Work Text:
ཐི༏ཋྀ
Tommy’s wings twitch and flutter nervously against his back, the pale white down catching the light with every skittish shift. His eyes dart from corner to corner, drinking in the uniquely decorated room, though the word feels far too polite for the clutter pressing in on him.
Too many trinkets. Too many shadows. The walls seem to lean close, whispering secrets just out of earshot.
He wants to curl in on himself, fold his wings tight around his body like a cocoon, block out the sight of it all until the pressure eases in his chest. But the urge wars with another—sharper, louder—the need to keep his gaze fixed on the door.
If he lets himself blink too long, if he dares to look away, something might slip through. His antennae twitch faintly with the imagined draft of an opening, the promise of escape.
Still, his feet stay rooted, his shoulders rigid. His whole body hums with unease, caught between instinct to hide and instinct to flee. And yet, despite every frantic beat of his heart, he cannot—will not—let his eyes leave that door.
He doesn’t know what this man wants with him, not really, but the not-knowing is worse than any answer. Dread climbs his spine in slow, heavy steps, curling icy fingers around the base of his neck until he feels caged in his own skin.
His stomach knots and twists, churning with a nervous sickness that makes him press his wings tighter to his back, as though folding himself small enough might make him invisible.
The study reeks of danger, though no weapons are in sight. It’s too quiet, too still—like a spider’s web with him already caught in the centre. The door is unlocked, but that only makes it worse. Every instinct screams at him to bolt, yet his legs won’t listen; terror roots him where he stands, as if the wood itself would bite down should he dare to reach for the handle.
It doesn't bode well that the man who kidnapped him has placed Tommy, the moth hybrid, in a room full of dead bugs.
Frames cover the walls—rows upon rows of butterflies, moths, beetles, even spiders—all pinned down in precise, cruel arrangements, their limbs stretched at angles that scream of restraint rather than rest. Every glass case gleams faintly in the lamplight, throwing warped reflections across their frozen bodies.
Tommy’s stomach flips as his gaze catches on a moth’s pale, powdery wings—too much like his own. Its body is stiff, its antennae spread wide as if in its last moments it had been searching, reaching, begging.
He knows they’re dead. He knows it. The pins through their thoraxes make that clear enough. Yet the longer he looks, the less certain he feels. The colours don’t seem dulled by age; instead they shimmer faintly, as though the wings might tremble at any second and carry the creature back to life.
His eyes snag on a butterfly with cobalt wings, veins delicate as lace, and for the barest instant he swears one of those wings flutters. Just a twitch, the smallest ripple—yet it makes his pulse stutter violently in his throat.
The sickness rises hotter. He drags his gaze away, only to land on another case—this one filled with beetles, their lacquered shells glistening as though they’d been oiled.
Their legs, curled and rigid, cast spindly shadows that look almost like they’re moving beneath the glass, like they’re crawling. He feels phantom tickles on his own skin, a prickle racing along his arms and legs as though dozens of tiny feet are clambering up him.
The spiders are no better. Their bodies are puffed and shrivelled all at once, fangs bared in a death snarl. Each one is positioned neatly, pinned out as though they’d been caught mid-pounce and nailed down before they could strike. He imagines them skittering free of their frames, glass shattering as they drop soundlessly to the floor, dozens of black eyes fixing on him.
Tommy shudders, pressing his wings tighter against his back, as though afraid the man who owns this place might one day decide to add him to the collection. The thought needles deep and merciless: his wings stretched wide, pinned flat in a frame, forever frozen beside the others.
The air feels thinner now. Stifling. He can’t shake the sense that the bugs aren’t as dead as they seem.
That they’re watching.
Tearing his eyes from the walls Tommy forces his gaze downward, only to find little comfort there. The desk is no less unsettling. It’s covered, every inch buried under maps and scattered photographs, the paper edges curling as though thumbed over again and again.
One photograph in particular snags his attention: a clear, clinical image of a moth species that makes his stomach lurch. His species. The familiar curve of the wings, the faint dusting of pale scales—it feels like looking at his own reflection, dissected and catalogued.
Beside it lies a list, scrawled in cramped handwriting, each line dotted with place names he doesn’t recognise. Hunting grounds, maybe. Traps. The idea makes his wings itch uneasily against his back.
And then there are the bottles. A whole cluster of them, lined up neatly along the desk’s edge, filled with odd liquids that glint strangely in the lamplight. Some are dark, almost black, syrup-thick. Others shimmer faintly, hues shifting from green to gold like oil on water. A few are stuffed with dried herbs that claw at the glass as though desperate to escape.
Tommy doesn’t know what any of it is. He doesn’t want to. His stomach coils tighter the longer his eyes linger, the same way one’s skin prickles when standing too close to fire. There’s a wrongness bleeding from those bottles, something that feels like rot tucked neatly into glass.
Every instinct tells him not to breathe too deep, not to touch, not to even look too long, as though awareness alone might be enough to taint him. He drags his eyes away quickly, shoving down the bile rising at the back of his throat. Ignorance, in this case, feels like the safest choice. He’d rather not learn what poison looks like up close, thanks.
He shifts his gaze to the rest of the room, dragging it away from the frames on the wall and landing instead on the massive bookshelf that devours an entire side of the study—floor to ceiling, wall to wall.
It looms like a monument, every shelf crammed with leather-bound volumes and hardbacks that look heavy enough to crack a skull if dropped. The spines gleam faintly under the lamplight, gold lettering and embossed designs catching at his eyes.
Tommy’s throat tightens.
...He’s a little bit jealous.
He never got to keep his books lined up and proud like that. His books had to live in secret, tucked away beneath the matted, filthy furs of his makeshift bed, their covers warped from snow and rain bleeding through the roof.
His paperbacks were already half-ruined when he found them, their pages spotted with mold, the ink smudged from damp fingers. He’d hoard them anyway, huddling over the words by firelight, tracing them again and again just to keep them alive in his memory
He wonders where his books went, if the man took them to or just took Tommy.
Tommy shakes his head to dislodge the thought, instead scanning the rest of the shelves. They are stocked with a hundred different covers and titles, and with really nothing else to do (other then have a panic attack, cry, and maybe get himself killed) Tommy tries reading the spines of them.
It only makes him feel worse and worse about the situation.
The origins of Entomological Taxidermy.
Obsessed with Bugs
Insect Preservation: A Comprehensive Guide
If this guy is a beginner in insect pinning, will it hurt a lot when the guy eventually takes Tommy's wings off?
He doesn't want it to hurt.
...He doesn't want to give the guy his wings, either, no, thank you.
Tommy likes having his wings attached to his back, he- he doesn't want to be dissected by some bug-obsessed serial killer!
Because really, who else could the man be?
Who even owns books like this? Who just has—has an entire study devoted to drying out and pinning down dead things, to cataloguing wings and legs like they aren't just corpses? The thought makes his stomach churn, bile licking at the back of his throat.
Still, Tommy can’t help himself. Even as each title he reads makes his skin crawl, he drags his gaze along the spines, scanning the endless rows because what else can he do?
To his somewhat pleasant surprise, it isn’t all insects—not completely. Sure, most of the shelves are stuffed with encyclopaedias and field guides, heavy tomes bristling with Latin names and neat diagrams. But tucked away on the bottom right, the collection takes a strange turn.
The spines are brighter, less clinical. He spots a couple of battered children’s storybooks, their edges softened with wear, little illustrations peeking through faded jackets. Next to them, some fantasy novels, gaudy with dragons and castles, almost out of place among the sterile ranks of science.
And there... there are parenting books, to.
Tommy swallows hard, antennae twitching faintly. His eyes linger on the neat, serious lettering stamped into their spines. Advice guides, how-to manuals, titles about raising children with patience, with discipline, with love. The words crawl under his skin, confusing in a way he doesn’t like. They don’t belong here, not in this mausoleum of bugs, not in the study of the man who dragged him here against his will.
But, along with the basic 'how' to manuals, there are some that...stick out to him.
How to Care for Your Hybrid baby
Raising an Insect Hybrid
The what-why's and how's of feeding! (Insect Hybrid edition #3)
Does... does this guy have an insect hybrid kid? And he's still- still pinning up insects in his study?
Oh, What the fuck.
Tommy hiccups, the sound breaking sharp in his throat before he slams a trembling hand over his mouth. His chest burns with the effort of holding it back, tears pricking hot at the corners of his eyes as nausea churns in his stomach.
He can’t afford to make a sound.
Vomiting would be worse, loud and messy, and he’s certain the man wouldn’t take kindly to Tommy ruining the thick carpet underfoot. It looks expensive, probably worth more than anything Tommy’s ever owned. And he’s not about to give the bastard another reason to be angry.
The man has been gone a long while. The silence stretches heavy, pressing in on him until it feels like the air itself is waiting. Maybe—just maybe—if Tommy shuts up, stays small and still and quiet enough, the man will forget he’s even here.
Forget the moth hybrid he dragged into this place and leave him to fade away into the wallpaper.
It’s a desperate hope, but it’s all he has. Because the truth is, he doesn’t know what else to do. He’s cornered, trapped in a room lined with dead wings and glass-eyed stares, and every second that ticks past winds him tighter and tighter and tighter.
Tommy just feels hopeless. The word sits like a stone in his chest, heavy and cold.
Tommy knows there’s no one looking for him. No search parties combing the streets, no worried calls to the police, no missing person’s report with his face on it.
No one’s searching.
No one’s waiting for him to come home, glancing at the door every time it creaks. For all the world knows, he’s already gone—vanished into the cracks, just another name lost in the noise.
The thought gnaws at him, hollowing him out from the inside. He presses his wings tighter against his back and curls his fingers into fists, but it doesn’t stop the ache.
And, even if he made it out, who's to say the man won't hunt him down again? And he doesn't even know where they are.
He didn't even have the chance to try and remember the turns of the drive here, since he'd passed out in a parking lot only a few minutes after he'd realised someone was followed him and then he'd woken up in the man's car.
This man could kill him here and not a single thing could stop him.
Nothing.
🪲🐞🪰🕷️🦋
Philza could hardly breathe for the swell in his chest. His heart beat quick and bright, a wild bird fluttering against his ribs, as he guided Tommy down the quiet hall toward the bedroom he had prepared.
Every step felt like a victory, a reward for years of waiting, searching, aching to have his son back where he belonged. His fingers itched to ruffle Tommy’s hair, to fold a wing around him like a shield, to press reassurance into the boy’s silence. But he didn’t. Not yet. Not until Tommy was ready.
The boy walked beside him in silence, head ducked, shoulders tense under the faint shiver of white moth wings. So unlike the stories Philza had gathered, so unlike the bright spark he knew lived inside him. But that was all right. Of course it was. Tommy didn’t know him yet. Didn’t know how safe he was now, how fiercely loved. It would come. Philza would make it come.
He had made sure of everything. Every detail, every comfort, every scrap of knowledge that could help his son settle back into the place he was meant to be. He knew Tommy’s favourite colour, the music he hummed under his breath when he thought no one listened, the weight and texture of blanket he preferred when the cold bit through thin walls. He had folded those blankets himself, placed them in the back seat of his car, all ready to be washed fresh and warm for his boy.
It had been harder after the fosters threw him out—Philza’s jaw tightened at the thought—but even then, he had never lost track. Not truly. He had kept his eyes sharp, followed the little trails Tommy left behind: the alleys he slept in, the markets he hovered near, the little errands he ran to scrape together coin. Always clever, always surviving. His clever, clever son.
And when the moment came—when the morning air was still damp with dew and Tommy disappeared off to deliver papers—Philza had acted. Quick, clean, decisive. He had folded Tommy’s belongings with his own hands, packed every scrap of him into the car. The blankets, the emergency rations carefully squirreled away under loose boards, the tiny stashes of coins.
Such a smart boy, so careful, so resourceful.
Philza’s heart had swelled with pride even as he tucked the bundles away. He would let Tommy keep them, for now, let him cling to the little habits survival had forced on him. Eventually, his son would learn there was no need to hoard food, no need to hide money. Not here. Not with him.
And the books. Oh, the books had made his throat ache with joy. Worn, rain-damaged paperbacks, pages curling from damp, spines bent with too much love. He had placed them carefully, reverently, on the new bookshelf in Tommy’s room.
It thrilled him, learning that Tommy was like him—hungry for knowledge, clinging to words as though they were lifelines. Philza’s fingers twitched at his side, desperate to show him, to watch Tommy’s eyes light when he saw them all lined up neat and proud instead of hidden under rags.
Philza glanced sideways at him now, his quiet, trembling boy, and a smile tugged warm at his lips. He wanted to learn everything about him, properly this time. Not through reports, not through distance, but face-to-face.
To learn the cadence of his laughter, the way his nose wrinkled when he was annoyed, the rhythm of his heartbeat when he finally, finally leaned into Philza’s embrace.
Oh, he is so excited.
His son was finally home.
ཐི༏ཋྀ