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“Top, over here!” Tango turned around to see his friends, Impulse, Skizz and Etho, waving him over. Skizz had been the one who called out to him and was smiling widely.
He had agreed to meet up with his friends for a game night with some other people they knew. Tango would probably know most of the other people but he doubted he’d actually get along with them. It wasn’t that he didn’t like people, it was just the fact he found them hard to relate to and talk with.
As he reached the table with the others he was greeted by them, obviously he greeted them back.
“Took you a while to get here, we thought you weren’t gonna show up.” Etho nodded towards him as he spoke.
“I’m not even late, this thing hasn’t even started.” Tango huffed, he was not one to be late and he would not be told he was late.
“Oh yeah, Zed cancelled on us.” Impulse supplied after a moment.
“What? We need him!” Tango knew they didn’t need Zedaph specifically, but they needed a fifth team member and someone positive, those were two categories that Zed fit into perfectly.
“He said it was an emergency, some kind of experiment gone wrong.” Tango stared at Impulse, he really doubted that counted as an emergency.
“Well who else can we get? It’s a bit late to find someone who's not here already.” Tango asked.
“Uh, let me check with Grian, he set this up so I think he knows the teams.” Skizz said as he went off to find Grian, coming back with a piece of paper a few minutes later.
It had the teams listed on it, or the original teams. Many had arrows and notes written down about last minute alterations.
“This is everyone else’s teams, Skizz. How does this help us find a replacement?” Etho looked at him doubtfully while Skizz just shrugged.
Eventually Grian strolled over to them, somehow looking extremely distressed yet rather calm at the same time.
“So, you need a fifth member.” Grian stated while the four nodded.
“Everyone else is in teams that signed up, you could try and play as a four, it won’t make that big of a difference, there aren't a lot of team games,” He paused and looked behind him before continuing. “Or, if you want, Tim didn’t want to sign up but I can try and convince him if you don’t mind having him?”
Everyone exchanged a quick glance before Skizz spoke up, “We’d love to have him, send him over!”
Grian turned on his heel to find his aforementioned brother, Tango noticed the way he let his wings droop. Grian was one of the few avians he knew but he was pretty sure they didn’t usually do that. He seemed so off? Tango couldn’t tell if it was from the stress of organising the event, though that never seemed to bother him before, or if it had to do with Jimmy.
Tango had few encounters with Jimmy before tonight, they’d barely even looked at each other, but as the tired canary was walking over to the table Tango was really regretting that.
Even if Jimmy had large bags drooping under his eyes and his hair and wings were messy, Tango still couldn’t help thinking that he looked beautiful. He seemed tense as he walked over, trying to smooth out his hair the best he could and on occasion running a hand through his feathers to get clumps of dirt out.
“Hey Jimmy Jiggles! What’s up with you?” Maybe they didn’t need Zed for positivity after all, Skizz was doing a pretty good job, but he also seemed to be doing a pretty good job at making Jimmy uncomfortable.
Jimmy slipped into the seat in between Tango and Etho before he replied. “Nothing much, I was studying but I wasn’t going to get much done with all the noise, so here I am!” The fake enthusiasm seemed rather obvious to Tango but the others really didn’t seem to notice, or maybe they did and just didn’t care.
Once all the teams had been sorted and settled Grian started to announce teams and what they were going to be playing. Tango didn’t care too much and neither did Jimmy by the looks of it. Etho seemed pretty lost in his own world while Skizz and Impulse were engrossed in Grian’s words.
Eventually the first game began. It was an odd version of hide and seek where each team picked a seeker who would find the other teams and their hiders, while the rest of the team hid trying to avoid the other team’s seekers.
Tango did not feel like doing this, he was expecting board games or something, not running around playing hide and seek. Everyone started to get up and give out the roles in their team. After a few arguments Skizz ended up as the seeker, the other four splitting up immediately. Well not completely splitting up, once Tango was sure Etho and Impulse couldn’t see him he turned back to find Jimmy.
He wasn’t sure why he felt compelled to find the man, but there was just something about him that made Tango want to be with him every second. He was really grateful he waited for Etho and Impulse to be out of sight, they would never let him live it down if they knew what he was thinking or planning right now.
After walking around in the large yard Grian had somehow supplied for this for a few minutes he spotted golden yellow wings sticking out from behind a cluster of trees. He jogged over to Jimmy and saw him slumped against a large tree, barely keeping his eyes open.
“You alright?”
Jimmy scrambled away when he heard Tango’s voice, raising a hand to heart hastily as he tried to steady his breathing.
“My cod Tango, you scared the shit out of me.”
Tango tried to hold in his laugh for a few seconds but ultimately failed, leaning over on his knees.
“What’s so funny?”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it’s just,” Tango regained some of his composure for a moment before he continued, “you’ll say I scared the shit out of you but you also say “my cod”.”
Jimmy hid his face as he processed Tango’s words, he looked more embarrassed than Tango had ever seen anyone.
“It’s a habit.” He mumbled and it didn’t do anything but make Tango’s heart melt. He felt himself wanting to know more about Jimmy to learn things about him, especially where the my cod thing came from.
“It’s cute,” Tango said, sinking to the ground at Jimmy's side. Tango regretted his wording as soon as he realised what exactly he said. This time it was his turn to be embarrassed, ducking his head and screwing his eyes shut, wishing that if he couldn’t see Jimmy he couldn’t see him.
“Why’d you come over here? It’s out of bounds.” Jimmy wrinkled his nose as he spoke, something Tango hadn’t noticed in the couple of conversations they’d had in the past.
“Thought it would make a good hiding spot, I didn’t actually know there were boundaries and stuff.” Tango didn’t mean to lie about that and he didn’t really know why he did.
Jimmy seemed a bit disappointed in Tango’s opinion, but he couldn’t really say that considering he wasn’t an expert on reading people.
“Are you gonna head back or like, stay?”
Tango was not expecting him to say that so he quickly tried to make some kind of response. “Oh, uh, I can leave? If you want, I could stay. I don’t really mind, I don’t, I don’t know.”
Jimmy let out a half hearted laugh at his response and leaned his head on his shoulder, making Tango’s heart start beating ten times faster. “It’s up to you, just tell me if you’re gonna leave.” Jimmy mumbled.
He seemed so tired and it made Tango worry about how much sleep he was actually getting. He said he’d been studying and Tango definitely knew what it was like to try and learn everything before an exam and then lose track of time, he did it all the time. It always ended up with his friends worrying about him but he brushed them off, it was only when he saw someone else going through it that he actually cared.
Tango had wanted to talk to Jimmy, that’s why he came over here, but Jimmy was already asleep after a few minutes, with his wings wrapping around Tango. He felt like seeing Jimmy sleep was making his energy drain, making him just as tired. He wrapped his tail around Jimmy’s waist without noticing and slowly let sleep reclaim him.