Broken Feathers

The Death of You and Me

Chapter Four: The Death Of You And Me (Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds) 

 

I wasn't exactly sure how I found myself standing outside a bar, and neither was I going to question it. With my mother's words still ringing in my ears and the furious expression of my father burnt into my mind, I pushed the door open, engulfed into the warmth and the smell of stale beer lingering in my nose. 

It wasn't as crowded as I had thought it would be; a few tables were occupied by what looked to be Prep students, and the odd old man sat on random bar stools, shooting them furious glares. 

Wonderful. All I needed was to be spotted by dicks I had to go to school with. But feeling angry at the world made me thirsty, and I managed to slip past the Prep students and towards the bar. 

"Pint, please," I ordered, keeping my hood up. The bartender rolled his eyes in what he probably thought was a subtle gesture, moving to get my drink. Behind me, a television blared with football results. There was something very contradictory about the entire affair; this very human backdrop, acting as a stage for over-entitled Prep students to rebel and mingle with the humans. Perhaps none of them had gone through years of torment at the hands of individuals who knew nothing about being horrifyingly different. Perhaps they had no inclination about what it felt to squirm under your skin, knowing that you weren't good enough. 

My drink was pushed in front of me, exchanged with the loose change that I had been harbouring in my pocket, and my ears strained to hear the conversation of the students behind me. 

"What a loser," one of them, a girl, cackled.  

"He just kept drawing her over and over again," another added, this time a boy. My eyes narrowed, and I realised with a horrible sinking feeling that I recognised the male's voice. I turned as slowly as I could, trying not to draw attention to the fact that I could hear exactly what they were saying. 

Sure enough, the one in the corner, nursing a half finished bottle of beer, had been the boy who had sat next to me in English – I would recognise those piggy little eyes anywhere. So. I was the loser. In a place where magic and mystery was an everyday, plain old individualism was still frowned upon. 

"As if someone like that had a chance with the Princess," Piggy continued, shaking his greasy head. "Couldn't even sense what he was. Probably just a half-breed." The others laughed, and I felt a ripple of anger shooting through me. 

Unbelievable. In primary school, the humans had made a big song and dance about treating people with different colours of skin differently. At the time, it hadn't felt that important because A) I wasn't human and therefore that sort of thing wasn't really on my radar and B) I was a fucking Angel. It wasn't like I was going to discriminate against anyone any time soon.

"I thought he was quite hot," a brunette girl, sitting across from Piggy mused. "Something very dark and brooding. But if he's got his eye on Star then that ship is never going to fly." 

"Hot?" Piggy hissed. "Hot?" 

I smirked, taking a sip of my drink. Sounded like Piggy had a thing for the drooling brunette. I rubbed my face tiredly, listening on to their conversation, toying with the idea of letting them know that they weren't as subtle as they thought they were being. 

"He'd better watch himself," Piggy continued gruffly, in what was probably a display of macho, Alpha male bullshit. "I wouldn't mind knocking him down a peg or two." Knocking me down a peg or two. I wondered briefly if he'd like to explain how he expected to knock an Angel out. Perhaps it would give me a couple of pointers for when Kalem was irritating me. 

"You could take him," the first girl to speak urged. 

"Yeah, Piggy, I'm sure you could take me," I jeered, turning around properly. Piggy's eyes widened, a sight to behold on such a pudgy, reddened face. Properly looking at him now, I could see that yes, he was rather large in stature, however the soft, doughy quality to his hands suggested that a lot of it might have just been fat. 

"What did you call me?" he demanded, getting to his feet and nearly knocking the table over. "The fuck did you just call me?" 

"Piggy," I clarified, sliding off of my bar stool. "I called you Piggy." 

Piggy roared, leaping across the room, his hands outstretched. Only, I was stealthy, dodging his lunge and backing towards the door, waggling my eyebrows at the three friends. 

"What about watching myself?" I called, tilting my head to the side. "Because...I'd be terrified, really I would, only a fat bastard like you is never going to catch me, are they?" The bar was deadly silent now, and all that I could here was Piggy's laboured pants.  

"And as for knocking me down a peg or two," I continued conversationally, backing towards the door. "A Beta wolf is never going to be able to take on an Angel, really?" I pretended to take a long sniff, hoping to bluff my way into embarrassing this stupid git. "Or...oh no, is that Omega I smell?" 

From the reddening of Piggy's face, and the looks of shock on the girl's faces, I realised that...I'd actually guessed a wolf's standing. Well, look at me. Fuck being an Angel, I was just going to use my pretend sense of smell to tell wolves where they belonged in society! 

Piggy glared at me, his eye icy and as he took a step towards me, alarms started ringing. Okay. So...maybe Piggy couldn't kill me. But there wasn't much I could do to defend myself against a wolf.  

A really, really fat wolf. 

So I did what any self-preserving Angel would do. I teleported the fuck out of there, shouts of blind fury ringing in my ears. Well.  

Maybe sticking around here was going to be more fun than I had previously anticipated.