119
a song on wing
McFly (GSF)
4,156 words, pg-13, third person. This is charity fic for Ellie, who requested a fic about Danny with wings. Ellie, I hope you like it! ♥ Thanks to Jess for the wonderful beta job, once again. Soundtrack wise, I have uploaded The Crane Wife 3, by The Decemberists, for those of you who want it. I'm not sure what the etiquette is on posting these charity fics, so let me know if I took a misstep somewhere and I'll fix it.
“I hate this,” Danny says. His voice is too loud for the quiet in the room, and he knows it. He can almost hear Harry wince, even with his eyes still trained on the ceiling. “I hate that we have to do this, and it’s my fault -”
0 - Prologue
They call their new album Ways To Say You’re Sorry, and it’s fourteen tracks long. It takes eighteen weeks total, from beginning to end, to write and record - it’s the fastest they’ve ever been, maybe, and part of that might be that they do it all on their own. They spend most of that time holed up in a house in the country, about a half-hour drive from the nearest town, installing a studio in the basement, insulated and soundproofed. The property is theirs.
1 - The Big Fight, Part Two
“Danny,” Harry says from the doorway, “time to go.” He crosses his arms, and leans back against the doorframe. Danny is motionless on the bed, lying on his back and staring at the ceiling. “Danny -”
“I hate this,” Danny says. His voice is too loud for the quiet in the room, and he knows it. He can almost hear Harry wince, even with his eyes still trained on the ceiling. “I hate that we have to do this, and it’s my fault -”
“Not your fault,” Harry says vehemently. “Just not, Danny. It’s time for a new album, anyway.”
“Yeah, of course. We’re not just using it as an excuse to deal with these,” Danny says, sitting up, his voice brutally sarcastic. The wings unfurl behind him, wide and white - there are feathers askew from where he’d been lying back on them, ruffled and out of place, but the impact is the same. They spread from behind him, the tips just trailing along the edges of his mattress. Harry’s expression doesn’t change; he just shifts his weight to the other foot.
“It’s not your fault,” Harry says again. “It’s time to go.”
2 - For Those Who Suffer
It starts with pain - bright flaring bursts of pain all along his spine and shoulder blades, but he doesn’t tell anyone. He looks at the lumps poking against his skin, back facing the bathroom mirror, and he’s not sure what he’d say, if he were to try. He’s never consciously tried to keep anything from them before; this is - new, and not in a way he’s sure he likes.
“I’m fine,” he says, when Dougie touches him on the shoulder, just before they go onstage, and he can’t quite smother the gasp. He tries not to wince when they touch him, but it doesn’t always work. “Really,” he says. Dougie doesn’t believe him, but he drops it, and Danny’s willing to take what he can get.
Dark blossoms of bruise spread where the tips of his shoulder blades push against muscle and skin, a watercolour array of shades from pale yellow to meaty purple, and he supposes he shouldn’t be surprised when he starts bleeding - tips of bone sticking, jagged, from his back. Bone, hard, and white, and sharp enough to cut his fingers on when he tries to bandage himself up. He is calm. He is calm, he is.
“Fuck,” he says, sucking his fingers into his mouth, ignoring the way they shake, and he’s tired of being in pain, and he’s so fucking -
Terrified.
He sleeps on his stomach that night, the knuckles of two fingers stuffed into his mouth, and he says nothing.
3 - Arrivals and Departures
Tom drives most of the way up, switching briefly with Harry so he can take a nap in the passenger seat. Dougie’s not good at driving for long periods of time, and Danny - well, they’re not even sure he can fit behind the wheel. Now is not the time to test it. Danny looks out the window and ignores Dougie looking over at him, Harry’s eyes in the rear view mirror.
He knows that they are doing this for his own good - for the good of the band. He knows there not much choice, that the band comes first. He’s just waiting for that to stop feeling like an exile.
4 - The Big Fight, Part One
“Danny,” Tom says, “please. Open the door.” The sound of his voice is muffled slightly by the closed bathroom door, and Danny can just imagine him standing outside, one hand closed on the doorknob, twisting futilely, his forehead pressed to the cool wood.
Danny is sitting on the closed toilet lid, shirtless, his knees pulled up to his chest. The cold ceramic tile is soothing on his back, even if he knows he’s leaving smudges of blood behind, marring the clean whiteness.
“I’m okay,” he says. “Fine.” He’s stretching the fabric of his shirt over his fingers, staring at the twin bloodstains on the yellow cotton. He should have just told them.
“Danny -”
“Open the fucking door, Jones.” Harry’s voice, this time, anger and worry twisted up together in the tone - the sound of it makes Danny feel vaguely nauseous. “I will take off the fucking hinges if I have to.”
“Harry,” Danny starts. He wants to say don’t be stupid, or you’re clearly overreacting, mate, but neither of those things are strictly true. And Danny doesn’t lie unless he has to.
“Don’t test me,” Harry says. Danny presses his forehead to the curve of his knees, the denim of his jeans rough against his skin. He wants them not to worry. He wants to say what’s a little blood between friends?, wants to laugh it off.
Instead, he says, “I’m fucking - growing feathers, Harry.” There’s no way to say it without it sounding laughable, ridiculous, but. Down, white and soft, poking out from the new skin all across his shoulder blades.
“What?” Dougie’s voice, low like he’s sitting on the floor, cross-legged, waiting.
“Open the door, Danny,” Tom says. This time he does.
5 - Circumference
Danny’s gotten used to sleeping on his stomach - his arms pillowed under his chin, his wings curled up tight against his back. The first night at the house, he falls asleep on top of the duvet, stripped down to his boxers, the humid summer air pressing wet all around him.
Sometime in the night, he wakes to a hand on the naked skin of his back. He makes a noise in the back of his throat, part startled gasp, part sleepy whimper, and turns his head. Harry holds a finger to his lips and sits on the edge of the bed, his hand still motionless on Danny’s skin. Dougie is standing the doorway, biting his bottom lip, one hand rubbing nervously against the inside of his arm. He walks to the bed almost hesitantly, resting a hand on Danny’s left wing, fingers brushing through the feathers. Danny shudders before he can help it, presses his open mouth to the skin of his wrist, suppressing a sound. Dougie just climbs onto the mattress and curls up next to him, pushing his face against Danny’s bare shoulder, breath warm against Danny’s skin.
“We just didn’t want -” he starts, his voice almost too soft to hear. Harry’s fingernails scratch lightly over Danny’s back.
“We didn’t want you to be alone,” Harry finishes, and presses his fingers up Danny’s spine, until he’s rubbing the joint where Danny’s right wing meets his back. Danny almost manages not to arch into the touch. Dougie’s mouth is soft against his shoulder, like comfort, and Harry says,
“Shhh, go back to sleep.”
6 - July
He takes his acoustic out on the porch, sitting on the steps, watching the sun go down. He’s just fiddling about with the chords for the song they’re working on at the moment - still new enough to be untitled. He hasn’t worn a shirt in almost two weeks now; there’s not really a point, here, where he doesn’t have to worry about who will see and who will talk. He just folds his wings up close to his back, and pretends that everything is normal.
“That sounds better,” Tom says, sitting on the steps next to him.
“Yeah,” Danny says, “Couldn’t quite figure it, inside. Thought maybe the air’d do me good.” He bites his lip, glancing down at his fingers for a particularly annoying chord. He doesn’t look at Tom when he says, “Have you thought about the tour, yet?”
Tom is silent for long enough that Danny looks over. He’s fiddling with the stray threads at the bottom of his jeans, staring off into the distance - green fields and broken fences, sparse trees. Eventually, he says, “Not much. We’re only six songs in, though; there’s time. We’ll figure it out.”
Danny wishes he could be so confident. He thinks about fault, about how much easier life would be if he hadn’t - if the wings hadn’t - but it doesn’t matter. There’s nothing he could’ve done. Instead, he just nudges Tom with his shoulder, feeling the warmth of his skin through his t-shirt - the cotton is soft against Danny’s arm.
“C’mon,” he says, standing. “Let’s get back to it. Wouldn’t want me to catch my death, would we?”
Tom just snorts, and pushes him toward the open doorway.
7 - Into the Summer
Danny sits on the edge of the field, pulling apart leaves of grass one by one. Tom, Dougie, and Harry are playing an impromptu game of football - they don’t really have teams so much as each of them is their own, and there’s only one goal to speak of. Danny doesn’t trust himself running yet; his centre of balance is fucked as is, and he’s pretty sure that running would make it worse. He doesn’t really fancy falling on his face - Harry, for one, would never let him live it down.
Eventually, Dougie wanders over and sits next to him, pressing his sweaty forehead into the crook of Danny’s neck and shoulder. Danny laughs and half-heartedly pushes him away, wiping at the perspiration left behind on his skin. Dougie sits behind him, propping his chin on Danny’s shoulder, and keeping silent, for once. They both watch as Tom kicks Harry in the shin and makes for the goal, laughing wildly as he runs.
It’s a good day.
8 - Out From Below
Danny climbs up onto the roof about halfway through August. The sky is wide and dark and filled with stars - the humid air is wet in his throat, and he wishes for a breeze, air moving over his skin. He wonders vaguely, what it would be like to be able to fly - he knows he’ll never know for sure, but -
“You’re not going to jump, are you?” Harry’s looking sceptically at him from the window, and Danny snorts.
“I’m pretty dull, I know, but do you really have that little faith in me?”
“Hey, maybe you think you can actually fly, who knows?” Harry replies, almost primly, and Danny lies back against the roof, laughing. The wings cushion his body a little, and the roof is pleasantly chill against his feathers.
“Fucker,” he says, without heat. He can hear Harry climbing out after him, the sound of the slate shifting under his feet.
“But ever so charming,” Harry says. Danny’s certain if he looked, Harry would be smirking at him. He doesn’t need to.
“Oh, ever so,” he says. Harry sits gracefully by Danny’s head, the curve of his calf pressed against him. Harry’s fingers are almost tentative, brushing through his hair, against his forehead. Danny hums in the back of his throat and closes his eyes. He can feel Harry’s silence on his skin. He’s been waiting for them to ask since the moment they entered the property - are you alright? and what next? and all sorts of other things he doesn’t know the answer to. He doesn’t know.
He hopes they don’t ask until he does.
9 - The Prologue to an Epilogue
The other three seem to decide, unspoken or not, that Danny’s not allowed to sleep alone. After Harry and Dougie curl up with him that first night they take turns, in singles and pairs, crawling under the top sheet or pressing up against him on top of it.
At first - at first Danny wonders if they don’t trust him anymore. If the fact that he kept it from them for so long means - if, maybe, they think he’ll do something stupid. He doesn’t ask, because he’s not entirely sure that he wants the answer.
He wakes up in the middle of the night, his chest pressed up close against Tom’s back, fingers fisted in Tom’s t-shirt, and the wings are a weight on his shoulders, pulled all the way in. Sleeping on his side is uncomfortable, painful - the wings aren’t made to bend that way, but he. Wants to be close.
Sometimes he misses the feel of someone behind him, hand draped over his waist, breath against the back of his neck.
“What ’s it?” Tom asks sleepily, stirring when Danny untangles his hand from the folds of Tom’s shirt.
“Nothing,” Danny says, because he may be a big sap, but that doesn’t mean he has to admit it out loud. He shifts onto his stomach, and his back immediately relaxes, the pain collecting in the muscles starting to ease off. Tom rolls over, one hand reaching out to cup the edge of a shoulder blade, and kisses Danny sloppily in the corner of the mouth.
“Sucks,” Tom says, still mostly asleep. “’ll get cold now.”
“Yeah,” Danny says.
10 - Timing
Danny has to admit, they’re pretty fucking lucky, considering the circumstances. Lucky enough that the tour is winding down just as the wings are getting too large to easily hide. The wings.
It wasn’t so hard at first - they were just nubs of bone and fluff and muscle - but they haven’t stopped growing yet, and Danny doesn’t know how much longer they’d be able to pretend that everything is fine. He hates, hates, that it’s his fault, even if he doesn’t always hate the feel of air on his feathers, when he pulls off his shirt on the bus, or in the hotel.
Back in the hotel room, the last night before the tour ends, he moves them experimentally, pulling them open and closed, toward his body. He knocks the clock off the desk, whacking it accidentally with the tip of the right wing, and the air stirs restlessly around him, currents created with the movements of his own body.
He doesn’t really notice when Harry enters the room, not until he spreads his wings out again, stretching, testing, and gets,
“Oh, whoa, careful where you’re flapping there, birdboy,” the tone sharp and startled. Harry’s behind him in the doorway, hand held up to protect his face, and Danny almost says sorry, didn’t see you there, but his mind supplies, birdboy, he said -, and he replies, instead,
“Fuck you.” He pulls his wings in close to his back. He can see Harry wince out of the corner of his eye. “You don’t get to - not yet.”
“Danny,” Harry starts, and there’s apology in his voice, placation in his hands, but - Danny will let them poke fun, just. Not yet.
“And you wonder why I waited so long to say anything,” he says. He means it to hurt, and, judging by the expression on Harry’s face, it works. He hates that he feels vindication for it.
11 - Here’s Where You’re Wrong
Showers are hell. After the wings stop growing, they’re too big to fit in anything as small as a hotel shower stall. The master bath in the house has a freestanding tub separate from the huge shower stall, and even then it takes him about twice as much time to get clean as it used to. Standing in the shower, he winces as his wings thud wetly against the wall for the forth time. He’s pretty sure that his shedding feathers are also clogging up the drain - the murky, sudsy water is now rising to his ankles.
“Fuck,” he says, finally, and climbs out of the shower.
He finds Dougie and Tom on the couch in the living room, Tom lying with his head in Dougie’s lap - the show on the television looks vaguely like a soap, but Danny couldn’t possibly care less. Dougie looks over his shoulder when Danny stomps down the stairs, and Danny can see him valiantly try not to the laugh.
“Danny,” he says, and dissolves into giggles, stuffing his fist in his mouth to try to stifle them. Tom glances up then, and sits upright, biting his lip while he fights for control.
“Er,” he says, eventually. “You okay?”
Danny knows that he looks fucking ridiculous - the sweats he hastily pulled on are sticking to his legs, soaked through in patches, his hair is pasted to his face, dripping down his neck, not to mention his wings, which are sodden and sad, water trickling off of them onto the floor.
He just balls his hands into fists and takes a deep breath. “No,” he says, after a moment, “I’d need a shower the size of my fucking bedroom just to fit the goddamned things into it, and even then I’d just flood the house because of fucking shedding feathers.” Danny’s actually pretty close to screaming out of frustration, and he can see the moment Dougie and Tom realize it.
“Do you -” Tom starts, and Danny points a finger at him, interrupting.
“If you ask me if I need help, Tom, I swear, I will do something drastic,” Danny says. He scrubs a hand over his face, digging the heel of his palm into his eye. Then he sighs. “Sorry,” he says. “I - sorry. I didn’t mean that.” Or, at least, he only meant it as it was leaving his mouth. He wants to collapse on the couch, but he’d just get the cushions sopping wet. “Yes,” he says, finally, “I need help. I just don’t want to need help, and -” Danny trails off into a helpless shrug.
“You’re an idiot,” Dougie says, standing. “Just fucking ask.”
12 - To Start Somewhere
Danny sits cross-legged on the floor with his acoustic, glancing at the page in front of him as he feels out the chords. The song is ripped straight from Dougie’s notebook, this time, handed to him as he’d entered the room. The words are -
“But I don’t care, I don’t, I don’t care, I don’t care how you’ll get home,” Danny sings softly, his fingers careful on the strings. Dougie just skims his fingers over the top curve of Danny’s left wing, sitting on the floor next to him. Danny shivers. “This is good, Dougie,” he says.
“Mm,” Dougie says, shrugging. He leans his chin on Danny’s shoulder. “Lyrics aren’t right yet.” He hums to himself, and then sings the bridge, “I don’t mean to say all the things that I mean - No,” he says. “I can’t quite get it.” His mouth is close enough to Danny’s neck that Danny can feel his skin tingle with it. Dougie’s fingers sink into his feathers, fingertips pushing against delicate skin, and Danny just bites his bottom lip, fingering the chords again.
“I followed you down the street last night,” he sings, starting the second verse, “under the sliver of moon and the streetlights.”
“Wait, wait. You did something different there - the chords,” Dougie says, and Danny plays them again. “Yeah, that’s. Good.” Dougie’s mouth brushes Danny’s neck, maybe unconsciously, and Danny leans into him.
“I don’t think you saw, but I can’t be sure,” he continues, “I know I don’t know you like I did before.” Danny stalls the strings with his fingers. “Better?” he asks.
“Yeah,” Dougie says, and presses a kiss to the side of Danny’s neck, quick and sloppy. “See, this is why we keep you around.”
13 - The Big Fight, Part Three
“I’m not letting you keep me off the tour, Tom,” Danny says, standing in the studio with his hands on his hips. He has to consciously keep his wings from flaring out in agitation.
“I’m not -” Tom starts, holding out his hands, but Harry interrupts him.
“How the hell can we tour with you when you have wings?” Harry asks. He’s tapping the edges of his drums with the drumsticks in his hands, fidgeting. “We can’t hide them, it’s just not possible. The media will be all over you. It’s - dangerous.”
“How the hell can we tour without him?” Dougie replies, voice soft, sitting cross-legged on a chair, his bass carefully balanced on his lap - his fingers pick at the strings, but the bass isn’t hooked up to an amp, so the sound is almost too quiet to be heard.
“I’ll fucking cut them off, if I have to,” Danny says, quietly, even though he doesn’t want to. The band always wins - that’s just the way it works. They come first.
“No,” Tom says, vehemently. “No, not happening.” He crosses his arms over his chest, defiant, but all Danny does is shrug.
“Then I tour with them. There aren’t any other options.” Harry looks unhappily down at his hands, and Tom bites his lip.
“Utter chaos,” Harry says. “It’s going to be chaos.”
Tom sighs, says, “We’ll deal with that when we have to.”
14 - We’re in This Together
The night they finish the record, Harry kisses Danny in the doorway to his bedroom, body pressed up close against him. Once, softly, on the lips, and pulls back when Danny starts to lean into it.
“We’re not letting anything happen to you,” he says, rubbing Danny’s cheek with his own, stubble scratching softly against Danny’s skin. Danny isn’t sure if he’s talking to himself or not, but,
“I don’t need you to protect me. Either of you,” he says, glancing over his shoulder. They’ve been dealing with media attention for years now - this will definitely be worse, but. Still within the general realm of normal.
“Can’t stop us from trying,” Tom says from the hallway, his fingers reaching out to brush over Danny’s back, his spine, the joint of wing and shoulder blade. Danny makes a noise in the back of his throat - Tom’s hand on his back, Harry’s stroking up over his ribcage, and Dougie already on the bed, watching them silently. He’s not entirely sure what he’d do without them. He’s hoping he never has to find out.
“They’re more worried about it than you are, dude,” Dougie says, meeting Danny’s eyes. Danny can feel Harry laugh all the way down his body.
“Well, someone has to be,” he says, his grin pressed to the side of Danny’s face.
They all sleep in Danny’s room that night. Danny can’t think of anything more he could want.
15 - Show us Your Good Side (Bonus Track)
Danny has spent a fair amount of his time on stage without a shirt; the occurrence isn’t something completely foreign to him. Playing a show shirtless and with wings, however, is new. As he strums the last chords of Arrivals and Departures, leaning up into the microphone, he glances out into the crowd. A sea of upturned faces, mouths moving in tandem as he sings, and he’s not sure he could ask for anything more than this. He spreads his wings open, just to hear the girls gasp, and even if he’s going to be spending the next forever avoiding flashbulbs and reporters, it’s worth it. He knows it is.
They’ve decided to play the last songs of the set acoustic - they’ll come back full force for the encore, but some of the songs are slow enough to make it worthwhile.
“So, at this point in the show, we’ve got something of a surprise planned for all of you wonderful people,” Tom says into his mic.
“Because you deserve it,” Danny says, grinning cheekily.
“Besides,” Dougie says, chiming in, “this is only the first show. If we really fuck up, we can always take it out later!” Danny swats him in the back of the head, and then pulls his guitar over his shoulders, mindful of the strap. He has to be much more careful, now, that it doesn’t catch on his wings. He’s lost more than a few feathers that way.
They pull four stools from offstage, and Harry climbs down from his drum riser with a tambourine, and Danny, Dougie, and Tom all grab their acoustics from the techs, settling side by side, guitars propped on their laps.
Danny plays the opening chords of To Start Somewhere, and listens to Dougie singing, high and clear. Harry keeps time just like he always does, steady and unobtrusive, while Tom harmonises softly. By the time Danny comes in on the chorus, he can see a sea of illuminated mobile phones and lighters swaying side to side, and can’t keep himself from grinning. This, this is why he does it - why they all do. He is more than his wings and the media attention - he a musician onstage with the only people he can imagine making music with.
Leaning back on his stool, he glances at his band mates, strumming the last chords, and he waits for the applause.
McFly (GSF)
4,156 words, pg-13, third person. This is charity fic for Ellie, who requested a fic about Danny with wings. Ellie, I hope you like it! ♥ Thanks to Jess for the wonderful beta job, once again. Soundtrack wise, I have uploaded The Crane Wife 3, by The Decemberists, for those of you who want it. I'm not sure what the etiquette is on posting these charity fics, so let me know if I took a misstep somewhere and I'll fix it.
“I hate this,” Danny says. His voice is too loud for the quiet in the room, and he knows it. He can almost hear Harry wince, even with his eyes still trained on the ceiling. “I hate that we have to do this, and it’s my fault -”
0 - Prologue
They call their new album Ways To Say You’re Sorry, and it’s fourteen tracks long. It takes eighteen weeks total, from beginning to end, to write and record - it’s the fastest they’ve ever been, maybe, and part of that might be that they do it all on their own. They spend most of that time holed up in a house in the country, about a half-hour drive from the nearest town, installing a studio in the basement, insulated and soundproofed. The property is theirs.
1 - The Big Fight, Part Two
“Danny,” Harry says from the doorway, “time to go.” He crosses his arms, and leans back against the doorframe. Danny is motionless on the bed, lying on his back and staring at the ceiling. “Danny -”
“I hate this,” Danny says. His voice is too loud for the quiet in the room, and he knows it. He can almost hear Harry wince, even with his eyes still trained on the ceiling. “I hate that we have to do this, and it’s my fault -”
“Not your fault,” Harry says vehemently. “Just not, Danny. It’s time for a new album, anyway.”
“Yeah, of course. We’re not just using it as an excuse to deal with these,” Danny says, sitting up, his voice brutally sarcastic. The wings unfurl behind him, wide and white - there are feathers askew from where he’d been lying back on them, ruffled and out of place, but the impact is the same. They spread from behind him, the tips just trailing along the edges of his mattress. Harry’s expression doesn’t change; he just shifts his weight to the other foot.
“It’s not your fault,” Harry says again. “It’s time to go.”
2 - For Those Who Suffer
It starts with pain - bright flaring bursts of pain all along his spine and shoulder blades, but he doesn’t tell anyone. He looks at the lumps poking against his skin, back facing the bathroom mirror, and he’s not sure what he’d say, if he were to try. He’s never consciously tried to keep anything from them before; this is - new, and not in a way he’s sure he likes.
“I’m fine,” he says, when Dougie touches him on the shoulder, just before they go onstage, and he can’t quite smother the gasp. He tries not to wince when they touch him, but it doesn’t always work. “Really,” he says. Dougie doesn’t believe him, but he drops it, and Danny’s willing to take what he can get.
Dark blossoms of bruise spread where the tips of his shoulder blades push against muscle and skin, a watercolour array of shades from pale yellow to meaty purple, and he supposes he shouldn’t be surprised when he starts bleeding - tips of bone sticking, jagged, from his back. Bone, hard, and white, and sharp enough to cut his fingers on when he tries to bandage himself up. He is calm. He is calm, he is.
“Fuck,” he says, sucking his fingers into his mouth, ignoring the way they shake, and he’s tired of being in pain, and he’s so fucking -
Terrified.
He sleeps on his stomach that night, the knuckles of two fingers stuffed into his mouth, and he says nothing.
3 - Arrivals and Departures
Tom drives most of the way up, switching briefly with Harry so he can take a nap in the passenger seat. Dougie’s not good at driving for long periods of time, and Danny - well, they’re not even sure he can fit behind the wheel. Now is not the time to test it. Danny looks out the window and ignores Dougie looking over at him, Harry’s eyes in the rear view mirror.
He knows that they are doing this for his own good - for the good of the band. He knows there not much choice, that the band comes first. He’s just waiting for that to stop feeling like an exile.
4 - The Big Fight, Part One
“Danny,” Tom says, “please. Open the door.” The sound of his voice is muffled slightly by the closed bathroom door, and Danny can just imagine him standing outside, one hand closed on the doorknob, twisting futilely, his forehead pressed to the cool wood.
Danny is sitting on the closed toilet lid, shirtless, his knees pulled up to his chest. The cold ceramic tile is soothing on his back, even if he knows he’s leaving smudges of blood behind, marring the clean whiteness.
“I’m okay,” he says. “Fine.” He’s stretching the fabric of his shirt over his fingers, staring at the twin bloodstains on the yellow cotton. He should have just told them.
“Danny -”
“Open the fucking door, Jones.” Harry’s voice, this time, anger and worry twisted up together in the tone - the sound of it makes Danny feel vaguely nauseous. “I will take off the fucking hinges if I have to.”
“Harry,” Danny starts. He wants to say don’t be stupid, or you’re clearly overreacting, mate, but neither of those things are strictly true. And Danny doesn’t lie unless he has to.
“Don’t test me,” Harry says. Danny presses his forehead to the curve of his knees, the denim of his jeans rough against his skin. He wants them not to worry. He wants to say what’s a little blood between friends?, wants to laugh it off.
Instead, he says, “I’m fucking - growing feathers, Harry.” There’s no way to say it without it sounding laughable, ridiculous, but. Down, white and soft, poking out from the new skin all across his shoulder blades.
“What?” Dougie’s voice, low like he’s sitting on the floor, cross-legged, waiting.
“Open the door, Danny,” Tom says. This time he does.
5 - Circumference
Danny’s gotten used to sleeping on his stomach - his arms pillowed under his chin, his wings curled up tight against his back. The first night at the house, he falls asleep on top of the duvet, stripped down to his boxers, the humid summer air pressing wet all around him.
Sometime in the night, he wakes to a hand on the naked skin of his back. He makes a noise in the back of his throat, part startled gasp, part sleepy whimper, and turns his head. Harry holds a finger to his lips and sits on the edge of the bed, his hand still motionless on Danny’s skin. Dougie is standing the doorway, biting his bottom lip, one hand rubbing nervously against the inside of his arm. He walks to the bed almost hesitantly, resting a hand on Danny’s left wing, fingers brushing through the feathers. Danny shudders before he can help it, presses his open mouth to the skin of his wrist, suppressing a sound. Dougie just climbs onto the mattress and curls up next to him, pushing his face against Danny’s bare shoulder, breath warm against Danny’s skin.
“We just didn’t want -” he starts, his voice almost too soft to hear. Harry’s fingernails scratch lightly over Danny’s back.
“We didn’t want you to be alone,” Harry finishes, and presses his fingers up Danny’s spine, until he’s rubbing the joint where Danny’s right wing meets his back. Danny almost manages not to arch into the touch. Dougie’s mouth is soft against his shoulder, like comfort, and Harry says,
“Shhh, go back to sleep.”
6 - July
He takes his acoustic out on the porch, sitting on the steps, watching the sun go down. He’s just fiddling about with the chords for the song they’re working on at the moment - still new enough to be untitled. He hasn’t worn a shirt in almost two weeks now; there’s not really a point, here, where he doesn’t have to worry about who will see and who will talk. He just folds his wings up close to his back, and pretends that everything is normal.
“That sounds better,” Tom says, sitting on the steps next to him.
“Yeah,” Danny says, “Couldn’t quite figure it, inside. Thought maybe the air’d do me good.” He bites his lip, glancing down at his fingers for a particularly annoying chord. He doesn’t look at Tom when he says, “Have you thought about the tour, yet?”
Tom is silent for long enough that Danny looks over. He’s fiddling with the stray threads at the bottom of his jeans, staring off into the distance - green fields and broken fences, sparse trees. Eventually, he says, “Not much. We’re only six songs in, though; there’s time. We’ll figure it out.”
Danny wishes he could be so confident. He thinks about fault, about how much easier life would be if he hadn’t - if the wings hadn’t - but it doesn’t matter. There’s nothing he could’ve done. Instead, he just nudges Tom with his shoulder, feeling the warmth of his skin through his t-shirt - the cotton is soft against Danny’s arm.
“C’mon,” he says, standing. “Let’s get back to it. Wouldn’t want me to catch my death, would we?”
Tom just snorts, and pushes him toward the open doorway.
7 - Into the Summer
Danny sits on the edge of the field, pulling apart leaves of grass one by one. Tom, Dougie, and Harry are playing an impromptu game of football - they don’t really have teams so much as each of them is their own, and there’s only one goal to speak of. Danny doesn’t trust himself running yet; his centre of balance is fucked as is, and he’s pretty sure that running would make it worse. He doesn’t really fancy falling on his face - Harry, for one, would never let him live it down.
Eventually, Dougie wanders over and sits next to him, pressing his sweaty forehead into the crook of Danny’s neck and shoulder. Danny laughs and half-heartedly pushes him away, wiping at the perspiration left behind on his skin. Dougie sits behind him, propping his chin on Danny’s shoulder, and keeping silent, for once. They both watch as Tom kicks Harry in the shin and makes for the goal, laughing wildly as he runs.
It’s a good day.
8 - Out From Below
Danny climbs up onto the roof about halfway through August. The sky is wide and dark and filled with stars - the humid air is wet in his throat, and he wishes for a breeze, air moving over his skin. He wonders vaguely, what it would be like to be able to fly - he knows he’ll never know for sure, but -
“You’re not going to jump, are you?” Harry’s looking sceptically at him from the window, and Danny snorts.
“I’m pretty dull, I know, but do you really have that little faith in me?”
“Hey, maybe you think you can actually fly, who knows?” Harry replies, almost primly, and Danny lies back against the roof, laughing. The wings cushion his body a little, and the roof is pleasantly chill against his feathers.
“Fucker,” he says, without heat. He can hear Harry climbing out after him, the sound of the slate shifting under his feet.
“But ever so charming,” Harry says. Danny’s certain if he looked, Harry would be smirking at him. He doesn’t need to.
“Oh, ever so,” he says. Harry sits gracefully by Danny’s head, the curve of his calf pressed against him. Harry’s fingers are almost tentative, brushing through his hair, against his forehead. Danny hums in the back of his throat and closes his eyes. He can feel Harry’s silence on his skin. He’s been waiting for them to ask since the moment they entered the property - are you alright? and what next? and all sorts of other things he doesn’t know the answer to. He doesn’t know.
He hopes they don’t ask until he does.
9 - The Prologue to an Epilogue
The other three seem to decide, unspoken or not, that Danny’s not allowed to sleep alone. After Harry and Dougie curl up with him that first night they take turns, in singles and pairs, crawling under the top sheet or pressing up against him on top of it.
At first - at first Danny wonders if they don’t trust him anymore. If the fact that he kept it from them for so long means - if, maybe, they think he’ll do something stupid. He doesn’t ask, because he’s not entirely sure that he wants the answer.
He wakes up in the middle of the night, his chest pressed up close against Tom’s back, fingers fisted in Tom’s t-shirt, and the wings are a weight on his shoulders, pulled all the way in. Sleeping on his side is uncomfortable, painful - the wings aren’t made to bend that way, but he. Wants to be close.
Sometimes he misses the feel of someone behind him, hand draped over his waist, breath against the back of his neck.
“What ’s it?” Tom asks sleepily, stirring when Danny untangles his hand from the folds of Tom’s shirt.
“Nothing,” Danny says, because he may be a big sap, but that doesn’t mean he has to admit it out loud. He shifts onto his stomach, and his back immediately relaxes, the pain collecting in the muscles starting to ease off. Tom rolls over, one hand reaching out to cup the edge of a shoulder blade, and kisses Danny sloppily in the corner of the mouth.
“Sucks,” Tom says, still mostly asleep. “’ll get cold now.”
“Yeah,” Danny says.
10 - Timing
Danny has to admit, they’re pretty fucking lucky, considering the circumstances. Lucky enough that the tour is winding down just as the wings are getting too large to easily hide. The wings.
It wasn’t so hard at first - they were just nubs of bone and fluff and muscle - but they haven’t stopped growing yet, and Danny doesn’t know how much longer they’d be able to pretend that everything is fine. He hates, hates, that it’s his fault, even if he doesn’t always hate the feel of air on his feathers, when he pulls off his shirt on the bus, or in the hotel.
Back in the hotel room, the last night before the tour ends, he moves them experimentally, pulling them open and closed, toward his body. He knocks the clock off the desk, whacking it accidentally with the tip of the right wing, and the air stirs restlessly around him, currents created with the movements of his own body.
He doesn’t really notice when Harry enters the room, not until he spreads his wings out again, stretching, testing, and gets,
“Oh, whoa, careful where you’re flapping there, birdboy,” the tone sharp and startled. Harry’s behind him in the doorway, hand held up to protect his face, and Danny almost says sorry, didn’t see you there, but his mind supplies, birdboy, he said -, and he replies, instead,
“Fuck you.” He pulls his wings in close to his back. He can see Harry wince out of the corner of his eye. “You don’t get to - not yet.”
“Danny,” Harry starts, and there’s apology in his voice, placation in his hands, but - Danny will let them poke fun, just. Not yet.
“And you wonder why I waited so long to say anything,” he says. He means it to hurt, and, judging by the expression on Harry’s face, it works. He hates that he feels vindication for it.
11 - Here’s Where You’re Wrong
Showers are hell. After the wings stop growing, they’re too big to fit in anything as small as a hotel shower stall. The master bath in the house has a freestanding tub separate from the huge shower stall, and even then it takes him about twice as much time to get clean as it used to. Standing in the shower, he winces as his wings thud wetly against the wall for the forth time. He’s pretty sure that his shedding feathers are also clogging up the drain - the murky, sudsy water is now rising to his ankles.
“Fuck,” he says, finally, and climbs out of the shower.
He finds Dougie and Tom on the couch in the living room, Tom lying with his head in Dougie’s lap - the show on the television looks vaguely like a soap, but Danny couldn’t possibly care less. Dougie looks over his shoulder when Danny stomps down the stairs, and Danny can see him valiantly try not to the laugh.
“Danny,” he says, and dissolves into giggles, stuffing his fist in his mouth to try to stifle them. Tom glances up then, and sits upright, biting his lip while he fights for control.
“Er,” he says, eventually. “You okay?”
Danny knows that he looks fucking ridiculous - the sweats he hastily pulled on are sticking to his legs, soaked through in patches, his hair is pasted to his face, dripping down his neck, not to mention his wings, which are sodden and sad, water trickling off of them onto the floor.
He just balls his hands into fists and takes a deep breath. “No,” he says, after a moment, “I’d need a shower the size of my fucking bedroom just to fit the goddamned things into it, and even then I’d just flood the house because of fucking shedding feathers.” Danny’s actually pretty close to screaming out of frustration, and he can see the moment Dougie and Tom realize it.
“Do you -” Tom starts, and Danny points a finger at him, interrupting.
“If you ask me if I need help, Tom, I swear, I will do something drastic,” Danny says. He scrubs a hand over his face, digging the heel of his palm into his eye. Then he sighs. “Sorry,” he says. “I - sorry. I didn’t mean that.” Or, at least, he only meant it as it was leaving his mouth. He wants to collapse on the couch, but he’d just get the cushions sopping wet. “Yes,” he says, finally, “I need help. I just don’t want to need help, and -” Danny trails off into a helpless shrug.
“You’re an idiot,” Dougie says, standing. “Just fucking ask.”
12 - To Start Somewhere
Danny sits cross-legged on the floor with his acoustic, glancing at the page in front of him as he feels out the chords. The song is ripped straight from Dougie’s notebook, this time, handed to him as he’d entered the room. The words are -
“But I don’t care, I don’t, I don’t care, I don’t care how you’ll get home,” Danny sings softly, his fingers careful on the strings. Dougie just skims his fingers over the top curve of Danny’s left wing, sitting on the floor next to him. Danny shivers. “This is good, Dougie,” he says.
“Mm,” Dougie says, shrugging. He leans his chin on Danny’s shoulder. “Lyrics aren’t right yet.” He hums to himself, and then sings the bridge, “I don’t mean to say all the things that I mean - No,” he says. “I can’t quite get it.” His mouth is close enough to Danny’s neck that Danny can feel his skin tingle with it. Dougie’s fingers sink into his feathers, fingertips pushing against delicate skin, and Danny just bites his bottom lip, fingering the chords again.
“I followed you down the street last night,” he sings, starting the second verse, “under the sliver of moon and the streetlights.”
“Wait, wait. You did something different there - the chords,” Dougie says, and Danny plays them again. “Yeah, that’s. Good.” Dougie’s mouth brushes Danny’s neck, maybe unconsciously, and Danny leans into him.
“I don’t think you saw, but I can’t be sure,” he continues, “I know I don’t know you like I did before.” Danny stalls the strings with his fingers. “Better?” he asks.
“Yeah,” Dougie says, and presses a kiss to the side of Danny’s neck, quick and sloppy. “See, this is why we keep you around.”
13 - The Big Fight, Part Three
“I’m not letting you keep me off the tour, Tom,” Danny says, standing in the studio with his hands on his hips. He has to consciously keep his wings from flaring out in agitation.
“I’m not -” Tom starts, holding out his hands, but Harry interrupts him.
“How the hell can we tour with you when you have wings?” Harry asks. He’s tapping the edges of his drums with the drumsticks in his hands, fidgeting. “We can’t hide them, it’s just not possible. The media will be all over you. It’s - dangerous.”
“How the hell can we tour without him?” Dougie replies, voice soft, sitting cross-legged on a chair, his bass carefully balanced on his lap - his fingers pick at the strings, but the bass isn’t hooked up to an amp, so the sound is almost too quiet to be heard.
“I’ll fucking cut them off, if I have to,” Danny says, quietly, even though he doesn’t want to. The band always wins - that’s just the way it works. They come first.
“No,” Tom says, vehemently. “No, not happening.” He crosses his arms over his chest, defiant, but all Danny does is shrug.
“Then I tour with them. There aren’t any other options.” Harry looks unhappily down at his hands, and Tom bites his lip.
“Utter chaos,” Harry says. “It’s going to be chaos.”
Tom sighs, says, “We’ll deal with that when we have to.”
14 - We’re in This Together
The night they finish the record, Harry kisses Danny in the doorway to his bedroom, body pressed up close against him. Once, softly, on the lips, and pulls back when Danny starts to lean into it.
“We’re not letting anything happen to you,” he says, rubbing Danny’s cheek with his own, stubble scratching softly against Danny’s skin. Danny isn’t sure if he’s talking to himself or not, but,
“I don’t need you to protect me. Either of you,” he says, glancing over his shoulder. They’ve been dealing with media attention for years now - this will definitely be worse, but. Still within the general realm of normal.
“Can’t stop us from trying,” Tom says from the hallway, his fingers reaching out to brush over Danny’s back, his spine, the joint of wing and shoulder blade. Danny makes a noise in the back of his throat - Tom’s hand on his back, Harry’s stroking up over his ribcage, and Dougie already on the bed, watching them silently. He’s not entirely sure what he’d do without them. He’s hoping he never has to find out.
“They’re more worried about it than you are, dude,” Dougie says, meeting Danny’s eyes. Danny can feel Harry laugh all the way down his body.
“Well, someone has to be,” he says, his grin pressed to the side of Danny’s face.
They all sleep in Danny’s room that night. Danny can’t think of anything more he could want.
15 - Show us Your Good Side (Bonus Track)
Danny has spent a fair amount of his time on stage without a shirt; the occurrence isn’t something completely foreign to him. Playing a show shirtless and with wings, however, is new. As he strums the last chords of Arrivals and Departures, leaning up into the microphone, he glances out into the crowd. A sea of upturned faces, mouths moving in tandem as he sings, and he’s not sure he could ask for anything more than this. He spreads his wings open, just to hear the girls gasp, and even if he’s going to be spending the next forever avoiding flashbulbs and reporters, it’s worth it. He knows it is.
They’ve decided to play the last songs of the set acoustic - they’ll come back full force for the encore, but some of the songs are slow enough to make it worthwhile.
“So, at this point in the show, we’ve got something of a surprise planned for all of you wonderful people,” Tom says into his mic.
“Because you deserve it,” Danny says, grinning cheekily.
“Besides,” Dougie says, chiming in, “this is only the first show. If we really fuck up, we can always take it out later!” Danny swats him in the back of the head, and then pulls his guitar over his shoulders, mindful of the strap. He has to be much more careful, now, that it doesn’t catch on his wings. He’s lost more than a few feathers that way.
They pull four stools from offstage, and Harry climbs down from his drum riser with a tambourine, and Danny, Dougie, and Tom all grab their acoustics from the techs, settling side by side, guitars propped on their laps.
Danny plays the opening chords of To Start Somewhere, and listens to Dougie singing, high and clear. Harry keeps time just like he always does, steady and unobtrusive, while Tom harmonises softly. By the time Danny comes in on the chorus, he can see a sea of illuminated mobile phones and lighters swaying side to side, and can’t keep himself from grinning. This, this is why he does it - why they all do. He is more than his wings and the media attention - he a musician onstage with the only people he can imagine making music with.
Leaning back on his stool, he glances at his band mates, strumming the last chords, and he waits for the applause.