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4:00 in the morning.
The clock ticked, ticked, ticked. Flapjack watched the second hand take slow, painstaking steps toward the next number with one tired brown eye. Hunter had two hours to get adequate rest until he had to get up for work, meaning Flapjack had that amount of time as well. His previous attempts to sleep were… unsuccessful. But now, Hunter was laying asleep under a tangled mess of blankets, and Flapjack appreciated the silence, however short-lived it may turn out to be.
Tick… tick… tick.
Three more ticks, and Hunter was awake again. He curled in on himself, still resting on his side, bringing his knees up to add pressure on his waist as he began to cough with wracking force. Every movement painted more pain on his tired expression, and Flapjack feared he may start losing air should he fail to stop coughing soon. He let out quiet chirps of concern, which seemed to wake the boy enough for him to tug himself up into a sitting position.
He wrapped his trembling arms around his abdomen as whatever wet, wretched thing festering in his chest rose to his throat in his barrage of choking coughs. It was painful, Flapjack could tell just hearing the fit. It brought fear to his expression, about as much fear as it had the first five times.
Truth is, this wasn’t the first time Hunter’s horrid cough had reared its ugly head that night. Hunter had been in and out of sleep, woken periodically by long bouts of coughing that would last for minutes at a time and took what, hours to recover from enough for him to find the comfort to drift back to sleep. Flapjack had been there with him the whole time. He’d been up worrying about that awful cough, and if ever he managed to somehow fall asleep himself, another fit from his poor, miserable owner would wake him right up and he could do nothing but helplessly watch him ride the misery out.
“Boy okay?” He chirped out, landing in Hunter’s hair, though he knew what Hunter would answer. Some variant of ‘I’m fine’ or ‘I can handle it’. That boy was too stubborn for his own good, and sometimes it made Flapjack just want to tear his own feathers out in frustration. He knew he’d probably regret asking the moment Hunter would answer.
However, Hunter never did. He just offered a weak little smile that did not reach his tired cerise eyes and ruffled the feathers on his head. He laid back down, facing the opposite wall, his breathing laboured and unsteady. He clearly wasn’t taking this as seriously as he needed to, and it made Flapjack’s palisman blood boil with rage.
“Boy, you need to stop being so dumb and get some help,” He chirped vehemently into Hunter’s ear. After a few moments of no response, despite Hunter clearly being awake, he began to get impatient and started to tug at his hairlock, trying to pry him off the bed. “Get help, dammit! You need it!”
“Flapjack, stop, my head hurts,” Hunter whined, and the whimper of pain that surfaced from his throat had Flapjack softening and dropping his hair in one fluid motion. “I can’t get help. There’s no help to get. It’s four in the morning and there’s no one I can go to.”
Flapjack had one idea of someone to go to.
Hunter, however, did not. He turned over a bit, shutting his tired, watering eyes. “Just… let me get some sleep while I still can. I have work in the morning.”
He needed help, he had to have known this, but that stubborn boy wouldn’t even try. Flapjack couldn’t help but wonder how he was still even somewhat sane dealing with an owner this reckless with his health. He wanted to throw himself at the boy and curse and complain, to flap around and tug at his hair until he did something good for himself, but he knew there was nothing to be done.
Although, he knew who could do something.
He was powerless as a little bird, but a witch? An adult witch, no less? Could surely help his poor, miserable owner kick whatever horrid bug was prying him awake. Flapjack just had to find one, and he knew just the witch for the job.
He watched Hunter from his bedside table, waiting until he could hear those broken, wheezy breaths start to even out, before making his move toward the door. He pried it open with his tiny little beak, (the door didn’t latch; Belos specifically did something to it so he couldn’t lock or even fully close it,) and began his journey into the hallways.
~
4:00 in the morning was not Darius’ ideal time for waking up.
In fact, if he could choose, he’d wake up long past noon, when he decided he was good and ready to be up. If only the world worked like that. Regardless, not even the Emperor himself could force him to get up at 4:00 in the morning. For him, he’d wake at 6:00 at the earliest. So who, who on these forsaken isles had the audacity to knock at his door this early?
He didn’t have much time to contemplate this, nor did he need to, because the question was very quickly answered for him by a barrage of frantic tweets. It had him realizing that the knocking wasn’t necessarily knocking, per se, as much as it was pecking. Last Darius remembered, none of his colleagues seemed to be twittering birds, so it could only be one person– or rather, one palisman.
So, with a rather copious amount of reluctance, Darius dragged himself out of bed and over to the door, where he swung it open with perhaps a bit more force than he’d intended.
“What do you want, Bird?” He snarled, keeping his voice low as to not be heard by any unwanted guests. “With all that chirping, you’re going to wake the whole palace up.”
Darius watched with an impassive expression, only moving his gaze to follow the frantic bird as he bobbed up and down with incessant chirps. Clearly, this wasn’t helping either of them, but Darius could not be bothered this early, so he just continued to watch Flapjack’s manic behaviour with weary eyes until he tired out from it.
Flapjack seemed to realize they were getting nowhere, and grew an agitated look, (unbeknownst to Darius at this point, the bird was running on at most 3 hours of inconsecutive sleep), landing on the coven head’s shoulder. Darius said nothing as he studied his movements with lethargy, as if watching them for long enough would lull him back to sleep where he stood.
He was on the verge of giving up and going back to bed when he felt two little taps on his shoulder.
It was, no doubt, the bird’s right foot, his little talons digging lightly into the fabric of Darius’ shirt and he stomped with worried vigor. Immediately, Darius began to share that worry, those two little taps sending a burst of adrenaline through his still sleep-ridden body and switching his entire being into attack mode.
He and the bird did not interact often. But when they did, it was for Hunter’s sake. They didn’t always get along, (it was hard to when one of you could only speak in incoherent chirps,) but they didn’t need to understand each other to know that they held a mutual care for the little prince. They managed to develop some kind of system for makeshift communication: 1 chirp for yes, 2 chirps for no, and 3 chirps for maybe/I don’t know. Finally, two stomps with his right foot meant something was wrong with Hunter.
Those two stomps were always the initiation of a temporary truce between the two.
Regardless of motives, opinions, or any other responsibilities, when it came the time for the two stomps to be posited, the most important thing for both of them was Hunter’s wellbeing. They could disagree however much they wanted, but the mutual concern for the frail and reckless kid would always take precedence over any argument.
When Darius entered Hunter’s room, he was asleep. Curled up under multiple layers of jumbled blankets, with only that little strand of twisted platinum hair poking out from the top. Darius shared a look with Flapjack from the doorway. He seemed peaceful– for the most part, at least– but by now he knew better than to trust appearances when it came to Hunter. The poor kid had been trained his whole life to waltz around like nothing was wrong with him, (Titan, the thought made Darius want to scoop him up and run far away from this castle,) and it wasn’t unusual for him to look well despite suffering internally. Flapjack had no reason to lie about Hunter being unwell, and even if he did, Darius knew better than to take that chance.
He slowly approached the sleeping child, sparing glances with the bird on his shoulder the whole way there. If he really was sick, then he did need sleep, but Darius knew he would not recover solely on naps and needed to be cared for. He just hoped that if he accidentally jostled the little prince from his sleep, he’d be able to return to it when needed.
Prying back the very edges of the blankets just enough to see Hunter’s face, Darius quickly noticed his laboured breathing and pale face slick with sweat and scrunched with discomfort. His heart twisted in his chest as he slipped a hand over his forehead and felt blazing heat, a heat that was unnatural for a little witch like him and covered his palm entirely within seconds.
“He’s so warm,” Darius noted aloud, keeping his voice low to avoid bothering the sleeping prince. He turned back to Flapjack, his indigo brows furrowed with concern. “Has he been sleeping okay?”
Flapjack chirped twice in response. So that was a no. Very not good. Darius could imagine the kid being up at night struggling to stave off his symptoms long enough for sleep to come… thinking about it made his heart break.
Now Darius had to think. The idea of him having trouble sleeping was contradicted by the fact that Hunter was sleeping right in front of him right now. However, if it was true that he was having issues getting to rest, then this would be a moment of relief for the poor boy where he was finally able to sleep after hours of restlessness, which meant he should try to preserve his current state as much as he could. However, Hunter was running one hell of a fever, and what he needed was to get food and potions in him as quickly as they could, as well as an icepack or cold rag if possible. The first required waking him and the second was difficult to achieve without rousing him from his sleep.
Hesitantly, Darius let his hand hover over Hunter’s trembling shoulder. He could hear his wheezing breaths from here, and though they were short and sounded insufficient for his poor lungs, he was probably miles more peaceful asleep than he would be awake. He weighed his options, eventually deciding to continue the slow approach at his shoulder with his hand.
Flapjack chirped two times and attacked Darius’ wrist with two vigorous pecks, causing him to draw his hand back and reroute his next course of action. “No?” He asked the bird, who chirped twice to confirm. “He needs medicine for that fever.”
Flapjack landed on his head, and the results would’ve been disastrous if Darius hadn’t shielded his eyes with his hands from Flapjack’s merciless beak, trying to tell him something in that chirpy birdy language of his. Darius would’ve felt bad for him with how hard he was trying if he wasn’t inherently annoyed that he couldn’t understand him himself.
“Why yes, I do exfoliate,” Darius responded to his incessant chirps pridefully, making light of the situation. There was about a 0.02% chance that Flapjack was actually asking about his skincare routine, but Darius couldn’t say anything coherent to mindless tweeting so he just took the opportunity to boast about his appearance. Classic Darius behaviour.
Flapjack seemed to be very aggravated by this comment, either because he could assume Darius was saying this just to mess with him, (he was,) or because he was upset Darius couldn’t understand him (as if that was his fault.) Unfortunately for the bird, he never seemed to learn, so he just continued to twitter angrily.
“Y’know, I have no idea what you’re saying. I sure hope you aren’t trying to tell me anything important right now. That would suck for you.” Was Darius perhaps being a little cruel? Was he doing this on purpose? That was for him to know. (The answer was yes.) Either way, Flapjack only got angrier and began tugging at his globs of purple abomination hair as if to convey to him that yes, what he was saying was very important.
Darius watched the choleric bird flap away and land on Hunter’s alarm clock, which read, in flashing letters, ‘4:15 am’. Titan, the bird did have a point, he had to admit. Hunter had one hour and 45 minutes left to sleep before he’d be forced to his feet again to do a job he clearly wasn’t well enough for. It’d be best to let him rest as long as he possibly could.
“We still need to get that fever down,” Darius decided. He knew the kid wouldn’t like this– especially so if he were awake at the moment– but he began to peel off layers of blankets that were thick and damp with sweat. He moved slowly and cautiously, hoping the movement wouldn’t wake the prince from his slumber, but lucky for the both of them, Hunter remained asleep (though whether comfortably or not he could not confidently decide).
“Do you think we could manage an icepack without waking him?” He asked the cardinal companion, who responded with three consecutive chirps. “Real helpful, bird.” Well, Hunter had work in the morning– the morning which was growing scarily close– and he was burning up, so he made the executive decision that he had to take some risks. He set Flapjack at Hunter’s bedside with the instructions to ‘stay put and watch him’, and went off to scavenge the healing ward for sick supplies.
There was only so much he could find, but he was happy with the end result. An icepack for his forehead, some potions for his fever, (he’d have him take them when he woke at 6 am,) some water to keep him hydrated, and a granola bar to fill that stomach of his. He also snagged a handful of cough drops that he could maybe have Hunter stuff his pocket with in case he needed them while on the job.
On his way out the door, he found a box of cooling patches. Hunter wore a mask on duty, right? He could stick it on his forehead under there and everyone would be none-the-wiser. Darius collected it and added it to his stash, patting himself on the back for being such a genius.
When he returned, Flapjack was staring down at Hunter with a solemn look. Darius watched him from the doorway. Palismen were known to be close with their owners once they’ve bonded, but Flapjack cared about Hunter to another level. He knew it couldn’t be easy on him to see his owner so unwell.
Flapjack chirped something in concern, and the tone of his chirps made Darius’ heart twist.
That was, until he heard Hunter mumble ‘Don’t swear at me’ under his breath in his sleep.
That was… not what Darius expected to hear. But he held onto the hope that maybe Hunter was talking to someone in his dream and just approached the others with the supplies.
He felt Flapjack’s beady bird eye on him as he set aside all the items he’d gathered, deciding to ignore his gaze in silence for just a bit until Hunter was comfortably settled with the icepack. Then, he returned his attention to the palisman in question. “He’ll be just fine. We’ll take care of him and make sure he doesn’t push himself.”
Flapjack chirped something ambiguous, and Darius didn’t bother even trying to decipher it. It was too early for him to even pick out his tone. The bird was probably insulting him or something.
Then he realized how Flapjack was dragging his gaze. He did look perpetually annoyed 90% of the time, especially when he wasn’t speaking with Hunter, but right now, he just looked… tired. Even Darius could feel a pang of sympathy in his chest for the bird.
“Hey,” He spoke softly, picking Flapjack up in cupped hands. “You haven’t been sleeping either, right? I can’t imagine you were able to with Hunter up all night too. How about you get some rest as well, and I’ll handle the little prince for the time being?”
Flapjack seemed hesitant, but exhaustion seemed to win in the end, because he chirped once and curled up near Hunter’s cheek. Hunter seemed to smile as he nuzzled against his face, a contagious smile that quickly spread to Darius’ face upon seeing the wholesome sight. The two were peaceful, and quiet, and finally getting the rest they deserved.
Darius didn’t always see eye to eye with that bird, but moments like this had him appreciating the fact that Hunter had such a caring friend by his side.