Gaffriel 59

I ran the whole way to the store, letting my feet strike concrete as I reveled in the air passing by. It satiated my need for flight on some instinctual level. I wanted her smell off me, out of my nose, the taste of her off my lips. That was a dirty lie. I wanted more of it, but the more I had, the more I wanted, and I wasn't going to stop until Kiromir had a knife to my throat, I feared. So I had to show restraint; I had to stop being so afraid and impulsive. But most of all, I had to stand up for myself. It wasn't just me anymore. The second I let one moment slip too far, it was us. Until this whole endeavor ended and settled… if something happened to me, the weaker of our two… She would be bound and unfulfilled for life, forced to suffer or go back to the cycle.

I shook the macabre thought from my head.

When I got there, the store was nearly abandoned; a few lone sleepy clerks gave me a raised brow, and that look they give really tall people. I smoothed my hair over my ears a bit. They'd notice it, sometimes, maybe give my eyes a second glance. That's all people could remember of us. "Tall with strange eyes," they'd describe. Humans just glazed over things like that by instinct until we initiated and made an effort.

I made my way into the familiar layout of corporate America and perused through a stack of shirts and tank tops. I put a few of each in a handbasket then wandered over to the pants. I knew what jeans size I wore, and I snagged one of the stretchy kind. The rest bound up too much. I had a vague idea of Niala’s size and what she would tolerate. I knew she wore a lot of low-hung pants, and I picked a few pairs of jeans off a folded table. I didn't care about the length; she would roll them up anyway. I had to remind myself that these clothes weren’t forever; she just needed to be covered, so it didn't have to be a fashion statement, not that I really knew about fashion anyway. It probably wouldn't be anything here.

I settled on some 'hip hugger' style pants and held them out in front of me. They worked better for her tail, I now knew. I recalled wrapping my arms around her waist, holding her hips for a moment, and gauging what size pants she'd wear off of that. A size six seemed about right, I thought, hoped. But, just in case, I grabbed a belt off of another rack. One pair of pants each and several shirts would get us a few days at least.

I thought about underwear, and for myself, I just grabbed some prepackaged easily-sized boxer briefs. For her… I didn't know what she wore beneath, and the thought of it made me go red in the face.

A lone attendant meandering through the store caught sight of me standing in an aisle looking at the women's underwear with that distressed look.

"Need something?" She asked as tired eyes glanced from me to the racks.

"Uh… underwear for this size," I told her as I held out the pants. The woman took a quick glance at a sticker on the leg and wrinkled her nose a bit. Her eyes tilted in that way like she wanted to cry.

"What kind of underwear?" The woman gave me a quick glance over and turned away to peruse racks. Niala could have done this better because people just ignored us due to her aura. Without Niala, my nervousness made the woman sad, and I didn't particularly enjoy that part of my aura.

"Just underwear, I guess." I didn't know much about other styles, but she seemed content to hand me a generic multicolored pack of plain 'low cut bikini' panties. My cheeks flamed red again, and the woman gave me that 'you’re weird’ look.

“Sorry, girlfriend needed some clothes. Our luggage got lost,” I managed to eke out. The word ‘girlfriend’ seemed gross on my lips. It tainted something about our relationship because we weren’t lovers or partners or any sort of thing. We were best friends. We were… really confused right now.

I felt dirty touching the package, but all the same, I had them as I made a quick traipse through the produce aisle. I thought about how we would eat for the next while. Since we had a minifridge in the hotel, I grabbed what looked like a few decent cuts of meat. I made sure it was ‘organic,’ hoping it would be less chemically. Niala could figure it out. I’d do something with the iron or coffee pot to at least warm mine up. I honestly didn’t know how I’d gone so long without knowing that was how she ate. I never saw her eat her protein around us.

I threw in a bag of apples and went back around to the craft department, where I shoved a random pre-cut piece of tee shirt fabric and a pair of scissors into the bag. I glanced over to the women’s department and saw the plastic mannequin boasting an enormous pair of breasts in some uncomfortable-looking contraption of a bra. I shuddered and realized just how much I liked Niala’s chest wrap she did. It suited her.

I paid and ran out of there as fast as I could; I wanted to get back to check on her.

When I came in, I saw her sprawled form under the sheet, sound asleep. Her shirt laid up over a rack, drying with her pants, and I glanced over the thin sheet and wondered what she wore beneath. I could see a naked shoulder peeking free of the sheet with a loop of her binding over it. Something about that small layer relaxed me, assuring me that my inner demons wouldn’t have an excuse to party in my mind.

“Ni!” I said, raising my voice. She lifted up in the bed and turned to sit up. It surprised me that her wings weren’t out like she did at home, though she acted like she couldn’t help it.

“I got us some stuff.” The bags jostled in my hand as I tossed them to her. She thumbed through the things as I stowed food in the fridge and grabbed an apple for myself, stomach aching with hunger.

She raised an eyebrow as she pulled out the generic underwear and laughed.

“For future reference, I wear boyshorts,” She said as she pulled out the scissors and started getting creative with cuts and knots on one of the tank tops. Finally, she slid it on with ease and slipped out of bed.

The shirt hem swung about her hips as I saw what she wore beneath, the female equivalent of boxer briefs. “You think these are hot?” She stared at the package of underwear in her hands.

I choked on my apple. ‘Hot’ had never once crossed my mind in the whole experience.

“No! I just…. I picked out pants that were about your size and had a woman get those for you!” I could feel bits of the apple stuck in my windpipe.

“You know, that’s pretty smart.” She held up the pants and stretched them at the waist. “How did you know my pant size?”

I felt put on the spot, and my cheeks stayed red. “I just remember holding your hips and found pants about that size.” I fidgeted as I waited for her to change. She had the scissors, and while I could cut my own shirts, she did it so much better. We had a good thing going when we were kids. She’d cut my shirts, and I’d scruff her wings.

She came back in with the pants on and the leg cuffs rolled up. They fit well, and her tail slipped out through a slit she’d cut. Then, satisfied, she swished her tail about a few times, hopped back in the bed, and went to cut a shirt down for me.

She did this thing where she took a t-shirt, cut slits down the back, and wove those slits around to create this pattern. I liked it, and it left space for my wings to come out; her quick efficiency hypnotized me.

Realizing I stared, I went to the bathroom to change my pants and underwear before she noticed. When I came back, Niala had my new shirt finished and laid out. She gave my bare chest a glance before going back to the fabric she had, cutting it into strips as she wove them around one another and worked on the lacings on the side. When she finished it, she went to the bathroom to change and came back looking, for the most part, like Niala. However, her hair laid flatter and askew. Was it longer? Her hair feathers fell out at some point.

I wanted to weave her feathers for her, groom her wings, and so many other things. So, when I crawled into bed, she scooted to me, buried her face against my chest. Then, shifting, she wrapped her tail around my chest, and I rested my hand on it, gently petting until innocent sleep took us both. The sensation of her tail over me felt so familiar, and I realized that she had done this before. I don’t think I ever saw it, but as it looped over my chest and tightened, it felt like nightmares slipping away.