#alesium

I’m thinking post-de after a long or rough case Kim’s wings got kinda fucked up (maybe during a chase in the air that resulted in (further) injury to his wings (I say further because he already doesn’t fly much because of his very poor eyesight and I’m thinking his flight muscles have probably at least partially atrophied)), meaning he’s got to preen and recover. Harry, worried, visits his apartment to see if there’s anything he can do, and lets himself in to find Kim, curled up and in pain trying to compose himself to preen and work through the muscle tightness. Kim reluctantly agrees to let Harry help, uncomfortable with someone else touching his wings because of said injury and poor eyesight (also maybe bad experiences in the orphanage???? I think so. Lemme give the man some angst).

I imagine it’s like. A huge sign of trust to allow someone to preen you when you’re not family, something that couples barely even do until they’ve been together for months and are comfortable being so vulnerable (wings, after all, are the most delicate part of the soul. Wings and lungs. Dolores Dei’s wings would glow in time with her lungs, a perfect extension of her breath).

But it’s Harry. What could he do to hurt him? (A lot. A lot a lot. But Kim trusts the silly cockatoo. He trusts him with all he is. And he so earnestly wants to help. Just let him.) And so he agrees, shifting to allow Harry to see the damage, to touch his scared back and tight flight muscles, to pick apart the damaged feathers from the healthy, to pull oil from the preening glands and straighten out the feathers to the best of his ability — newly clumsy and unknowing hands working through a process passed down through every family that should be known as perfectly as tying a pair of shoelaces.

Learning together to care for each other, to teach Kim that it’s okay to ask for and accept help, and showing Harry how to use his hands to heal instead of harm (he feared he would fuck up and hurt his police partner more). Growing closer through subsequent preening sessions