#jalr

They had to be a social breed, too, going by the sounds of things, which bumped the urgency up a little further. Improper conditions and careless owners were bad enough, but for most domesticated birds, if one of a bonded pair died, the other was almost sure to follow.

That wasn’t even getting into the more exotic species. Janus was still hanging on to the slim hope that they wouldn’t be anything too wild, and thus much easier to rehome and rehabilitate without breaking any laws.

Well. Any more laws.

The door’s lock finally twisted under his lock picks, and Janus swung the door open smoothly, appreciating the silent glide of well-maintained, squeak-free hinges. Ah, rich people.

He made sure to close the door quickly behind himself, both for appearances and noise concealment. There was a good chance that whatever birds these two were, they would kick up a fuss at the entrance of a stranger, especially considering the fact that ‘frequent disturbances’ from the animals was the alleged reason Logan’s veterinary clinic had been contacted in the first place.

All living creatures made noise and had needs; even a preschooler could grasp that much. The fact that this grown man had been asking about the costs of invasive and debilitating surgical procedures before considering any alternatives or even telling them anything about the situation was sickening, and more than enough for Janus to agree to a heist riskier than their usual fare.

The room remained shockingly quiet as he crept forward, enough so that he began to wonder if their information wasn’t accurate after all, or if the birds had been very recently moved. Janus could only hope that nothing unspeakable had been done to them in the few days since the call.

Then, finally— a sound. The barest ruffle of feathers against each other, small in a way that meant they likely were dealing with something passerine-sized, which made things easier in a lot of ways.

Janus turned towards the sound, scouring the shadows of the unlit room with narrowed eyes until he found the silhouette of a birdcage. Finally.

He slipped a few trinkets off the shelves as he approached, despite knowing it would earn him Logan’s disapproval. The more they took, the longer they’d be pursued, after all. Still, he couldn’t resist.

The cage was still extremely quiet as he got closer, though he thought he could almost make out tiny, rapid breathing. He carefully checked the angle of the nearby window before pulling a small portable lantern from his belt and flicking its bulb on.

“Let’s see what we’re working with this time,” he mused lowly to himself, and lifted the lantern up to illuminate the inside of the enclosure.

The first thing he noticed was that calling it an enclosure was an insult to properly maintained terrariums everywhere. He’d seen children’s goldfish bowls with better enrichment in them than the nearly barren space within the birdcage. No perches, no chewable toys, no well-sheltered places to hide away…

No places to hide at all, really, which meant that he spotted the bundle of feathers fluffed up on the cage floor in the very next second.

The shape of it was odd, a pair of mantled wings displayed from the back, with odd shadows and disheveled feathers making it difficult to tell where the wings ended and the bird’s body began. They were trembling with strain, so he at least knew that the little creature was still alive.

“Hey there, little guy,” he crooned, setting the lantern next to the cage on the high display table and inspecting the thin wire door. “Give me just a moment, and we’ll get you somewhere much more comfortable, alright?”

For such a simple birdcage. there were a shocking number of locks worked into the latch and surrounding bars of the door. Janus felt a little impressed despite himself, poking at each extra layer of security curiously. “A bit of an escape artist, are you? Quiet or not, I’m sure you’ll be quite a handful.”

The sound of a very small, shuddering inhale split the air, and Janus’s hands went still.

Slowly, he shifted his gaze back to the bundle of feathers, which had grown even pricklier.

He’d heard parrots, ravens, and cockatoos alike imitate human voices, sometimes uncannily well, but he’d never heard them imitate a sob before. Was he imagining things?

There were different colored feathers mixed in, he realized, looking closer. Almost as though one bird had crowded in and attempted to completely cover the other with its wings.

And there was still something about that tangled silhouette that was wrong, for a bird…

More hurriedly now, he twisted the locking mechanisms open one after the other, and finally swung the cage door open. The gap was wide enough for a bird with a wingspan that size to dart through if they were quick about it, but it didn’t seem to be enough to tempt the little guy into moving.

In fact, the only sign that his presence had been noted at all were the progressively more and more ruffled feathers of the wings before him. The birds didn’t seem particularly reactive to a clear intrusion, which was honestly a bit worrying.

Making sure his gloves were concealing every bit of skin— it wouldn’t do to leave even a shred of evidence behind, after all— Janus slid an arm inside the cage and reached for the bird.

With a guttural hiss, the wings flared wider, and the very-much-not-a-bird twisted around to screech at him, lunging forward.

Only years of experience kept Janus from yanking his arm back out the door roughly with a plethora of swears, and even with that experience, he couldn’t stop his automatic jolt and the subsequent rushing of blood in his ears. The sudden flush of adrenaline made him feel a bit faint.

Or maybe he felt a bit faint because the creature before him was absolutely, positively, most certainly not a bird.

Illuminated shallowly by the lantern’s sickly greenish glow, a miniature person stood like an undersized angel, wings spread out in the air behind them in implied threat.

“Get any closer and I’ll scoop your eyes out with a rusty spoon!” the tiny being called out in a nasally tone, adding a very blatant threat to match the implied one. A threat Janus suspected was a complete bluff, seeing as they didn’t seem to even have a way to reach his eyes at the moment, let alone a spoon to execute the promised attack with.

Still, that was no reason to frighten the creature any further. He’d read far too much about small animals and the risks that shock from improper human handling could cause, and the last thing he wanted was to accidentally make anyone keel over. If he could offer such courtesy to birds, he would certainly offer it to the impossibly small person standing rigidly before him.

(He felt a bit like descending into shock, himself, but he was far too professional to succumb in the middle of a high-stakes operation such as this one. No matter how tempting it was.)

He eased back a step, slowly withdrawing his hand until it could rest more casually on the doorway of the cage. “Well, there’s no need for that. I’ve found I rather like my eyes where they are.”

“Great!” The winged person bared tiny teeth at him, not relaxing an inch even as Janus did what he could to keep from looming. “Leave us the fuck alone, and I won’t tear ‘em out and stuff them up your—!”

There was a nervous keen from behind the winged person, and they cut off mid-vulgarity to shift to the side slightly, angling their wings to keep covering whatever was behind them.

Or, if Janus was correct, whoever was behind them. ‘Leave us alone,’ they’d said.

“Is your friend alright?” he asked, earning himself both a glare and the sort of high-pitched warning whistle he normally heard just before a bird started biting hard enough to draw blood. “Please. If I wanted to hurt you, don’t you think I’d have done so by now?”

The winged person scoffed, teeth still bared in a snarl that curled up at the edges, almost resembling a manic grin. “I don’t pretend to know when humans next want to hurt us or why,” they replied, words sharp as razor wire. “If you’re really feeling all kind-hearted and generous, howsabout leaving that door open and ditching this place without any living, breathing prizes? We’ll take care of the rest.”

Their tone was scornful, disbelieving that Janus could be here to do anything except take advantage of them, and looking at their current situation, he couldn’t even begin to blame them. Living in a featureless cage would have been detrimental enough for an actual bird. For a person? It was dehumanizing, isolating, tantamount to torture.

He had his suspicions, however, about the condition of the other one in there with them. They would be easy enough to confirm or deny by simply reaching in and moving the vicious one aside, but that sort of maneuver wouldn’t get him anywhere in terms of earning their trust.

Instead, he withdrew his hand completely, leaving a blank square of empty space in the doorway, ripe for escaping through. “Of course. If that’s all you need, I’m happy to oblige.”

Upping the stakes on this little gamble, Janus moved to the nearby window and shifted the window sash up along its frame, allowing cool air to billow into the room. Luckily, it seemed this one didn’t have a screen on the outside, so their theoretical way out was entirely unimpeded— so long as they were both in fit condition to fly.

The silence in the room stretched, thick with tension, and then a different voice piped up, just as small and considerably less harsh.

“If it isn’t too much trouble, could you also cut through the restraint?” the new voice asked, polite and friendly enough that Janus almost missed the tremulous note to it. “Two heads may be better than one, but four wings tend to get tangled up!”

“Patton—!” the first person hissed, only to fall quiet when Janus crossed the room to return to the cage.

They were still trying to conceal the existence of the other winged person, but it was mostly unsuccessful now that ‘Patton’ wasn’t cooperating.

Janus could make out the two different forms, now, and the thin, durable cord that connected the cuffs on their ankles. One cuff per person, chaining the two of them together.

He was surprised that they’d chosen to reveal the vulnerability— surely in such desperate times, they could manage to coordinate well enough to get away?— but obviously didn’t begrudge them the request.

Except the moment he shifted forward with a pair of wirecutters in hand, the first one puffed up even more aggressively, blocking the way.

“Nope, actually, that’s not happening,” they spat, faux-glib.

“Remus,” Patton protested, only to get lightly buffeted by a wing before they could complete the rest of their complaint.

‘Remus’ shrugged, an attempt at casual when they still looked ready to start mauling him at any moment. “Sorry, Sunshine! It turns out that where you go, I go! That includes abductions by random, well-dressed thieves, so sad, what can you do!”

“You can get out,” Patton retorted. “I’ll be fine, okay, so just let the human cut—,”

“SO SAD, NOTHING TO BE DONE,” Remus repeated over them loudly, before twisting to face Janus fully and finally letting their wings draw back in slightly from their overextended posture. The relaxation looked forced, a lesser of two evils. “Whatever you want us for, looks like you got a two-for-one deal, Jack and the Beanstalker! Better act fast before time runs out!”

Janus blinked, shifting his gaze between the two of them contemplatively, and then decided that whatever misconceptions they were inventing for him would take far too long to unravel at the moment.

Though his wings were tucked too tightly against their back to tell exactly how, Patton was clearly injured in some way, unable to fly, and Remus was equally clearly unwilling to abandon them. Just like actual songbirds, they would be in serious danger from wild animals if left grounded, so even if the injury wasn't debilitating, he couldn’t simply release them and be on his way. They needed help, which was exactly what Janus had come to offer.

And truth be told, he was still deeply curious about these two. Might as well kill two birds with one— hm. Better not to use that particular metaphor for this situation, now that he thought about it.

“If you insist,” he said, and reached for the collapsible bird transport container at his side before pausing. They weren’t actual birds, but he didn’t exactly have the luxury of a less humiliating method of travel on hand.

He was also running out of time. As unfortunate as it was, this would have to do. There would be plenty of time for explanations later.

”Excuse my reach,” he muttered out of habit as he leaned against the cage and held his hand out.

The two had automatically flinched back from a human hand in a way that made him feel ill and furious in equal measures, so he carefully reached forward and scooped the closer of the two into his gloved grasp the way he would have with an actual bird, gentle but firm.

It was Remus, and their body twitched in a way that made Janus suspect they were barely resisting the urge to inflict bodily harm on him, but they managed to limit themself to a narrow-eyed glare and an unhappy churr from deep in their chest.

He’d worried about the restraint connecting the two— he could only fit one arm through the cage door at a time, so he couldn’t exactly grab both of them— but the issue was neatly resolved by Patton immediately clambering onto his hand after Remus, reaching out and clinging to their friend’s arm like they feared they’d be torn away from each other at any minute.

Making sure to move slowly and not unbalance them, Janus withdrew his arm and two passengers from the cage, lowering them down to the display table where the carrying case waited. The two went tense in his grasp, but he made no move other than to relax his fingers into a flat surface, releasing the majority of his grip.

“I would offer to hold you all the way out, but I’m afraid I’ll need my hands free,” he said after a still moment, and this was enough to prompt them into motion.

Patton tugged at Remus’s shoulder, whispering rapidly at them about things Janus pretended not to hear, but the effort went nowhere. Remus marched into the transport case with only the ruffled feathers on their back giving away any sense of unease, and despite the agonized glance they sent toward the open window, Patton was only a half-step behind them. They huddled down in the far corner of the case, digging their fingers into the mesh like they expected it to be a harsh ride.

Discomfited, Janus zipped the entry up only most of the way and left the zippers unlocked. For someone who had been breaking through all those locks on the cage, the barrier was less than nothing, but it still didn’t feel like enough.

He knew why: Whatever attachment was keeping the two of them trapped in place now was far less tangible than any physical lock, and far more binding. Janus may not have been the one to create the trap, but he was utilizing it now, whether he liked it or not.

"Alright. I'm moving now." With careful hands, he lifted the case into the crook of one arm and strapped the lantern back onto his belt, turning towards their exit and wanting nothing more than to leave this stagnant room behind.

Hopefully, once he proved his intentions weren’t malicious, they would let him and Logan help. Hopefully, they would be able to fix whatever that monster had done.

The alternative was letting the fire ants under his skin grow more and more intolerable until he ended up doing the dumb thing anyway, but even more recklessly. It wasn’t so much a ‘choice’ as it was a ‘delay of the inevitable’.

After all, he was the only one getting hurt in the end, right?

Now, watching helplessly from behind birdcage bars as that bastard human loomed over Patton, he was finding that there were some consequences that could make him feel regret, after all.

Initially, the bastard had seemed eerily unperturbed by catching Remus in the act, even if his grip had gone dangerously tight for a heartbeat. He’d dropped Remus back in that gaudy cage without even a single word of scolding, turning away with a preoccupied gaze.

That should have been the first sign that something was about to go horribly wrong.

As it was, Remus’s bad feeling didn’t catch up with the reality of the situation until the human walked in mid-phone call, stopping right in front of them. The bastard looked them over with a calculating eye as he spoke to the tinny voice on the other end about prices and procedures, as though they were too dumb to put the pieces together.

Patton hadn’t stopped shaking until hours later, his wings tucked as tight against his back as they would go. Remus had forced himself silent for once, knowing that the gory thoughts he had to offer would only make the situation worse, and simply squeezed Patton against his side as securely as he could.

It wasn’t enough. It was never enough. No matter how hard they tried to cling on, it only took a single human hand to wrench them apart.

When the bastard had walked in with heavy leather gloves on, Remus had thought he was ready. He’d been prepared for his wings to be mangled, for tiny hollow bones to shatter and wiry muscles to be ground to a pulp, for even the lifelong pain of a botched amputation.

He hadn’t been prepared for the human to grab Patton, instead.

He was shouting, barking swears and threats and pleas that he barely registered as words as Patton was pinned against the polished wood of the nearby table.

It was like he had to make as much noise as possible to counter Patton’s awful, tremulous silence. His cellmate’s face had gone blank and pallid, eyes distant. A few of Remus’s shouts had made him twitch, but nothing seemed enough to bring him back to himself now.

The human— the monster pressed down on Patton’s wing joints and forced the feathery limb to flex open, soft blue plumage on full display.

It picked up a pair of narrow scissors, ignoring the compulsive twitches of the overextended wing under its hand.

The howl that Remus made was inhuman, shredding out of him like razor blades in his throat, and the human paused to glance over at him for the first time.

“Huh.” Its expression was pleased, almost smug. “That vet was right on the money with that ‘social creatures’ thing. Maybe this will finally teach you that there are consequences to your actions, hm?”

It flicked the scissors open with a metallic sound, and as though it was a signal that all was lost, Patton went entirely limp with resignation.

Remus forced himself to keep gripping the bars with numb hands, to keep his ears uncovered, to keep his gaze locked on the only friend he had here. His heart felt like a hammer against his ribs, his mind conjuring up a hundred different gruesome imaginings that were all nothing in comparison to knowing it was about to happen for real.

Patton was going to be grounded forever, at best, and it was his fault. The least he could do was witness exactly what he’d caused.

The monster slid the scissor blades into place, adjusting the angle once or twice, and then snapped them shut with a sharp snkt!

A fistful of feathers tumbled free from Patton’s wing, jagged at one end from where they’d been sheared off. Another cut, and more downy blue scraps fluttered down to the desk’s surface.

Remus felt his breath catch in his throat, a sick and sudden hope twisting through him.

He waited on pins and needles as first one wing, and then the next, had their feathers cropped short with snip after snip of the scissors. There was no split flesh or severed bone, only the near-silent whisper of more and more feathers being cut away.

There were a few moments where the scissors got dangerously close to clipping a blood feather, but ultimately, when Patton was deposited back in the cage, it was without a single wound.

Well. Without any physical wounds.

Even as Remus gathered his friend into a crushing hug, Patton remained unresponsive. Checking him over revealed dull eyes and his shorn wings laid out limply behind him.

He didn’t twitch, not even when the human reached in and clicked a thick, bulky piece of plastic around his shin.

More than willing to pick up the slack, Remus lunged at the intruding digits with a snarl and bared teeth, his wings flared out aggressively.

There was no biting through gloves that thick, though, and with a few casual movements, it had him pinned down with suffocating force. A pair of fingers pinched around his leg, pulling the limb straight and maneuvering something hard and smooth into place around it despite his best efforts to kick and writhe.

There was a click, and the bastard finally, finally withdrew, closing and locking the cage door thoroughly behind it.

Remus barely spared a glance for the thick plastic cuff that had been latched around his lower leg or the wire cord connecting it to the other half of the restraint where it sat on Patton’s own leg. It didn’t matter, not compared to the insistent urge to reach out and make sure that Patton was really there, really alive despite his current lifelessness.

At first, he scoffed at the idea that it was a punishment to be linked to his only companion in this sterile gold-leafed hell, but a closer inspection of Patton’s wings revealed the truth.

Almost every single primary had been severed, an obvious gap with a long stretch of jagged angles left behind. Patton wouldn’t be able to fly like that. Remus would be surprised if he could even manage to glide like that.

Oh. He understood now.

Without use of his wings, the chances of them escaping dropped as abruptly as a piano from the top of a skyscraper, going from challenging to near-impossible.

Hurting Patton and making him watch had been the punishment. Cuffing them together, making it so that any attempt to fly, to escape, would end with Patton inevitably dragging them down— that was a reminder.

Maybe they could still manage to find a way out, if Patton could be persuaded once he came back to himself.

Maybe next time they got caught, it would be the wing itself that was snapped, instead of just the feathers.

Maybe the punishments would continue to escalate until all that was left to cuff Remus to was Patton’s bloodied corpse.

“Sunshine,” he tried with an unsteady voice, desperate for a response, anything to get his mind off the miserable hopelessness of their situation. “Can you hear me?”

Patton didn’t even blink, his mind far away and his body unresponsive. He stared through Remus with glassy eyes, and Remus bit his lip hard enough to draw blood, forcing his breathing into something steadier out of spite alone.

Okay. Patty Wagon wasn’t quite ready to come back yet. That was alright.

Remus could take care of them both for a little bit.

He drew Patton closer, folding his friend’s wings back in as neatly as he could and resisting the urge to run his fingers obsessively over the irregular edges of the cut feathers– they’d need to be removed, but not now. Not now.

Once his mangled wings weren’t laying askew, Patton started looking a little less like roadkill. It was alarmingly easy to maneuver him into a hopefully-comfortable sleeping position, as simple as wrapping an arm around his shoulders and squishing him against his side like they were dead fish in a tin.

It might have been his imagination, but when he ran his hand over Patton’s back, he thought it was a little less tense than before.