̹̳̯̮̲̐̑͌ŗ̵͚̰̪̲̄̾̿̄ḛ̸̅́̈́͒a̸̬̞̺̜͍̠͂̈̀͐̉̊͝m̶̥̜͈̥̘͌̑̈́̂̔͘͝” They called out to their partner.
“Let us go.” Xelqua pleaded, barely a whisper though. The other, clearly ready for the situation Xelqua had put them in, came in through a door Xelqua hadn’t noticed before that came from the front of the van. Xelqua tried moving to get out of the second’s grasp as the first approached with a syringe.
The one holding his wings pushed Xelqua to the floor of the van then to his knees. Xelqua thrashed, the weight of everything crashing down. He wouldn’t see his Mum and Auntie again, Impulse and his goofy friend Skizz that make them laugh, he wouldn’t see his best friend Mumbo ever again. A sob was choked out.
The one holding the syringe scoffed. “The other one’s didn’t struggle this much.” They crouched down in front of Xelqua.
Xelqua pulled away. “No- “ He managed.
They scoffed again, putting their empty hand over Xelqua’s mouth and the syringe to the eight year old’s neck.
Xelqua knew it was inevitable and let out another sob that was muffled by the hand. Impulsivity controlled his next action, biting the hand covering his mouth. Iron covered Xelqua’s teeth as the kidnapper pulled their hand back. It wasn’t pain in their eyes, just annoyance, like kidnapping Xelqua was just a random task interrupting their day. The syringe pricked Xelqua’s neck and the liquid was injected. Cold flooded Xelqua’s system and the fuzz coated his head. Xelqua let out one last choked sob out, one last thought coursed through his throbbing and numb head.
And everything went black.
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