Note: There is a limb broken in this story. It's not described too graphically, so I didn't think it deserves an R rating, but if I'm wrong, please tell me so I can change it.
Also crits of all kinds are loved, even if I don't say so. Rip it up! =) I can take it.
The rain dampened her hair. It stuck to her face, the back of her neck, dripping down under the collar of her shirt. Chills ran down her spine. The water was cold, and the wind was unforgiving.
She sat on his doorstep, waiting. Her wings were clenched around her body tightly, too wet to do more than partially shield her from the cruel wind. One was tilted at an unnatural angle, and shook badly whenever she tried to move it into a more comfortable position. He had to help her, had to. She had no where else to go.
A small child passed by, clutching the hand of his mother, dressed in a plastic yellow coat with matching plastic boots. His mother held an umbrella over their heads. She looked the other way as they passed, but she couldn't help but hear the boy mentioning her wings excitedly. Nor could she help hearing the mother admonishing him with a harsh whisper. She could not make out the words, but imagined the word 'freak' might figure in there somewhere.
She curled in on herself, wrapping her arms around her knees and pulling her wings around her as best she could. The left wing pained and shook and refused to be moved far, leaving her left side still exposed. She was already soaked, but the wind was so cold. It chilled her wet clothes and bit through them to her skin. She shivered, more droplets leaving her hair and dripping down the back of her neck.
She didn't dare to knock on his door, not after all she had done. So she sat on his doorstep miserably, waiting for him to notice her sitting there, waiting for her pride to subside enough for her to rap softly on the door, to beg tearfully for him to let her in.
He watched her from the upstairs window, eyes damp and red. She was his creation, his pet, his daughter. Their love was a sick thing, and that was why he had let her leave. She had flown away, claiming to be going off to find bigger and better things. He did not know what had happened to her, while she had been gone, but he could see the broken wing, the broken girl. He had everything ready for her. Warm towels, good food, his medical instruments to reset the bone in her wing. Her room, separate from his, was clean and ready, painted sky blue. It was her favourite colour, or at least it had been before she left.
All she had to do was knock on his door. He would take over then, hushing her apologies and explanations in favour of handing her a mug of hot chocolate, some fresh clothes. He would hug her, uncaring of the soaked clothes and dripping wings. She would cry, perhaps, so grateful for his help and acceptance and love.
He would only let it be platonic love, this time, no matter how beautiful she was after he helped her clean away the troubles that were chiseled into her face. Even if she said she loved him, she would still sleep in the other room, and he would be calm and rational and tell her that it wasn't right.
His nose was pressed to the window, and he took small breaths in an attempt to keep the glass unfogged. Still she sat on the doorstep. What was she waiting for?
She thought of Andrew, the beautiful poet boy who had taken her in, called her his muse, his angel. She had found him not long after flying away from her maker, her owner, her father. He had written poems upon poems, all about her. They had tickled her fancy, made her smile, and she had believed she loved him, for a time.
But poetry did not pay the bills, and she had prostituted herself for him, taking people on flights, doing shows, using her wings to make him money, obeying his every whim.
He had written less and less, and what he did write was stilted and wrong and the words he spoke were harsh and cruel. She had been demoted from angel to freak, and he became more angry with her every day. Still she tried to be understanding, to help and hold and inspire him, and still he had berated and degraded her. She, who had only known the quiet understanding of her creator, could not comprehend his anger, and began to resent his continual pushing and pimping of her wings, her only originality.
One day she had refused to perform, tired of flying and being his slave to command. She threatened to fly away, to leave forever, if he didn't clean up and calm down and be her beautiful poet boy again.
He had broken her wing instead.
It had taken her weeks to secret away enough money for the train ride. She had been stuck with him, useless and unable to perform. Andrew's anger had reached unprecedented heights, and she feared him more with every day that passed. The people she begged directions from stared at her and some, knowing her from her shows, bothered her to do a trick, to fly them away.
She couldn't fly anymore, but they kept demanding anyways. The people who had delighted in her aerial feats scorned her now, and every mention of her wings scalded her like boiling water. Every laugh seemed cruel, a stab at her and her flightlessness.
Perhaps her wing would never work again. The thought hurt her more than her wing did, even though it ached and twinged with every movement.
Who did she think she was kidding, here on her creator's doorstep? Why would he ever take her in again, after she had left so cruelly, telling him that he wasn't enough for her? He would laugh, slam the door in her face, tell her that now she was the one who was not enough. The flightless, foolish mockery of an angel was all she was. It was too late for a second chance. She was on her own, she couldn't depend on him. She couldn't go back to who she had been before.
She pulled at her cracked wing. The pain was excruciating, but it was useless to her anyways. She grit her teeth, letting her anger build. She was a fool, a freak, she could never fly again and it was no one's fault but her own. She pulled. The world was a mass of pain, for a moment, and when it came back into focus her broken wing lay on the doorstep, dripping blood onto the pavement. The rain mixed with it, diluting it, making it run down into the grass in little rivers. A foolish thing.
She took off her sodden jacket and wrapped it around the stump. She would have to go to the hospital and have it taken care of. The would probably find her freakish, want her for studies, but she couldn't find it in herself to care.
She left the wing on the doorstep. He would know that she had come by.
From the window, he watched in horror as she walked away. Her wing lay on the doorstep, and he couldn't bear to go down and face it, to open the door and call out to her. Her steps were careful and slow, and her head hung low. He imagined she was crying - the pain must have been unbearable. Why hadn't she knocked? Why hadn't he gone to let her in anyways?
"I could have made her fly again," He whispered, and the words clouded over the window pane.
