[attr="class","postbody"]
It didn’t hurt as bad as it had, in the beginning-- this feeling of being strung along. It felt less purposeful, more genuine, in a way. Or maybe he was just getting used to it.
[break][break]
He’d looked different in his last stream. No one else seemed to notice, but then, maybe no one else was looking as close as Raph was. No one else knew him quite so personally, knew the real color of his skin when it wasn’t under a camera filter, knew the way it colored when he teased or squeezed just so. He’d looked bloodless pale, and the bags under his eyes were a different shade. Even the makeup he’d put on hinted at something, because it was rushed, and not nearly to the level of expertise and care he usually applied for his screen time.
[break][break]
In the end, it’s the silence that rouses him.
[break][break]
He doesn’t mind when Mint is busy; Raph’s a simple guy, and he is happy with a quick good-morning, how-are-you, good-night, sweet-dreams text channel. A little proof of life. A little proof of acknowledgement. No, I haven’t forgotten you, I’m just occupied. He knows Mint has a life and he’s happy to sit at the edges of it, and offer comfort and care and-- and not-love-- when he can.
[break][break]
But then, complete radio silence. No texts, no calls, no pictures. And no streams, which is the scary part. A terrified part of him thinks he’s being ghosted, but it’s been almost a year. Their first anniversary-- not that it is such, because they’re not dating-- is coming up. Would Mint really drop him like a newborn Girafarig?
[break][break]
He wars with himself for a time, not wanting to infringe on the privacy of a very private creature, not sure he has the permission to go snooping where he is (assumedly) not wanted, hesitant to toe the line or overstep a boundary in their very safe, very undisclosed, very unspoken… situationship.
[break][break]
Eventually, the ache in his heart wins out. He has to make sure Mint is okay.
[break][break]
It’s a catch-22: he knows Mint has a life that he’s private about, and he’s fine with that, but he knows Mint has a life that he’s private about, which means anything could happen.
[break][break]
On the way over, he makes his peace with it. He just wants to make sure he’s okay. Help out, if needed. And if this is it, if this silence is Mint’s way of saying they’re done-- or if his interference causes the delicate makeup of their arrangement to implode-- he’ll accept that, and go home and drink himself to death like a grown ass man.
[break][break]
He knocks. “Mit-- Mint?” he asks, after a while, when the silence gets to be too much. He clears his throat, runs a hand through his hair, and is about to say sorry for bothering you, I’ll go, when the doorlock begins to glow, and clicks. He glances down at the Espurr at his feet, who looks up at him with wide, innocent eyes, and shrugs.
[break][break]
“If anyone asks, it was unlocked,” he muttered, before pushing into the apartment. “Knock knock. I, uh, brought food!”
[break][break]
He immediately smells the blood-- he’s had enough of it in his mouth and nose to recognize the scent. It’s powerful enough to be concerning. “Mint?” he calls again, more urgency in his voice.
[break][break]
He sets the takeout and alcohol on the kitchen counter and is about to go knock on the bedroom door when he spots something small on the floor: a feather. A… really rough looking feather, if any of his experience raising Halcyon clues him into anything. The shaft is sharp as hell and daubed in blood, and the vanes are striped with stress bands. Maybe one of Mint’s pokemon is having a bad molt?
[break][break]
But why does the whole damn apartment smell like blood?

[attr="class","oocnotes"]
mint frost[break]

• :3c

[attr="class","title"]TLDR;

[attr="class","postbody"]
The place looks relatively unharmed-- there’s no sign of forced entry, nothing overtly broken or damaged. Everything of value-- electronics, mostly-- is in the same place they were the last time he was in.
[break][break]
The feather points like an arrow… to a fine trail of blood splatter. Pinpricks of it, over the vinyl flooring, trailing up to the bathroom door.
[break][break]
“Mint, are you alri--,”
[break][break]
The door blows open, nearly blasting him in the face. Black feathers block his vision as the door slams shut again. Raph staggers back a half-step, heartbeat picking up. He didn’t know what he expected but a screaming Murkrow charging out of a bathroom Mint may or may not be bleeding out in was not it.
[break][break]
“Alllllllriiiiight, this ain’t fishy at all,” he mumbles, attempting to reach for the door and getting viciously pecked for his efforts. “You ain’t helping matters none!” he hisses at the crow, who hisses back.
[break][break]
From behind the bathroom door come a series of wet slaps. Something slides out from beneath it-- another feather, long and white and even bloodier than the one Raph found in the kitchen. He bends down to pick it up, fending off the squawking crow, and when he has it in his hands, he can see the slight iridescent lavender fade at its poor, rough edges.
[break][break]
“Look, I get you got things goin’ on but-- but I can help?” he tries to make his voice stronger but it comes out more like a question than he intends. "Why-- why does your apartment reek of blood? Do I... need to run and get peroxide?"

[attr="class","oocnotes"]
mint frost[break]

• did you kill someone & do you need help hiding the body

[attr="class","title"]TLDR;

[attr="class","postbody"]
A series of bangs and noises of pain sound from behind the bathroom door. “Fuck it.” As Raph couches his shoulder to charge the thing, it opens. He pulls off awkwardly, and saves it by leaning against the doorframe, arching up over Mint.
[break][break]
Who is a mess, and not the sexy kind. Not the kind Raph likes to see. Instead of flushed and panting he’s pale from bloodloss and speckled red, with stains of the stuff matted in his hairline. His shirt has been ripped and slouches off of one shoulder, the bone so elegantly exposed to look gaunt.
[break][break]
The relief at seeing Mint alive and-- well being objective here, but, alive-- made him a little weak in the knees; he covered for being a sap by saying, “‘Okay, huh? Sure, and I’m the queen of Galar.”
[break][break]
From his vantage point above Mint, he can see over the back of his head and down to the bloodstains soaking the back of his shirt. His brow creases in concern, and he has half a mind to wrangle the man back into the tub and patch those up.
[break][break]
It goes to show how focused Raph is on Mint’s hurts that he doesn’t even notice the wings fluttering weakly out of his hair until a few seconds after. He freezes, sure he’s seeing things… but Mint’s the one suffering from blood loss, not him.
[break][break]
“What the hell…” he wants to reach out and take Mint’s chin in hand, to tilt it so he can see… but he freezes, mid reach.
[break][break]
Raph swallows against his dry throat. “You, uh.” Clears his throat, tries again. “What can I do?”

[attr="class","oocnotes"]
mint frost[break]

• did you kill someone & do you need help hiding the body

[attr="class","title"]TLDR;

[attr="class","postbody"]
Raph can’t count them, there are so many, sprouted where they are not supposed to be. He only knows they are wings because he is familiar with the structure of them.
[break][break]
He doesn’t know what’s going on with Mint-- maybe he’s cursed, or blessed, or suffered some tragic accident. But what he does know is the man looks like he’s about to break apart.
[break][break]
Raph squeezes his hand back, shifting so their palms are together, and their fingers can thread.
[break][break]
“Hey,” he says, “Don’t-- worry about it.” He stumbles over his words, a little, because it is a shock, it’s very strange, but mostly, it just looks uncomfortable. Mint is uncomfortable. That’s the important part, here.
[break][break]
“C’mere.” He goes to lead him by the hand back into the bathroom, shuts the toilet lid for Mint to perch upon. “Can we get the bleeding to stop?”

[attr="class","oocnotes"]
mint frost[break]

• did you kill someone & do you need help hiding the body

[attr="class","title"]TLDR;

[attr="class","postbody"]
“When it stops. Okay.” Obviously the better question would be when WHAT stops, what in the hell is happening to you, but… it was all right. Raph figured he’d find out, in time.
[break][break]
He reaches for a washcloth and puts in under tepid water, then digs under the sink for a bottle of peroxide.
[break][break]
“I’m gonna assume whatever the hell is happenin’ we don’t have to worry about infection?” he asks, using a peroxide cotton ball to dap at bloodstains along Mint’s face, his neck.
[break][break]
Something catches his eye, and he reaches, then pauses, then reaches. “I. I just. You.” Then he realizes how it looks, what it looks like. “It’s not what you think--, ah, fuck it--,”
[break][break]
Mint is growing wings, sure. But he has a tiny pin feather, sprouted just above his ear, that’s ready to break. Raph pinches it gently, gently between his fingers, and the keratin cracks and drops like snowflakes to Mint’s shoulder; the tiniest piece of downy fluff puffs free.
[break][break]
“You had a pinfeather. Is what was botherin’ me.”

[attr="class","oocnotes"]
mint frost[break]

• did you kill someone & do you need help hiding the body

[attr="class","title"]TLDR;

[attr="class","postbody"]
“Right.” It’s an arduous process, gently dabbing at the bloodstains and cleaning Mint’s skin, without disturbing the new growths and potentially causing pain. “Well, the least we can do is stop ya from looking like a murder.” He smiles, to show he’s joking, and takes a moment to locate some nice, soothing lotion for Mint’s skin; all this rubbing and drying will probably chafe.
[break][break]
“I don’t know a whole lot about growin’ wings, but feathers are pretty neat,” he says, uncapping the lotion and dotting a bit on his fingers to press gently into Mint’s flushed skin. “They start out with a blood supply and grow in in a keratin case-- a pin. Then, when the feather’s… took, I guess, the keratin shrinks, and then ya preen it away.”
[break][break]
He switches to the other side, back to the cloth and peroxide for a moment, then lotion again. “Yeah. Whoo-wee, she gets cranky during a molt.” He’s held onto the feather that got kicked under the door and he slides it out of his pocket for a beat. “See these lines? Those are called stress banding. Molting is really hard on the body, jus’ naturally. So when a bird, say, doesn’t have proper nutrition, or is under a lot of extra stress, you get these lil’ bands in the plume, and th' ends look all raggedy.” He sets it on the counter and steps back, to judge his work. It is acceptable, for now, and he nods.
[break][break]
“Yeah. Social creatures, birds. The ones who don’t live in giant flocks generally mate for life.” He raises an eyebrow, pointedly, then wipes his hands on his pants and says, “have you eaten?”

[attr="class","oocnotes"]
mint frost[break]

• u have triggered my trap card

[attr="class","title"]TLDR;

[attr="class","postbody"]
“No, but, c’mon, mitten,” he holds out his hands for Mint to take, to pull him to standing, “you’re the first guy I’d expect ta know that bein’ clean does wonders for your mental.”
[break][break]
His eyes go a little wide when Mint confesses to ripping out the feathers. “Jeeezus-- maybe you should stop doin’ that?” he snorts a little. He wants to reach up and run a hand through Mint’s hair, wants to hold him and tell him everything will be okay. But he doesn’t want to hurt him more and he doesn’t know, does he, that everything will be okay?
[break][break]
“Ever see a baby bird?” he asked, quiet. “They’re uuuuug-lee. Pink and blind and small and naked. Completely dependent on their parents. Loud, too.” He does, then, use one finger to gently brush a plume of blue hair behind Mint’s ear. “Every Braviary has to start somewhere, mitten.”
[break][break]
It’s okay to be weak. It’s okay to cry. You have wings growing out of your fucking face, for fuck’s sake!
[break][break]
He holds out his hands again. He’d carry Mint, if he would allow.
[break][break]
“Can I convince you to eat somethin’?” he asked, somewhat pleading. “Proper nutrition’s important for maturatin' and feather development, ya know. And rest.”

[attr="class","oocnotes"]
mint frost[break]

• u have triggered my trap card