Part 1. A Welcome Haunting
Prompt: wings AU
Tags: no capes AU, supernatural AU, Catherine Todd's perspective (this chapter), whump, Jason is a kid, mild body horror due to Jason's transformation
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2. On Wax Wings
It is not a simple headache, Catherine realizes on day four. That Thursday morning, she presses her lips to Jason’s temple and almost recoils with how hot he is. She calls in sick for both of them and sits by his bed, alternating between helping him drink water and looking up the address for the nearest urgent care. She has to remind herself to unclench her jaw as she watches Jason toss and turn, unable to get comfortable in his sweat-soaked bed.
It must be a puberty thing, she thinks, some growth spurt gone wayward. Or maybe the beginnings of a viral infection that Jason caught early at school. It is the season, she thinks, they’re moving into late fall. Any moment her phone will ping with the notification from Midtown Middle advising parents to get their kids the latest vaccination against…whatever this is.
By day ten, Jason is stiff. He no longer tosses and turns, only twitches occasionally when his blanket rubs against a bare patch of skin or the cool air from his open window tosses his hair. He flinches from Catherine’s touch. It breaks her heart but she swallows that back and grabs his jaw to force soup into his mouth. He won’t keep anything else down, so she’ll take his pitiful mewling if it means his belly won’t be empty. She dares to sponge him every other day but hesitates to move him.
Until she has to. On day seven, she swears she sees the beginnings of a bedsore. “C’mon, Jace,” she murmurs as she reaches for his shoulders. “I ran you a bath, you’re gonna love it.” His keening whines start up and he doesn’t even open his eyes, but she persists. She manages to get an arm around his shoulders and tugs him up to a half-seated position.
She nearly drops him again.
Her arm brushes up against something hard, rigid, sharp. Catherine peers behind him — there are ridges protruding from his shoulder blades, ivory white like bone. There are downy tufts along the protrusions. Catherine watches as a few clumps flutter off of the protrusions and onto the bedsheets. They…they’re feathers.
A shaking hand reaches for one of them. Catherine holds it between her fingers, awe and a healthy dose of fear freezing her face. What…what could cause something like this? She looks back at Jason, who has started panting. His eyes are darting back and forth under his eyelids and his shoulders hunch, like he's trapped in a dream. Shaking herself, Catherine drops the feather and scoops the boy into her arms. She holds him close to her chest, even as the things on his back dig into her arms.
The fever breaks on day fourteen. Jason groans, jolting Catherine from her sleep. His head rolls to the side, and she can see the moment that his eyes focus on her. “Mom?” he croaks, his dry voice cracking the word into two.
“You're okay, sweetheart,” she coos. She rests a hand on his forehead, and it feels several degrees cooler than it has in almost a week. “Want some water?” And she's reaching for the glass before he even replies.
Jason takes healthy swigs from the straw, draining half the glass, before leaning back down. “I…I saw Dad,” he says softly.
Catherine's mouth tightens at the corners. Poor kid, the fever must have made him delirious. “Did you.”
Jason nods. “He said I'm —” A shudder rolls through him, and then his body seizes up completely. “Argh!” the boy cries, which grips Catherine's heart. She grabs his arms as he jerks violently left, then right, and finally back, arching in an almost inhuman curve.
Jason gasps for air like he can't get enough of it, and all she can do is massage circles into his flesh and hold him through the seizure. Something tells her to look at his back, and so she does. The bony protrusions are flexing in time with each of Jason's cries, pushing slowly out of his back and bending as they do. Fresh feathers line the bone in patches, matted with sweat and something else to the frame. When the growth stops, so do Jason's yells. He heaves and trembles in Catherine's arms.
“C-cursed,” he manages.
