Hatchetfield.

Gotta get an Upgrade.

It was safe to say that Paul Matthews was the oddest guy Emma Perkins had ever dated.

Funny enough, it wasn't even because of who Paul was as a person. On that front she had nothing to say about him. He was a normal guy with a 9 to 5 job who lived in a two-bedroom apartment. He didn't like musicals, did foster a great love for a good glass of whiskey, and he liked watching reality tv since 'it kept him grounded'. They spent their date nights going to movies, eating at their favourite restaurants, and if they were too tired to go out, they simply stayed home and watched whatever was on tv that night. If all else, Emma felt incredibly grounded with him, which was a nice change of pace after having been rootless for the longest amount of time.

The oddity came in with the fact that her boyfriend sort of had wings. As in, wings on his back. Ones that were actually part of his body and that he could probably use if he wanted to.

Now that Emma looked back on it, she couldn't even say that she was necessarily surprised by it at all. She had always been slightly aware that something was off about Paul's posture, but she never really thought about it for too long because why would you worry about something like that in the first few months of dating someone? Then there was the fact that Paul would always look somewhat uncomfortable towards the ending of date nights, which she figured was because he wouldn't have been able to stretch his wings for any period of time if he went to see her straight out of work, and they had never actually spent the night together until he had told her about his secret.
She had initially thought that he was screwing with her when he tried to tell her on one of their nights in, two months into dating her.

"Emma, I really like you, and I really like what we have together. There is something I need to tell you if you too feel like this is something you want to continue." He had said after a while of watching tv together, one of his shows that he had expressed liking a lot. One of those desperate housewives spin-offs that she kind of started to like too. He had paused the show and had turned to face her, a dead serious expression on his face. More serious than he usually looked.

"What? Are you going to tell me that you killed someone, or something?" Emma had joked in response, trying to hide the fact that she was kind of nervous at the sudden statement.

"There is this thing." Paul had said hesitatingly. "It runs in my family. It might be a lot to take in. Do you trust me?"

"Of course I do. Paul, I really like you. Whatever it might be, it will be okay. I trust you."

Emma had laughed with a raised brow when he started unbuttoning his shirt, for a moment truly unable to understand what was going to happen the next moment, but that laugh quickly dropped and was switched out for disbelief when a pair of brown, big wings unfolded from his back.

"What the fuck!?"

After a long talk about why the hell Paul had wings, things continued rather smoothly for the two of them the weeks after. Emma was happy to find that Paul opened up even more to him now that she knew about his biggest secret. Apparently, it was the reason why she had not really come over unless he was able to drop his nephews off with their grandparents. Apparently it was harder and less recommended to hide wings too often for kids as their wings were still developing.

Not to forget that it might be a bit much to introduce the person that you're dating to the two kids you are raising before knowing whether it's actually going anywhere just yet. She had known about them from their first date already, since Paul considered it an important part of his life that he couldn't just forgo ("and it also just felt right to tell." he had added that same night after revealing his wings, which still made her heart flutter a little bit anything she was reminded of it). He had gotten custody over his nephews after their parents had passed away in some kind of accident, and as a result has been acting as their legal guardian ever since they were 3 and 5 years old, respectively.