"Really, that's all you brought in today?" Alfred scoffed, looking up at his flockmate; a tall fellow with pale dusty locks and grand wings of a similar hue. His face itself was young for his thick trunk of a body, and the whole centerpiece of the man was his pair of off-violet eyes. "It's like half a sandwich."

"I got hungry on the way here," Ivan said quietly, frowning and folding his wings slowly, as if it pained him to do so. Alfred was doing this again, acting like the leader of the flock and bothering everyone about how much food they were bringing to the larder. "This food was only for me, anyway.."

Alfred huffed crossly, standing up on tip toes and spreading his sunny-gold wings to make himself seem bigger. Ivan was completely unfazed, as he had the biggest wings and body in the flock, ergo having no reason to fear someone who could almost be counted as a fledgling. He certainly had the mindset of a new-hatch, Ivan knew that. "Well, at least eat all of it!" Alfred huffed, taking the half-sandwich out of Ivan's hand and shoving it into Ivan's mouth. "Christ! You wanna get big and strong or what?!"

"I am already almost twice your size," coughed Ivan, actually gagging on sandwich. The parts he choked up, he reflexively spat out on the ground. He then awkwardly handed the gross sandwich back over. "You need it more."

"Stop arguing," muttered the flock elder, a long-haired beauty by the name of Yao. "I will have that sandwich, and you two will stop your silly bickering." He decided, just snatching the gross sandwich from Ivan's hand and walking away.

"Now I have only had half a sandwich to eat today," Ivan whined quietly, watching Yao walk off, his pale eyes wandering a little.

"Are you looking at his ass!" cried Alfred, smacking Ivan upside the head. "Put your eyes back on the prize, sir!" Ivan blinked and turned back to face Alfred, smiling faintly.

"Refrain from striking me, please," he continued smiling, watching Alfred uncurl his wings again and flutter them. It was like Alfred was trying to impress him. "What now?"

"Just showin' off. 'Cos I can. We should go fly together," he whined, wrapping both arms around one of Ivan's thick ones, and flapping his wings in something of exhilaration. Boy really wanted to fly. "C'mon."

Ivan sighed lightly, glancing over his shoulder and unfolding his massive wings, cringing at the little cricks he heard when he flexed them fully open. There were little aches and twinges here and there, but that was to be expected; he had only recently recovered from a broken wing. As a relatively new member to the flock, bonds were very important to Ivan, and the best way to learn more about another flock member was to fly with them. To know how another angel flew was to know how they worked, how their minds operated with their bodies, and to know them as a person. All Ivan knew of Alfred's flight was that it was erratic and unpredictable. Ivan, however, liked to glide at a slow pace, simply cruising through the sky. "Flying together? Now?" Ivan murmured, looking out to the setting sun.

"Yeah! I'll race you to the peak of this mountain!" Alfred declared, smiling widely and crouching, one knee to the ground. He folded his wings in so he could best get his running start. Ivan was a different kind of flyer however and quickly scaled a series of rocks, until he had a fair vantage over Alfred. "You ready?!" Alfred grinned, looking up at his flockmate. Ivan was not very ready. He was still an unconfident flyer, and his bulky wings made it no easier to get into the air. Taking a deep breath into his cold lungs, Ivan slowly nodded his head. With a countdown from five, Alfred readied himself for the race. When he finally struck 'go!', he took off sprinting, hurdling down the plateau and shooting his wings open, catching the air and easily getting some height.

Ivan still stood at the top of the rocks he'd climbed, taking heavy breaths and trying to ready himself. He spread his wings and tried waiting for the exact right moment in the wind that would give him the best chance of catching the current. Slowly, he leant forward, opening his wings and falling, trying to catch the wind and angle his body so he would take flight. He had doubted himself at the last second, and thanks to that inkling of doubt, was falling at an alarming rate toward the grass of the plateau below. He landed badly, smashing his shoulder into the ground before skidding along and whimpering in pain. He had lost this race as soon as he'd agreed to it.

After slowly getting back up to his feet, he painfully climbed the rocks again, taking flight from his dive this time. It hurt more with every little dip of his wings, and each flap caused him to grit his teeth. So much for flying with Alfred; the boy was probably already up at the peak by now. It took Ivan much longer than it should have to reach the top, but once he was up there, he panicked at the lack of safe places to land. Alfred was nowhere in sight, either. Freaking out and trying to keep his breathing steady, Ivan flew weakly around the peak, until he got to the point where he felt as if his wings and back would simply give out should he continue to flutter about the frost-tipped mountain top. Just so he wouldn't plummet through the air again, Ivan went in for a landing, but clipped his wingtip on a cliff face. The fall was painful, and he fell into a heavy patch of snow about the peak.

Ivan didn't even register passing out, so it was odd to wake up now, his body being shaken by both the violent shudders of his body trying to warm up, and his flockmate's hands. "Hey! Wake up!" Alfred barked into his ear. Ivan jolted, wings shooting out in a panic. He wheezed and flinched in pain as that happened, and doubled over again where he was sitting. "Dude, hey," Alfred huffed, trying to make Ivan sit up properly. "Dude, you were so slow. What's up with that?" Ivan's teeth were chattering too much for Alfred to come up with a proper response. Noticing a crick in Ivan's wing, the also shivering Alfred helped the man to his feet, and practically carried him into a small craggy cave within the peak.

"You crash or something?" Alfred said in a soft huff, looking his flockmate seriously in the eye once Ivan had been sat down against a wall.

"Da," Ivan mumbled, rubbing his arms lightly. "I indeed lost control of the way my wings were going. They hurt."

"When were they last preened?" Alfred huffed, folding his smaller wings behind him and lightly using his hands to make Ivan's wings extend.

"Preened?" Ivan said quietly, unsure of what Alfred meant. "What does that entail?"

"Dude," Alfred huffed. "If you wanna be able to fly good, you gotta preen your wings!"

"I still don't know what that means," Ivan mumbled, more to himself than his flockmate.

"Here, I'll do yours," insisted Alfred, putting his hands on Ivan's shoulders now. "Turn around." Ivan, hesitant, did as ordered, and faced his back to the boy. Cringing in fear and anxiety, Ivan waited for whatever this was to happen. It was considerably less painful than he'd expected. Alfred's hands ran lightly across the length of his wings, fingers pausing between soft feathers simply because they felt lovely and silky. He lightly pulled the ones that were bent or broken, dropping them aside before smoothing down Ivan's other feathers again. After he had repeated the process for Ivan's other wing, he sighed and sat behind Ivan, wondering if he'd done enough. "How's that feel?"

"A little better," Ivan smiled weakly, turning his head to look over his shoulder and at his flockmate. "Aah.. Can you… Uh.."

"Yeah? What is it, dude?" Alfred asked, smiling.

"Between my wings..?" Ivan mumbled softly, turning his head so he was facing the wall again. He was quite embarrassed to be asking something so intimate of his flockmate. "Can you touch there?"

"Sure," Alfred scoffed, amused by how quiet the other angel had become. Humming to himself, he moved his hands onto Ivan's back, tenderly stroking the soft muscles around where his wings started, and the dip in his figure between each feathered appendage. Alfred was pretty sure he heard a soft sigh of relaxation from his flockmate, and so he started to move his fingers with a little more pressure, getting to a point of practically massaging the other's back. "Like that?"

Alfred didn't get an answer, but when he glanced to the side, caught Ivan's wingtips quivering lightly. Smiling almost smugly, Alfred shifted onto his knees and pushed gradually harder at Ivan's back, until he was kneading the soft muscles there. By this point, Ivan was pulling in sharp breaths and releasing them in a like manner, and trying not to flap his wings in response to Alfred's meddling. Soon, Alfred grew tired, and just leant in, resting his cheek against Ivan's back. "Was that nice?" he asked quietly, yawning. The sun was well set outside, so the cold and dark in here was making both of them quite sleepy. Ivan awkwardly shuffled himself around, trying very hard not to smack Alfred in the face with his wing when he turned.

"It was nice," Ivan smiled, resting his back slightly against the cave wall. "Thank you.. Aah.. Are we going to go back?.. My wing is still sore from the crash, ah.."

"If you're busted, there's no way we're gonna get back safely," Alfred whined, just looking at Ivan a moment before childishly shuffling back along the floor to sit next to him. "We might just hav'ta spend the night here."

"It's cold in here," Ivan remarked quietly. He wasn't even complaining, he was just pointing it out. Yet, Alfred, as the hero, needed to solve this problem.

"I gotcha!" Alfred huffed, leaning over and not only resting his cheek on Ivan's shoulder, but curling the wing opposite to Ivan around the two of them. "Finish the circle of warm!" he insisted, lightly hitting Ivan's chest.

"W-what?" Ivan mumbled, flustered and unsure how to react. Puffing, Alfred reached over and lightly pulled Ivan's huge wing around, the appendage easily dwarfing his own. "Oh.."

"You're dumb," Alfred pointed out, leaning in closer and puffing up his feathers. Ivan quickly followed suit, curling his other wing around Alfred's back and hesitantly letting him lean on it. It felt weird, to let someone else, even a flock member, get this close and intimate with him, but Ivan didn't think it necessarily a bad thing. "Much warmer," huffed Alfred quietly, moving fairly close to Ivan and closing his eyes. "Night, big wing wang."

Ivan was really quite flustered with the sudden proximity of his flockmate, and slowly, he leant down, very hesitantly kissing the top of Alfred's head. He assumed that was the right thing to do in this situation. Breathing softly, he looked down at Alfred, who seemed to already be asleep, dozing lightly against him. Ivan, fascinated by the sleeping angel, lightly played with Alfred's sunny-gold hair and put an arm around him too as he slept. If this was what it was like not to be alone anymore, Ivan would willingly accept this feeling and accept Alfred into his life with open arms.

laaaaaaame

im terrible at fluff fml but ayy wingtalia rusame for russia-aph on tumblr bcos they said they wanted some and i felt generous