alright jesse's a mess. he's always a little dirty, a little sweaty, cowlicks in his hair. the mud-colored feathers of his wings sticking out every which way, all bent and broken off like he never learned to preen himself. and maybe he hadnt, for all gabe knew.

and usually gabe doesnt give a shit what jesse looks like because he basically found him in a dumpster anyway.

but he's almost done with his probationary period. and he's got a meeting with morrison tomorrow to put in an appeal to end it early

he'd tried everything to get jesse to clean himself up. told him to get a haircut. made disparaging comments about his appearance. emailed him a youtube video about preening. nothing was working

but if jack sees him like this he's going to give gabe the Look and gabe doesnt want jack to give him the Look so. he really has no other choice.

he calls jesse into his office and sits him down and says "mccree. you HAVE to preen your wings. this is a direct order."

and jesses like..... idk that sounds kinda gay. but okay ill try it. and gabes like "you know how to do it right?" and jesses like "well sir honestly nobody ever taught me"

and FUCK if that doesn't hit gabe in the chest

now what he SHOULD do is send jesse to the medical wing and have a nurse or doctor explain all this to him. but that would probably be so embarrassing... no... he could just show him really quick...wouldnt have to make it weird..

"look, if commander morrison sees you like that, it could ruin your chances. you look like we just picked you up off the street. you look like a dead bird. you look--"

"Alright, sir, i get it."

"i'll just do it for you. i don't have time to walk you through it."

so he takes jesse into his private bathroom and sits him down on his vanity chair (a/n: he has a vanity, thats canon information) and tells him to take his shirt off.

up close it's incredibly obvious he's never been preened. there's a lifetime's worth of displacement and damage

his wings have been clipped since he joined blackwatch, not uncommon for gangs and even some militaries, and his new primary feathers were growing in nicely, but underneath there were still dense bunches of unshed, jaggedly cut feathers.

gabe brushes his fingers through them once and a couple smaller feathers fall loose.

jesse's embarrassed. he scratches and picks and yanks to get his loose feathers out, but apparently that just wasn't enough. his mom used to do it for him, but had stopped at a certain age

since he joined deadlock and had them chopped he hadn't given them a second thought. he forgot they were there half the time. nobody ever cared what they looked like.

gabe starts by massaging them, because they have to get sore the way jesse holds them close like that, and jesse's watching him in the vanity mirror and gabe's painfully aware of how intimate it is but he keeps his face neutral.

he works knots and aches out of jesse's wings that he'd ignored for years. honestly he'd entirely forgotten what it felt like for his wings to be touched at all.

gabe notices, while he's massaging the base of jesse's wings, the soft feathers on his scapula, that they're dry

normally there's oil, there, that helps lubricate all the feathers and set them into place. it's bone-dry, though, his downy feathers all fluffy instead of slicked down.

gabe knows the best way to get the glands unblocked is to massage them

that feels wrong, somehow, so he tells jesse before he does it.

"your oil glands are blocked. so i'll have to really get in there to...unblock them."

jesses like uh ok. and it makes his pulse speed up but he has to keep a straight face bc they can see each other in the mirror

anyway im getting tired of writing this thread so im gonna cut to the point