Flowers of the night

Prompt: Land is always on the mind of a flying bird
Missione: M2 (week 4)
Parole: 1648
Rating: gen
Warnings: missing moment, heartsong spoiler

He has spent most of his life going from one pack to another. Temporary has been his mantra, because it was easier, especially when it came to saying goodbye. He has never been good at it, but he tried his best. When he realised that he was going to leave sooner or later, he gave himself small rules and habits, almost unnoticeable; they were important to him because they helped him to stay grounded.

Robbie learned constellations while stargazing. When most of his temporary packs were asleep or busy doing something else he tried to find a quiet place, especially close to trees and stayed there. Under so many stars, everything seemed more bearable— not okay, but less painful or hard. He counted them, but most of the time he just stared at them and it was strangely calming and comforting. Not much, but not so bad either.

There was something else, though. During the day, when he didn’t have to contribute to the pack activities and he had some time to himself, he searched for birds in the sky; nothing extraordinary showed up, usually, but there were rare cases with birds he didn’t know or hadn’t seen before. As a child, he was simply curious about them. As a boy, he tried to figure out their routes, even studied some of them. After growing up, though, when the temporary pack thing started, Robbie only looked at them while feeling a strange familiarity with them.

He remembers a member of one of his former packs finding him in a small clearing as he was staring at a tiny bird on a branch. Robbie had noticed the guy coming closer, of course, yet he had kept his eyes on the bird. After enough time in complete silence, Robbie had given up and switched his attention to the boy next to him.

“Did you need something?” 

He will never forget how the other shook his head and told him “You spend so much time looking at them. I heard you won’t stay with us, so I thought you kind of resemble them.”

His heart sank because he couldn’t be more different from a bird: they usually flew to go back to their nest, sooner or later. He kept flying away from every single one he found.

*

He ran and ran and ran. Wind through his hair (his fur), the feeling of freedom in his feet (his paws) and sometimes it felt like flying. He wondered if the time to stop and finally settle in a land he could call home would come. 

He wished birds could teach him. 

*

It’s been years since he joined Ox’s pack and, looking back at how it used to be, Robbie is amazed by what he can call his own now. It wasn’t easy to obtain, of course, but he would do the same all over again if he had to. 

Habits are hard to die, though. Despite not running from pack to pack like he used to, he still finds himself counting the stars and observing birds flying in the sky. The first one who noticed it was Ox because it couldn’t have been anyone else but him. At some point, Robbie knew that Ox’s gaze would follow him during the full moon only to find him staring at the sky when he wasn’t running at his side before Joe came back. Ox, though, never asked him anything. As if to give him space to be by himself when he needed to.

After him, it was Kelly and it surely didn’t come as a surprise. 

Kelly’s scent is there before Robbie can actually notice him with his other senses. He can’t help but move his gaze from the sky to the man who is sitting next to him. Kelly offers a small smile, and without speaking a single word his hand is holding Robbie’s. He remembers the first time they did this— they were finally getting where they are now with their relationship and, at the same time, they were not there yet.

It’s one of his favourite memories. One he’s glad to have back after everything they have been through.

*

Robbie knows that when he gets lost in his thoughts while looking up at the sky he also loses track of the time and to the point of forgetting everything else. More than once Ox called him back when it was time for dinner— but now they are more than before and Robbie is getting used to them, someone (Gordo) more than others (Joe), and in some cases, he’s trying very hard to look remotely cool. Sometimes failing in a funny way (with Carter who is very touchy for someone who clearly knows he has a thing for his brother). When it matters the most, Robbie fails spectacularly and makes a fool of himself (namely: in front of Kelly Bennett).

Kelly Bennett, yes. Lately, he thinks things are better and he’s trying his best to… get to know him. Date him. Potentially date him. This is so hard.

What he doesn’t expect is Kelly’s scent to be so close. The moment he notices it, Robbie suddenly turns his head towards the house and Kelly imperceptibly jumps on the spot, no more than three or four steps from him. Robbie realizes that he must look like a scared deer— meaning, a total idiot.

“Sorry,” Kelly says, unsure, just standing where he stopped, “I didn’t want to intrude,” he adds. It would be awesome if a branch of the tree he’s sitting under fell on his head and made him faint to spare him this moment. Nothing happens, so the tree is a traitor.

“You are not,” Robbie assures, trying to not sound as if he physically needs to hurry and deny the concept of Kelly’s presence doing something different from being very welcome. Not to mention that, if he has to be honest, the only coherent thought in his mind is that Kelly should absolutely intrude whenever he wants. 

Why it’s so hard to have some dignity is beyond Robbie’s comprehension.

Luckily, Kelly closes the distance and Robbie is smart enough to gesture him to sit if he wants. When Kelly does it, he’s close enough for their shoulders to brush against each other and Robbie has to focus on the sky as if his life depends on it to avoid sniffing him. He feels quite good when Kelly accommodates himself better, which probably means Robbie doesn’t look or move or behave like some sort of maniac.

Conversations are still quite the hard hurdle sometimes. It’s true that they talk more and on more occasions, that Kelly once went to Gordo’s to pick him up after work and it made Robbie so happy he barely heard Carter making fun of him. They have had a couple of lunch dates, which were really cool with him despite the fact that he spent one of them in almost complete silence and the other one desperately trying not to embarrass himself too much. Since Kelly has asked him out to see a movie together, after that, he must have managed somehow.

Yet here, in a clearing he can now call home, in a territory with so much magic and while doing such a private and intimate thing as to watch the sky… he has never explained it to someone before. He feels like he should tell Kelly, though. Even if he didn’t ask.

“Ox said you do this sometimes,” Kelly says instead of asking directly, “that you have been doing it since you joined the pack.”

Robbie looks at him, long enough for Kelly to stare back, ready to listen to whatever Robbie has to say. This is such a small thing, obvious even, but it does magic. Robbie has never told anyone because nobody asked him or maybe he thought nobody would really care. Kelly is so different.

“Since I was a kid,” he admits with a tiny, sheepish smile. His eyes wander towards the sky again and his gaze stops on a nest. He points at it so that Kelly can see it, “I thought they were cool, always flying in the sky. I felt like we were similar, at least until I left the first pack that took care of me.”

Kelly doesn’t pressure him to keep talking. He just stays there, next to him, and waits. Robbie wants to tell him so many things and how important it is for him to be able to talk about this slowly.

“But when I left,” he says, as the bird leaves the nest again and another comes, male or female Robbie doesn’t know, “I thought we were very different, in fact. That most of the birds leave the nest but then go back to it in the end. It might take a long time, but they do because they have a place. I wondered if when they were flying they were happier to be in the sky or if the land they could see from there made them nostalgic.”

He can feel Kelly’s eyes on him and that makes him shy, conscious. 

“Sorry,” he blurts out and tries to laugh it off, “it sounds stupid. I was just a kid,” he says despite the fact that he wasn’t, that he isn’t. Kelly’s silence is still there but so is the weight of his head on Robbie’s shoulder. Before he realises it, Kelly’s little finger is brushing against his, not as much as holding hands but this is so big Robbie feels like crying.

“You have a nest too,” Kelly says and it’s so, so green.