fandomhighdorms | The Roof, Saturday Morning

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The Roof, Saturday Morning

Everybody had their grumpy days. Or their uncomfortable days, or their just plain wrong-side-of-the-bed days. And for any reason under the sun, really. It all depended on what was up.

What was up for Warren was spring, headed into summer. Which meant fewer layers or even just the option of lounging around shirtless, a heightened likelihood of seeing pretty girls wearing less than they were a few months ago, and, less pleasantly, a molt.

Large feathered wings were amazing, breathtaking, and absolutely liberating right up until you realized that having a pair of them meant that you'd have to deal with itching, feather dust, and pinfeathers on a seasonal basis. And so Warren had made his way up to the roof in an effort to at least minimize some of the mess in his room to spare Hinata the headache, and was now sitting on the edge, frowning at a molted four-foot long primary feather and trying to figure out what the heck to do with it as he turned it over in his hand.

This sort of thing was so much easier to deal with when his dad could just smuggle it all out through his company as 'medical waste.'

[I don't know. All I know is that I've been vacuuming up cockatiel dust for weeks now, and finally he's starting to drop real feathers so it's time to torment Warren thus. But the roof is open!]

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"Kiss kiss," Karla said, settling down on the edge of the roof and giving Warren a smile. And then paused to look at him a little more closely. "Uh-oh. Looks like someone's using the roof for its unofficial purpose."

Which was a casual statement and an offer to listen all in one. It all depended on how Warren wanted to take it.

Warren blinked up at Karla at that, and then gave her a wry smile before holding up the feather.

"That's what the roof is here for, isn't it? Sparing the rest of the island's population the moodiness?"

And also for keeping the rain out of the students' things, sure. But the first reason seemed more important.

"You know, I always hated cleaning my room when I was a kid. But picking up Nintendo games really doesn't have anything on this sort of mess."

"Nintendo games?" Karla asked, blinking. "What--oh," she looked at the feather again. "Ah, I see. You're shedding."

What? Karla'd never had a bird or anything before. Her experience with animals extended to horses and the occasional cat. "Is it bothersome?"

"Molting," Warren corrected with a sigh, setting the feather down on the ledge. "And yeah, it is. Everything just kind of... sits weird, for a while. You have to work harder to stay aloft when you don't have all of your flight feathers, and it's messy and it itches."

It was easy to tell what the crappiest part of it all was, wasn't it?

"But at least it means that the feathers that Hinata's kitten have gotten to are going to be replaced soon."

Karla grinned at the mention of Yei. "That'll keep her happy then," she said, shaking her head indulgently. "Not that it helps you any."

Almost unconsciously, Karla reached a hand out to Warren's back, then hesitated before actually touching him. "Would you like a wing-scratch?" she asked. "I don't want to be rude, but you said it was itchy..."

It took pretty much all the self-control that Warren had in him to keep from nodding too emphatically at the offer. But... Well, Karla would be the first person to make that offer to him.

Ever.

So even if he managed to wrestle that pleading look from his face, it was still loud and clear in his voice. "Please? If that isn't too weird? It's not so bad as it could be right now. I mean, not having them crammed into a coat all the time makes a lot of difference, you know? But I still can't quite reach."

Karla laughed a bit and moved in to begin scratching. She started off gently, because her nails were on the longer side and slowly increased the pressure. "Let me know if I'm starting to hurt you," she said, unsure of how delicate his new feathers were.

"I think it's interesting that scratching someone else's back might be considered weird here," she said conversationally. "Back home, there's just so much more casual touching. Not between strangers, of course" because that could land you in a world of hurt in a hurry "but if you're friends already, it's not such a big deal."

[*kicks LJ*]

She'd excuse Warren for closing his eyes and just appreciating that scratching while she talked, right? Because wow, that felt nice.

"Well, not just scratching someone else's back. I mean... backs are just backs, right? But you don't see many people going around asking people to scratch their wings, instead. Most people don't really think of them as a people part." He hesitated, opening his eyes and looking over his shoulder at her with a slightly abashed expression. "Not that there is anything the matter with it."

Karla hesitated before replying. "Back home, touching Eyrien wings is a kind of thorny proposition," she admitted. "They membrane is very thin and sort of delicate. So touching the wings is a sign of trust, especially since they can be...sensitive." And since Warren couldn't see her blushing from behind him, she added, "Erotic."

Which would explain why her hands hadn't drifted over to his wings yet, yes. "Not always, of course! But it can be. So..." she coughed a bit. "I don't mind scratching your wings, I just didn't want to...overstep."

Warren was going to demonstrate exactly how thoroughly one boy could possibly blush, now. Yes, right now. In a very spectacular shade of pink, at that.

"Oh." And then, because that wasn't awkward in its own right and he felt like perhaps digging himself deeper into his little world of embarrassment, he had to keep talking. "I didn't know! I mean, I still don't know. I mean, I've never-"

This was kind of painful, actually.

"I wouldn't! Uh."

"I didn't think you would!" Karla said immediately. The good thing about low-cut tank tops was that it was possible to see just how far her blush extended. "I wouldn't, either! I just didn't want to--you know, do something that would make you uncomfortable! What's true for them might not be true for you and it all might be fine, but I figured I should ask before just sticking my hands there because if it wasn't, you might--permission is good, yes!"

Babble more, Karla. That'll make this situation much less awkward.

"And I can't answer that, even, because-" No, Warren wasn't even going to finish that sentence, because if there was any one thing more mortifying than the conversation at hand, it was taking the conversation at hand, and then tossing in some added flail about him being a virgin. While he was at it, maybe he could throw in some daddy issues, and they'd have a nice little tossed salad of humiliation.

"Maybe I should just go have another shower or something, instead."

"Nonsense," Karla decided. "We're going to stay out here and have a pleasant conversation and I'm going to scratch your back and your wings and we're not going to think any more about it. Besides, I said it could be that way, not that it always was. I'm pretty sure that in most cases, it depends on intent and you and I have both agreed that is not our intention, so we should be fine."

And with that, Karla moved her hand over to one of his wings. "I'm about to scratch," she informed him.

"Okay," Warren replied, because... Well, when she put it like that, he kind of felt silly to be flailing about this at all.

Kind of. But not very.

"And I'm sorry in advance for the dust you're going to get under your fingernails," he added. Because that was probably one of the most un-sexy things he could come up with at the time. Wasn't that helpful?

Don't worry, Warren. Karla was doing a fair bit on internal flailing herself. She was just good at faking no-nonsense.

She lowered her hand to his wing and gently began scratching. More than anything, she didn't want to damage his feathers because she was pretty sure that work hurt a lot. Especially the new ones that were growing in. Still, the itching had to be up at the base, so she slowly slid her hand upward, trying to stay under the first layer of feathers. "I can handle a little dust," she assured him. "If it gets dreadfully bad, you'll owe me lunch or something. Deal?"

"Lunch is easy," Warren agreed. "Lunch, I can arrange."

And happily.

And now he was going to work on not getting all sleepy-eyed and leaning back toward her while she worked her fingers through his feathers. Because, even if he wasn't thinking of this as some kind of freaky erotica, it was nice.

"Maybe a little to the left..."

Okay, he could kind of see what she meant when she spoke about Eyrien wings, too.

Her hand stayed where it was, but a second joined in the scratching, a bit to the left, like he'd asked. And another pair of hands started on his other wing,working their way up, just as she had before. And there was still the hand that was scratching his back, right between his shoulder blades...

"Mmmm..." Give Warren a moment to stop cooing like some sort of overgrown pigeon, here, and his brain would start working on seriously complicated thought processes, such as counting past two.

...

"Mnnn?" Yes, there were those thought processes, coming along nicely right about now. "Five?"

If she'd added another one, he would have been hopeless.

"Full sentences?" Karla teased, knowing full well what he meant. She pulled her hands away, holding them to either side to wave. Three hands continues to scratch at his wings. "Witch, remember? I can create phantom hands. It means I always win a tickle-fight."

Warren seemed satisfied with that explanation. And satisfied in general, really, as he settled back down to enjoy more of that scratching.

... He was such a parakeet.

"I guess it's lucky for me that I'm not really all that ticklish, then," he decided.

Karla brought her hands back to continue scratching. Oddly enough, even with the wings under her hands, it wasn't a bird Karla was reminded of, but a big, happy cat.

"You might want to rethink that wording," Karla suggested, giving Warren a wicked grin. "Or I'll think you're throwing out a challenge."

"Can it be a challenge after the itching stops?"

Look, if he was going to be in big, happy cat mode, then there was no way she could seriously expect that he'd be able to throw together fully coherent, intelligent thought at the moment, was there?

"Well, I guess," Karla said, pretending to think about it. "But only because lunch is on the line."

"Delicious lunch," Warren clarified, demonstrating his amazing capacity for complex human thought patterns. "Of whatever, wherever. Whenever you're hungry. Forever and ever."

.... These were some quality back-scratches, here.

"Delicious lunches forever and ever?" Karla asked, running her nails all the way down the bones on the upper edge of his wings. "I could get used to that." The other other four hands continued their busy scratching, trying to find all the hard to reach places where feather dust might accumulate and itch. "Is there an upper limit of how many lunches you're going to agree to? Or is this some kind of open-ended lunch dealie."

Karla, stop making Warren think. It isn't nice.

The Roof, Saturday Morning

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