We Use Our Wings To Swim [Cobra almost-GSF, PG]
Title: We Use Our Wings to Swim
Author: DF
Fandom: Cobra Starship
Pairing: I wrote it as GSF, but it doesn't have to be read that way.
Summary: Nate sleeps on his stomach, but whenever he hears noise anywhere near his bunk he automatically rolls onto his side, wings between his body and the wall. It's just a habit.
Notes: This is probably more my fault than alex_boylove's, but I'm going to blame him anyway, for showing me the photo.
Disclaimer: I'm not saying Nate couldn't have wings in real life, but this was written as fiction. Manip at the end is mine.
"They're like you," Alex says one night, his head pillowed on Gabe's thigh and his legs resting on Ryland's lap. Elisa is out somewhere; none of them are exactly sure about the specifics. None of them really care.
"What are?" Nate asks, shaking out his wings. They get really stiff all day, hiding underneath his clothes. He drags his fingers through the gray feathers, hopelessly trying to straighten out the one feather that always shifts out of place, like a cowlick that just won't be tamed.
"The wings," Alex says, as if it was obvious. Maybe it was.
Gabe laughs, scrunching his fingers through Alex's hair. "He's right, dude. They fold up all small so that no one notices them, and then when you're with people you know they get all big and crazy."
"And that's me," Nate says dryly, watching Ryland tilt slowly to the right, his head landing on Gabe's shoulder. Alex shifts his legs to adjust for Ryland's change in position.
"Mm hmm. You done primping yet?"
"I'm not primping," Nate mutters, flapping his wings a little. The magazine Ryland was reading earlier flutters off the table and to the ground. "That would involve trying to make them pretty. This is more like... brushing your hair."
"They are pretty," Alex tells him, just as Ryland says, "We should get you a brush. A little birdy brush."
"Ryland, you're asleep," Alex says, amused. "Go to bed."
"It's only, like, two in the morning," Gabe scoffs. "Weak."
There are footsteps coming towards the bus, crunching over the gravel in the parking lot. Nate only has a second to realise that it's probably Elisa before she opens the door and slides inside.
"Hey," she says, only frowning slightly. Nate blinks at her bright blue shirt, almost glowing in the dim light of the bus. "Were you guys waiting up?"
"No," Alex tells her, accidentally pressing the heel of his foot a little too hard into Ryland's inner thigh. "Just talking."
She opens her mouth, before closing it again. Nate thinks that she wants to ask what they were talking about, if they were talking about her, but instead she just says, "Okay. I'm going to sleep." When the only reaction she gets is a nod from Gabe - Ryland is practically asleep, Alex doesn't want to move and Nate is just watching - she adds, "I was at a club. Since you guys said I can't bring anyone back to the bus. I'm being good."
"Great," Gabe says, and doesn't add that if she had been good in the first place, she wouldn't be on probation right now. "Good night."
"Night," Ryland mumbles.
Nate doesn't say anything, but she looks at him, her eyes sliding half-closed like they always do when she sees his wings.
"Night," she says, reaching out a hand.
Nate jerks his wing out of reach, almost unconsciously. The wings have the same effect on most people as a really cute kitten, just that urge to touch, but just because he's used to it doesn't mean he has to like it. "Good night, Elisa," he says, and she shakes her head and walks away.
"Nate," Gabe intones, looking over with his serious eyes.
"What?" Nate asks, yawning. "I'm tired."
"Yeah, all that primping really takes it out of you," Gabe says, and lets it slide.
~
Nate sleeps on his stomach, but whenever he hears noise anywhere near his bunk he automatically rolls onto his side, wings between his body and the wall. It's just a habit.
"Nate?" he hears, just as his left wing, smushed indelicately into the mattress and tangle of blankets, begins to twinge in protest. "You awake?"
It's Alex, he realises dimly, and rolls over onto his stomach again. "Yeah," he mumbles. "What?"
Alex might have spoken, but it's Ryland who pushes the curtain open. Sometimes Nate thinks they're the fucking Wonder Twins or whatever. "Come on, we're having breakfast," Ryland tells him.
"Mmph." Nate gropes around on the floor for the shirt he was wearing yesterday. "Where?"
"IHOP," Ryland says, smacking something above Nate's line of vision. He looks up, only to see a shoe right in front of his face; apparently Alex is sitting in the top bunk. "We're going to destroy Alex's gourmet taste buds with maple syrup and cholesterol."
While he's distracted looking at Alex's feet - what? Okay, his brain does not process things that quickly in the mornings - he doesn't notice Ryland snatch the shirt out of his hands and replace it with a pair of pants.
"What?" he asks, luckily realising before he attempts to pull the pants over his head. He's pretty sure that if he did that, Ryland, Gabe and Alex would tease him about it forever.
"Your chest, it's just so sexy," Ryland croons, stroking Nate's skin. Nate gives him a weird look, but doesn't twitch away.
Alex shifts position so that his head is where his feet were, hanging from the bunk. "It's really sad when you put the wings away," he tells Nate. "Save it for last."
"You're going to fall off the bunk," Nate says seriously, but he reaches for his shoes before he grabs his shirt again.
~
They're already sitting at the slightly sticky table before Nate thinks to ask where Gabe is. He doesn't bother wondering about Elisa; with her, it's more bizarre if she isn't gone all day.
Alex and Ryland look at each other sheepishly. "He's kind of talking to a keytarist," Alex admits finally.
Nate blinks, wriggling against the vinyl seatback until he finds a more comfortable position. "Okay," he says. "So it's final?"
"Yeah," Alex says, looking down at where he's fiddling with his fork. "We just need to tell Elisa." Ryland nudges his shoulder comfortingly, knocking his foot against Nate's at the same time.
"How many days until the end of the tour?" Nate asks.
"Twenty-seven," Ryland says.
Nate nods, looking back down at the menu. The plastic is wearing off at the edges.
"Alex," Ryland continues, "I think you should get the greasy bacon, half-cooked eggs, and really buttery short stack, and then pour maple syrup and sugar over everything."
"I hate you," Alex tells him neutrally.
"I bet they flip the eggs with their hands," Nate remarks, and he and Ryland high-five when Alex just groans.
~
When they finish breakfast or brunch or whatever it is, Alex and Ryland go off to a music store. Nate wanders back to the bus, only to find Gabe sitting in the front lounge, watching TV.
"Hola," Gabe says lazily, tossing the remote down and patting the couch cushion next to him. "Where were you?"
"IHOP with Alex and Ryland," Nate tells him, sitting down. He tugs the hem of his shirt and pulls it over his head, letting his wings stretch out. "The chocolate chip pancakes taste kind of stale."
"Get anything for me?" Gabe asks, plopping his ridiculously long legs into Nate's lap.
"Nah." Nate looks at the screen; Anaconda is playing on Spike TV. "You and your fucking snakes."
"Hell, yeah. If I could get one of those for the bus it would be kickass."
"As long as you teach it to play an instrument so it can replace us after it kills us," Nate agrees easily, resting his feet on the table.
"She," Gabe corrects. "She would be a girl."
They sit and watch the huge-ass snake chase Jennifer Lopez for a few minutes. "How'd your meeting go?" Nate asks finally, his eyes still locked on the screen. "With the keytarist?"
Gabe glances at him. "Good," he says, after a moment. "Her name's Victoria. Vicky T. You'll like her."
Nate had liked Elisa at first, too. "Will she like me?" he asks instead, keeping his voice deadpan.
"Who wouldn't like you?" Gabe demands, ruffling Nate's hair. "Nasty little Nate Novarro."
Nate shakes his head wildly, laughing as he tries to dislodge Gabe's hand. "Asshole."
"Yeah, but you love me," Gabe declares grandly. "Oh, hey! This is totally the best part!"
"How many times have you seen this movie?" Nate demands, but he shuts up and watches anyway.
The door opens as the credits start to roll, and Elisa slips in. "Hey," she says.
"Hey," Gabe replies, and Nate nods.
"I left my purse," she explains, and walks past Gabe when she goes back to her bunk to grab it. That's fine, but on the return trip her path takes her closer to Nate, and he tenses, shifting away before her hand can come within five inches of his wings.
When the door shuts behind her, Gabe gives Nate another look.
"What?" Nate asks. "Hey, what else is on?"
~
When Elisa asked to stay in the band, just for a probationary period, after they tried to fire her in the middle of the tour, she wrote a letter detailing all the things she promised not to do.
Gabe's too much of a gentleman to let that get out, but everyone knows where in his bag he hid it, and now there's a list stuck to a wall of the bus. It's pretty subtle, actually, even if it is written in brightly-colored marker; it's not in a noticeable corner, but it's still there. It says:
Elisa's Rules for Herself
even though it was very obviously not Elisa who wrote it. Nate has a few suspects in mind, but he's not planning on bringing it up.
First on the list is, no inviting people onto the bus, not anymore, and it goes on, but what Nate really notices is the newest addition to the list:
No touching Nate's wings.
Nate can't help smiling as he grabs a soda out of the fridge.
~
Gabe brings Vicky T onto the bus one day, which is probably a kind of stupid idea, but it's Gabe. Sometimes his ideas are really good, and other times they're... not so good.
Nate likes Vicky T; she seems pretty laid-back, which is refreshing, considering that he's been living on a bus full of extroverts for the past few months. Nate's not shy, exactly, but it can take him a while to get comfortable around people. To spread his wings, so to speak, even though really shitty puns are more Ryland and Gabe's style.
None of them have told Vicky T about the wings, but Nate thinks maybe they will once she comes on tour with them. She'll have to know by then, anyway.
"Oh, come on!" Gabe yells, and Nate snorts.
Vicky T, among her other charms, is also really good at Go Fish. That in itself is pretty amazing, since everyone knows that Gabe cheats.
"You're just jealous," Nate says, looking over his hand. "My turn?" He thinks for a second. "Alex, got any fours?" Alex hands over a four, grumbling, but Ryland doesn't have any kings, so Nate draws a card out of the deck. It's a queen, which is useless to him right now, but he can wait.
"Gabe, any sevens?" Vicky T asks innocently, and Gabe gapes at her.
"I don't believe this," he mutters, tossing her three sevens. "I am simultaneously amazed and depressed."
"I suck at Monopoly. We can play that next time," she offers, and Nate thinks, yeah, there's definitely going to be a next time. "Ryland, any sevens?"
"Go fish!" Ryland says happily as Vicky T pulls a card out. He and Gabe bump fists triumphantly; they've both been losing spectacularly.
"Fished my wish," Vicky T informs them solemnly, holding up a seven between her fingers. She puts it with the other sevens and adds it to the piles of four already sitting in front of her.
Alex snickers at Gabe's distraught look. "You have to stay," he tells Victoria, laughing into Nate's shoulder. His face is only an inch away from the top of Nate's wing.
"Hey!" Elisa shouts as the door to the bus opens and closes. "You guys here?"
"Back lounge!" Gabe replies, raising his voice.
Elisa wanders into the back lounge and stops short. "Who're you?" she asks, her thumb hooked through her belt loop as she stares Victoria down.
"She's a friend of mine," Nate says suddenly, putting his cards face-down on the table and leaning a little closer into Alex.
"Victoria," Vicky T says with a smile. "You must be Elisa."
"Do I want to know what they've been telling you about me?" Elisa wonders, looking around.
Nate can't blame her, really; they all got tense when she walked in. It's been hard for Elisa, being the only girl on a mostly all-guy tour. It's been harder these past few weeks, even if it was kind of her fault, and he knows they haven't been helping.
Still, Nate is the only one with wings on the tour, and he's not complaining. Whatever.
"Anyway, Nate's still got his shirt on, you can't be that friendly," Elisa continues, smirking lightly.
"You must have been really close friends with that guy last night, then," Ryland tells her disingenuously, which might be kind of bitchy of him, but Nate is just trying to weather this thing out. He doesn't want to get involved, not anymore than he has to.
Elisa grits her teeth under a bright smile. "It was nice to meet you, Victoria," she says, turning around and leaving the room again.
The back lounge is silent for a moment before Gabe says wearily, "We promise not to be bitchy to you if you're not bitchy to us."
"Deal," Vicky T says immediately. "Whose turn is it?"
~
Nate's reading a magazine in the front lounge when Elisa strolls by and brushes a hand along his wing. "Stop!" he says finally, jerking away.
She holds her hands up. "Sorry, sorry!" she says. "I can't help it."
Nate maybe does believer her, but he's tired of it. He's so tired of it, and he just wants to go sleep for a while and wake up and have this be over. He's sick of this whole thing, of people fighting and sniping at other people behind their backs.
Gabe and Ryland wander in from the kitchen. "What's wrong?" Gabe asks, hooking his chin over Ryland's shoulder.
Nate just grabs his magazine and goes to read it in his bunk.
~
When Gabe tells Elisa that they're kicking her out of the band, Nate curls up in his bunk with a pillow over his head.
After a few minutes, he hears Alex say, "Nate," and he takes the pillow off.
"What?" he asks.
"Nothing," Alex says. "Let me in."
Nate pulls the curtain open and lets Alex crawl in next to him. "Where's Ryland?" he wonders.
"Oh, he's coming," Alex murmurs, his head sinking into the pillow.
"There's not going to be enough room," Nate points out, and Alex snorts.
"You're tiny and he's a stick. We'll figure it out."
Ryland doesn't ask before squeezing in, and Alex and Nate try to make as much room for him as they can. He really is a stick, which makes it a little less difficult.
"This our fault?" Alex asks when they're all safely settled in the bed.
Nate thinks of Gabe and Elisa's argument, of hearing Elisa shout, "So what, this is because I touched his fucking wings?" and Gabe reply, "No, this is because of everything you did, one part of which was touching his wings when he didn't want you to!" and wonders if maybe he should be asking that question about himself.
"No," he says instead. "It's no one's fault."
"We're not talking," Ryland says. "We're cuddling. We're not talking."
"Okay," Nate says, and as he's dropping off to sleep he feels his wings settle down to cover Ryland and Alex, almost like a blanket.
~
Things are quieter without Elisa, without the tension pulling between everybody, enough that Nate used to sometimes wish it would snap and be finished.
He knows Elisa is raising a fuss and Gabe's fighting back, with Alex and Ryland chipping in, but he doesn't want to get into it. He liked Elisa, and now he doesn't, really; he's not loud enough or angry enough to talk about it, but that's how it is. He doesn't want her to die in a hole, he just kind of wants her to go away.
He ends up hanging out with Victoria a lot, neither of them really certain what they're supposed to be doing. It's a relief, in a way, but he really does like her, too. He trusts her, weirdly enough. Usually it takes him longer.
When he tells her, "I have wings," she just says, "Okay," and looks at them for a while. She doesn't try to touch them, which Nate thinks is a good omen. He thinks if she asked to, though, he might say yes, just like when Alex asks him, or Gabe, or Ryland.
~
"Can you fly?" Vicky T wonders one night during the tour. They're sitting in the back lounge, leaning into each other tiredly; it's been a long day. Vicky T's voice is a quiet murmur.
"I tried when I was five," Nate yawns. "Broke my arm."
"You were five," she points out. "I could barely walk when I was five."
Nate curls closer into her. "Lots of band-aids in your house?"
"Ninja Turtle," she tells him seriously, wrapping her arm around his waist. His wings just barely brush her arm. "Barbie band-aids were for sissies."
"Is this cuddling I spy?" Gabe asks, immediately joining them on the couch. "I've got to get me some of that." He sits next to Vicky T and calls out, "Yo, Alex! Ryland! Get your asses over here, it's group cuddling!"
"You're going to squish my wings, asshole," Nate mutters, but he scoots over to let Ryland fit next to him. Alex sits on the other side of Gabe.
"All cozy?" Gabe asks. "Excellent." He grins at the rest of his band. Gabe, Nate thinks, is maybe a little in love with all of them, but it's not like he's really alone in that.
Nate looks at everyone, Ryland and Alex and Gabe and Vicky T, and he says, "Maybe."
Author: DF
Fandom: Cobra Starship
Pairing: I wrote it as GSF, but it doesn't have to be read that way.
Summary: Nate sleeps on his stomach, but whenever he hears noise anywhere near his bunk he automatically rolls onto his side, wings between his body and the wall. It's just a habit.
Notes: This is probably more my fault than alex_boylove's, but I'm going to blame him anyway, for showing me the photo.
Disclaimer: I'm not saying Nate couldn't have wings in real life, but this was written as fiction. Manip at the end is mine.
"They're like you," Alex says one night, his head pillowed on Gabe's thigh and his legs resting on Ryland's lap. Elisa is out somewhere; none of them are exactly sure about the specifics. None of them really care.
"What are?" Nate asks, shaking out his wings. They get really stiff all day, hiding underneath his clothes. He drags his fingers through the gray feathers, hopelessly trying to straighten out the one feather that always shifts out of place, like a cowlick that just won't be tamed.
"The wings," Alex says, as if it was obvious. Maybe it was.
Gabe laughs, scrunching his fingers through Alex's hair. "He's right, dude. They fold up all small so that no one notices them, and then when you're with people you know they get all big and crazy."
"And that's me," Nate says dryly, watching Ryland tilt slowly to the right, his head landing on Gabe's shoulder. Alex shifts his legs to adjust for Ryland's change in position.
"Mm hmm. You done primping yet?"
"I'm not primping," Nate mutters, flapping his wings a little. The magazine Ryland was reading earlier flutters off the table and to the ground. "That would involve trying to make them pretty. This is more like... brushing your hair."
"They are pretty," Alex tells him, just as Ryland says, "We should get you a brush. A little birdy brush."
"Ryland, you're asleep," Alex says, amused. "Go to bed."
"It's only, like, two in the morning," Gabe scoffs. "Weak."
There are footsteps coming towards the bus, crunching over the gravel in the parking lot. Nate only has a second to realise that it's probably Elisa before she opens the door and slides inside.
"Hey," she says, only frowning slightly. Nate blinks at her bright blue shirt, almost glowing in the dim light of the bus. "Were you guys waiting up?"
"No," Alex tells her, accidentally pressing the heel of his foot a little too hard into Ryland's inner thigh. "Just talking."
She opens her mouth, before closing it again. Nate thinks that she wants to ask what they were talking about, if they were talking about her, but instead she just says, "Okay. I'm going to sleep." When the only reaction she gets is a nod from Gabe - Ryland is practically asleep, Alex doesn't want to move and Nate is just watching - she adds, "I was at a club. Since you guys said I can't bring anyone back to the bus. I'm being good."
"Great," Gabe says, and doesn't add that if she had been good in the first place, she wouldn't be on probation right now. "Good night."
"Night," Ryland mumbles.
Nate doesn't say anything, but she looks at him, her eyes sliding half-closed like they always do when she sees his wings.
"Night," she says, reaching out a hand.
Nate jerks his wing out of reach, almost unconsciously. The wings have the same effect on most people as a really cute kitten, just that urge to touch, but just because he's used to it doesn't mean he has to like it. "Good night, Elisa," he says, and she shakes her head and walks away.
"Nate," Gabe intones, looking over with his serious eyes.
"What?" Nate asks, yawning. "I'm tired."
"Yeah, all that primping really takes it out of you," Gabe says, and lets it slide.
~
Nate sleeps on his stomach, but whenever he hears noise anywhere near his bunk he automatically rolls onto his side, wings between his body and the wall. It's just a habit.
"Nate?" he hears, just as his left wing, smushed indelicately into the mattress and tangle of blankets, begins to twinge in protest. "You awake?"
It's Alex, he realises dimly, and rolls over onto his stomach again. "Yeah," he mumbles. "What?"
Alex might have spoken, but it's Ryland who pushes the curtain open. Sometimes Nate thinks they're the fucking Wonder Twins or whatever. "Come on, we're having breakfast," Ryland tells him.
"Mmph." Nate gropes around on the floor for the shirt he was wearing yesterday. "Where?"
"IHOP," Ryland says, smacking something above Nate's line of vision. He looks up, only to see a shoe right in front of his face; apparently Alex is sitting in the top bunk. "We're going to destroy Alex's gourmet taste buds with maple syrup and cholesterol."
While he's distracted looking at Alex's feet - what? Okay, his brain does not process things that quickly in the mornings - he doesn't notice Ryland snatch the shirt out of his hands and replace it with a pair of pants.
"What?" he asks, luckily realising before he attempts to pull the pants over his head. He's pretty sure that if he did that, Ryland, Gabe and Alex would tease him about it forever.
"Your chest, it's just so sexy," Ryland croons, stroking Nate's skin. Nate gives him a weird look, but doesn't twitch away.
Alex shifts position so that his head is where his feet were, hanging from the bunk. "It's really sad when you put the wings away," he tells Nate. "Save it for last."
"You're going to fall off the bunk," Nate says seriously, but he reaches for his shoes before he grabs his shirt again.
~
They're already sitting at the slightly sticky table before Nate thinks to ask where Gabe is. He doesn't bother wondering about Elisa; with her, it's more bizarre if she isn't gone all day.
Alex and Ryland look at each other sheepishly. "He's kind of talking to a keytarist," Alex admits finally.
Nate blinks, wriggling against the vinyl seatback until he finds a more comfortable position. "Okay," he says. "So it's final?"
"Yeah," Alex says, looking down at where he's fiddling with his fork. "We just need to tell Elisa." Ryland nudges his shoulder comfortingly, knocking his foot against Nate's at the same time.
"How many days until the end of the tour?" Nate asks.
"Twenty-seven," Ryland says.
Nate nods, looking back down at the menu. The plastic is wearing off at the edges.
"Alex," Ryland continues, "I think you should get the greasy bacon, half-cooked eggs, and really buttery short stack, and then pour maple syrup and sugar over everything."
"I hate you," Alex tells him neutrally.
"I bet they flip the eggs with their hands," Nate remarks, and he and Ryland high-five when Alex just groans.
~
When they finish breakfast or brunch or whatever it is, Alex and Ryland go off to a music store. Nate wanders back to the bus, only to find Gabe sitting in the front lounge, watching TV.
"Hola," Gabe says lazily, tossing the remote down and patting the couch cushion next to him. "Where were you?"
"IHOP with Alex and Ryland," Nate tells him, sitting down. He tugs the hem of his shirt and pulls it over his head, letting his wings stretch out. "The chocolate chip pancakes taste kind of stale."
"Get anything for me?" Gabe asks, plopping his ridiculously long legs into Nate's lap.
"Nah." Nate looks at the screen; Anaconda is playing on Spike TV. "You and your fucking snakes."
"Hell, yeah. If I could get one of those for the bus it would be kickass."
"As long as you teach it to play an instrument so it can replace us after it kills us," Nate agrees easily, resting his feet on the table.
"She," Gabe corrects. "She would be a girl."
They sit and watch the huge-ass snake chase Jennifer Lopez for a few minutes. "How'd your meeting go?" Nate asks finally, his eyes still locked on the screen. "With the keytarist?"
Gabe glances at him. "Good," he says, after a moment. "Her name's Victoria. Vicky T. You'll like her."
Nate had liked Elisa at first, too. "Will she like me?" he asks instead, keeping his voice deadpan.
"Who wouldn't like you?" Gabe demands, ruffling Nate's hair. "Nasty little Nate Novarro."
Nate shakes his head wildly, laughing as he tries to dislodge Gabe's hand. "Asshole."
"Yeah, but you love me," Gabe declares grandly. "Oh, hey! This is totally the best part!"
"How many times have you seen this movie?" Nate demands, but he shuts up and watches anyway.
The door opens as the credits start to roll, and Elisa slips in. "Hey," she says.
"Hey," Gabe replies, and Nate nods.
"I left my purse," she explains, and walks past Gabe when she goes back to her bunk to grab it. That's fine, but on the return trip her path takes her closer to Nate, and he tenses, shifting away before her hand can come within five inches of his wings.
When the door shuts behind her, Gabe gives Nate another look.
"What?" Nate asks. "Hey, what else is on?"
~
When Elisa asked to stay in the band, just for a probationary period, after they tried to fire her in the middle of the tour, she wrote a letter detailing all the things she promised not to do.
Gabe's too much of a gentleman to let that get out, but everyone knows where in his bag he hid it, and now there's a list stuck to a wall of the bus. It's pretty subtle, actually, even if it is written in brightly-colored marker; it's not in a noticeable corner, but it's still there. It says:
Elisa's Rules for Herself
even though it was very obviously not Elisa who wrote it. Nate has a few suspects in mind, but he's not planning on bringing it up.
First on the list is, no inviting people onto the bus, not anymore, and it goes on, but what Nate really notices is the newest addition to the list:
No touching Nate's wings.
Nate can't help smiling as he grabs a soda out of the fridge.
~
Gabe brings Vicky T onto the bus one day, which is probably a kind of stupid idea, but it's Gabe. Sometimes his ideas are really good, and other times they're... not so good.
Nate likes Vicky T; she seems pretty laid-back, which is refreshing, considering that he's been living on a bus full of extroverts for the past few months. Nate's not shy, exactly, but it can take him a while to get comfortable around people. To spread his wings, so to speak, even though really shitty puns are more Ryland and Gabe's style.
None of them have told Vicky T about the wings, but Nate thinks maybe they will once she comes on tour with them. She'll have to know by then, anyway.
"Oh, come on!" Gabe yells, and Nate snorts.
Vicky T, among her other charms, is also really good at Go Fish. That in itself is pretty amazing, since everyone knows that Gabe cheats.
"You're just jealous," Nate says, looking over his hand. "My turn?" He thinks for a second. "Alex, got any fours?" Alex hands over a four, grumbling, but Ryland doesn't have any kings, so Nate draws a card out of the deck. It's a queen, which is useless to him right now, but he can wait.
"Gabe, any sevens?" Vicky T asks innocently, and Gabe gapes at her.
"I don't believe this," he mutters, tossing her three sevens. "I am simultaneously amazed and depressed."
"I suck at Monopoly. We can play that next time," she offers, and Nate thinks, yeah, there's definitely going to be a next time. "Ryland, any sevens?"
"Go fish!" Ryland says happily as Vicky T pulls a card out. He and Gabe bump fists triumphantly; they've both been losing spectacularly.
"Fished my wish," Vicky T informs them solemnly, holding up a seven between her fingers. She puts it with the other sevens and adds it to the piles of four already sitting in front of her.
Alex snickers at Gabe's distraught look. "You have to stay," he tells Victoria, laughing into Nate's shoulder. His face is only an inch away from the top of Nate's wing.
"Hey!" Elisa shouts as the door to the bus opens and closes. "You guys here?"
"Back lounge!" Gabe replies, raising his voice.
Elisa wanders into the back lounge and stops short. "Who're you?" she asks, her thumb hooked through her belt loop as she stares Victoria down.
"She's a friend of mine," Nate says suddenly, putting his cards face-down on the table and leaning a little closer into Alex.
"Victoria," Vicky T says with a smile. "You must be Elisa."
"Do I want to know what they've been telling you about me?" Elisa wonders, looking around.
Nate can't blame her, really; they all got tense when she walked in. It's been hard for Elisa, being the only girl on a mostly all-guy tour. It's been harder these past few weeks, even if it was kind of her fault, and he knows they haven't been helping.
Still, Nate is the only one with wings on the tour, and he's not complaining. Whatever.
"Anyway, Nate's still got his shirt on, you can't be that friendly," Elisa continues, smirking lightly.
"You must have been really close friends with that guy last night, then," Ryland tells her disingenuously, which might be kind of bitchy of him, but Nate is just trying to weather this thing out. He doesn't want to get involved, not anymore than he has to.
Elisa grits her teeth under a bright smile. "It was nice to meet you, Victoria," she says, turning around and leaving the room again.
The back lounge is silent for a moment before Gabe says wearily, "We promise not to be bitchy to you if you're not bitchy to us."
"Deal," Vicky T says immediately. "Whose turn is it?"
~
Nate's reading a magazine in the front lounge when Elisa strolls by and brushes a hand along his wing. "Stop!" he says finally, jerking away.
She holds her hands up. "Sorry, sorry!" she says. "I can't help it."
Nate maybe does believer her, but he's tired of it. He's so tired of it, and he just wants to go sleep for a while and wake up and have this be over. He's sick of this whole thing, of people fighting and sniping at other people behind their backs.
Gabe and Ryland wander in from the kitchen. "What's wrong?" Gabe asks, hooking his chin over Ryland's shoulder.
Nate just grabs his magazine and goes to read it in his bunk.
~
When Gabe tells Elisa that they're kicking her out of the band, Nate curls up in his bunk with a pillow over his head.
After a few minutes, he hears Alex say, "Nate," and he takes the pillow off.
"What?" he asks.
"Nothing," Alex says. "Let me in."
Nate pulls the curtain open and lets Alex crawl in next to him. "Where's Ryland?" he wonders.
"Oh, he's coming," Alex murmurs, his head sinking into the pillow.
"There's not going to be enough room," Nate points out, and Alex snorts.
"You're tiny and he's a stick. We'll figure it out."
Ryland doesn't ask before squeezing in, and Alex and Nate try to make as much room for him as they can. He really is a stick, which makes it a little less difficult.
"This our fault?" Alex asks when they're all safely settled in the bed.
Nate thinks of Gabe and Elisa's argument, of hearing Elisa shout, "So what, this is because I touched his fucking wings?" and Gabe reply, "No, this is because of everything you did, one part of which was touching his wings when he didn't want you to!" and wonders if maybe he should be asking that question about himself.
"No," he says instead. "It's no one's fault."
"We're not talking," Ryland says. "We're cuddling. We're not talking."
"Okay," Nate says, and as he's dropping off to sleep he feels his wings settle down to cover Ryland and Alex, almost like a blanket.
~
Things are quieter without Elisa, without the tension pulling between everybody, enough that Nate used to sometimes wish it would snap and be finished.
He knows Elisa is raising a fuss and Gabe's fighting back, with Alex and Ryland chipping in, but he doesn't want to get into it. He liked Elisa, and now he doesn't, really; he's not loud enough or angry enough to talk about it, but that's how it is. He doesn't want her to die in a hole, he just kind of wants her to go away.
He ends up hanging out with Victoria a lot, neither of them really certain what they're supposed to be doing. It's a relief, in a way, but he really does like her, too. He trusts her, weirdly enough. Usually it takes him longer.
When he tells her, "I have wings," she just says, "Okay," and looks at them for a while. She doesn't try to touch them, which Nate thinks is a good omen. He thinks if she asked to, though, he might say yes, just like when Alex asks him, or Gabe, or Ryland.
~
"Can you fly?" Vicky T wonders one night during the tour. They're sitting in the back lounge, leaning into each other tiredly; it's been a long day. Vicky T's voice is a quiet murmur.
"I tried when I was five," Nate yawns. "Broke my arm."
"You were five," she points out. "I could barely walk when I was five."
Nate curls closer into her. "Lots of band-aids in your house?"
"Ninja Turtle," she tells him seriously, wrapping her arm around his waist. His wings just barely brush her arm. "Barbie band-aids were for sissies."
"Is this cuddling I spy?" Gabe asks, immediately joining them on the couch. "I've got to get me some of that." He sits next to Vicky T and calls out, "Yo, Alex! Ryland! Get your asses over here, it's group cuddling!"
"You're going to squish my wings, asshole," Nate mutters, but he scoots over to let Ryland fit next to him. Alex sits on the other side of Gabe.
"All cozy?" Gabe asks. "Excellent." He grins at the rest of his band. Gabe, Nate thinks, is maybe a little in love with all of them, but it's not like he's really alone in that.
Nate looks at everyone, Ryland and Alex and Gabe and Vicky T, and he says, "Maybe."