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If nomative determinism was real, the first thing that Grian would do is shut off the sun. Forever.
He had awoken to its prying fingers well before any parrot should ever be allowed, and when he did, the first thing he felt was an unabated nausea. His stomach ached fiercely, and there were spots in his eyes that felt far too permanent, and although his throat ached he felt that if he were to cough, he would need to get a new carpet entirely.
Grian forced his head off of his pillow, and his body off of his bed, and he regretted both instantly.
This was an awful way to start a Sunday. There should be laws against it.
As Grian dragged his sleeping bones to his bathroom, with a hand slapped tight to his mouth, he wished that he had harnessed his permit office powers with far less inhibition.
Things to consider.
Grian let himself slide down against his wall until he reached the floor, and threw himself over his toilet. He coughed as intensely as he could until he was unable to any longer, and then he let himself flop flat against the floor. His wings itched, loathing any hint of being tied down, and so he haphazardly rolled himself onto his stomach. It was the right call, because the feeling of his cheek against the floor tile was heavenly. He hadn’t realized that he was sweating.
Those moments of reprieve allowed for the deeper sort of contemplation. Grian wondered why his tongue was so heavy in his mouth. Also his mouth tasted awful. In fact, this whole room felt awful; the air was too heavy and stale, and it was making him way too warm, and the stupid sun was in his eyes again, but his body was too heavy to close the stupid curtain he had installed because stupid Scar said he needed some stupid natural lighting to add stupid whimsy.
Grian hated Scar, Grian hated the sun, and Grian hated fate for cursing him to this eternity of moderate-to-severe discomfort. He closed his eyes.
“Grian? You awake?” The voice was gentle on his ears, quieted by distance.
He opened his eyes.
There was someone in his house. Why hadn’t he heard the door open? He had built it to squeal.
He knows- he knows that he isn’t there any more. He knows that they aren’t coming to hurt him, but now he just looks like a terrible host. This wouldn’t do.
Grian attempted to push himself up from his cool oasis, and immediately received a good knock on the chin. On second thought, this wasn’t his fault at all. How could it be, when the intruder had entered his home at Gods know when in the morning? How could they have expected gold star service from a partied out bird? Grian closed his eyes.
Grian heard heavy steps climb up his stairs. The voice was male and slightly raspy, and they clearly spoke with very poor grammar. Grian could not for the life of him identify who it was– had he slept himself into a new season, was this his first time meeting a new hermit? Grian didn’t remember having a vote. He’s beginning to question how Xisuma defines ‘democracy’
“Come on man, there’s literally no way that you’re already out working on your base. Where are you?”
Grian grimaced. He could easily be up and out at this time if he wanted, he just didn’t have any need to! He was plenty motivated without drudging out of bed at dawn like Etho or Tango. There was no way that either of them actually enjoyed that schedule. Grian liked how Etho sounded when he bragged about stupid things.
The steps were getting closer. Were they in his bedroom? Grian really hadn’t cleaned. He was beginning to hate this guest, too.
He heard the man pause, and then mutter something to himself. Grian hadn’t lost his knack for spy work! Someone knocked on his door.
“Are you alright, Gri?”
And now his not-guest was questioning his well-being. This could not stand. Time to craft a scathing remark to make his opponent regret their indecency.
“ ‘m great, thanks.”
Grian’s throat was on fire, and the coughing hadn’t done him any favours at all. He had lost his battle of the wits, this was the end of days. Why had the world blighted him so? Had he not replanted all of his crops, bonemealed his land profusely? Had his fishing disrupted or axolotl farming disrupted the natural way of things so severely?
“You have food poisoning.”
What?
“What?”
The voice sighed. It was kind of soothing, actually, like the no-longer cool floor had been against his cheek. He didn’t mind the noise as much, any more, as long as it was this voice making it.
“Look, it’s a long story, but I need to check on you first. Can I come in, please?”
Grian nodded against the floor.
“Grian?”
Right. Voices. Grian didn’t like his voice right now. It was too rough, and not in the lovely raspy way of the one behind the door. Also it hurt. But the man had said please, and it was only polite.
“C’me in”.
The door opened. Grian hissed as sunlight filtered into the room behind his eyelids. Stupid natural lighting.
“Woah.”
The voice was closer now, almost on top of him. The sunlight was bad, but Grian was curious as all voids, and a little discomfort was probably worth it. He peeled his eyes open.
The man above him was tall, probably taller than him. His skin was a pale almost-white and his hair was only a few shades off, with fluffy ears that poked out at the sides of his head. He was wearing black cargo pants and a dark green bomber jacket, and Grian was drawn up to his eyes. His left eye was so deeply brown that it was almost black, and the parrot knew that on very rare, very beautiful occasions, it was possible to make it sparkle. His right eye was red, and surrounded by a thick pink scar that trailed down beneath his mask. This was the handsomest man that Grian had ever seen, and his name was Etho.
From the upward angle, Grian was reminded of his position. He struggled slowly to his knees, and out of the corner of his eyes he saw Etho kneel down to help him. He turned fully to the arctic fox hybrid, and realized that he hadn’t said a word. The man looked concerned.
“Break into peoples’ houses often, then?”
Grian’s head hurt, and his tongue was still heavy. Etho’s eyes looked a bit less tight.
“Only when they’re on death’s doorstep”
Indignation rose in his throat. “Now that’s not-”
Grian took stock of himself. He was in his pajamas: A Mumbo for Mayor shirt and soft black sweatpants. He noted that his shirt still had a stain on it from last week’s beef stew. His wings were itchy, but not more than usual by a few weeks after a preen– he would get to it eventually. His skin was a bit paler than usual, and he noticed with a bit of a start that he couldn’t stop his hands from shaking. That wouldn’t do for building. Grian caught sight of himself in his angled mirror. His hair was a mess, and his eyes looked more like sockets, frankly more than when they actually had been. Glamour was meant to be much more effective in terms of appearance enhancement, but perhaps the magic became slightly wonkier with illness. The parrot couldn’t blame it.
“It’s w’rse than it looks.” His words were awkwardly slurred. Gods, why were tongues just so heavy?
Etho laughed at that. He sounded like the windchimes on the porch of a family home.
“It looks pretty bad, dude.”
Grian wouldn’t dignify that with a response. Etho continued to stare at Grian, expectantly. Grian stared back. Brown and red were no match for Grian’s deep black, and eventually the fox relented. Grian watched as Etho’s eyes traced his face, his neck, his wings, his face. He coughed.
“Look, the floor can’t be nice, so how about we get you back to bed?” He almost sounded like he was pleading. Good, he knows his place.
He hadn’t been wrong, though. With the sun filtering in more intently, the floor had become less of a cool safe haven and more of a method to permanently indent his stomach and knees with hexagons. Not that that was a net negative, Grian thought. Tattoos are pretty sick. But the bed would be so nice on his bones, and he could force his discomfort out into the squeeze of a pillow, and, best of all, he could finally go back to sleep. Gods damnit, if Grian played his cards right, this could be the operation of a lifetime! For it to come together, though:
“I need a bucket.”
The white fox smiled, and moved towards him. Grian felt as if he might tip over, but fought the urge as he realized that he would only land in Etho’s arms. Etho was right in front of him now, and he looked nervous to move, like Grian was something that could be broken, like he was something that should be protected. He shifted his weight, hoping that his rescuer would take it as permission. Etho weaved his arms beneath Grian’s, and braced his back. The two stood together, slowly, as Grian’s world spun. The parrot leaned all of his weight into the fox.
“That can be arranged.”
Etho walked Grian back to his bed, and Grian felt the heat rise to his cheeks as he actually took in the state of things. His blankets and sheets were twisted like ropes, his clothes were scattered freely, covering every surface in sight, and his golden carrots had fallen loose from their bag, and were now almost certainly a tripping hazard.
“S’rry about this, Etho.”
The man in question stilled as they approached the bed. Grian worried, for a moment, about what Etho was thinking. Grian was such a wreck, and now he’d pulled a close friend in as collateral. This was no way to spend a morning. This was no way for Etho to see Grian.
Etho lowered Grian gently onto the side of his bed, sitting up with his feet planted firmly against the floor. It was nice, almost grounding. Feeling a frustrating combination of both nausea and shame, Grian forced his eyes to the floor.
“You don’t need to apologize, Grian. I want to be here.” He watched the man move out of his line of sight, and listened to him shuffle around his room. He felt his bed shift beneath him.
“H’w did you know that I was..?” Grian felt the bile rise again in his throat. Gods above, this sucked.
“X put out an announcement about an hour ago. The brownies that Tango brought to the meeting last night had glowstone dust in them.”
Tango was officially on the hate list. Glowstone dust is a revered thickener and sweetener in the baking world, and it is safe to consume for almost all species and hybrids, but it is also famously toxic to the overworld’s passive land hybrids, of which there are many on Hermitcraft. The man was absolutely mad.
Grian let out an inadvertent chirp, one not to be repeated in polite company. Etho got the message.
“I know. When you get it all out of your system, I’ll help you get your revenge, alright?”
That was satisfactory. This had the potential to be very, very fun. Recovery would be deeply monotonous, but it could give him the perfect chance to scheme. Grian lifted his head, watching the wind dance through the tree outside of his window.
“How long will it take?”
He heard Etho stop moving. He seemed to be thinking very hard to give a reasoned answer.
“How many brownies did you eat?”
Grian tried to count, he did, but– look, they had been talking about bonemealing protocols, and it had been taking so long, and Cub wouldn’t stop spewing scientific jargon, and the brownies had been right beside him.
“Ten? Twelve?”
The exasperation in Etho’s sighed response was almost strong enough to rival the ‘breaks are a mandatory part of server life’ speech from Xisuma that Grian had been privy to in season seven.
Grian heard two twin thumping noises behind him, before the fox spoke again.
“Dude, you had to know that was a terrible idea.”
“But the meeting was so long, Etho! And it was so pointless, Etho! I needed some sort of entertainment!”
Etho laughed again. Grian liked that sound quite a bit.
“Well, this is your reward! Here, you can lie down now.”
He sounded closer now, and Grian, who had been very enraptured by the way that two squirrels chased each other up the tree, shifted his focus to his bed.
His previously twisted sheets had been smoothed and tucked tightly into the frame. His comforter had been readjusted, and his pillows had been fluffed. Beside him, the corner of the bed was pulled open, as if to invite him inside. Grian felt something warm in his chest. He couldn’t remember the last time that someone had gone to such an effort for him. He tried to shift his legs onto the bed. A wave of exhaustion rolled through him at once.
“Etho, my legs ‘re too heavy.”
Grian tried to make himself sound as pitiful as possible, which wasn’t all too difficult, because he certainly felt the part. He watched as Etho seemed to have an internal debate, one which Grian was both too emotionally unintelligent and terribly ill to dissect. Etho’s shoulders softened, and he made his way over. He slotted his arms beneath Grian’s knees gently, just as he’d done on the bathroom floor, and lifted Grian onto his bed. He acted like Grian weighed nothing. Grian also decided not to dissect that one.
Grian began to worm his way onto his pillow, but Etho went a step further– he helped Grian adjust himself so that he was sat up in his bed, with a pillow in between himself and the headboard. The fox slotted two pillows behind the parrot’s wings with a silent speed.
His hands then began to move down to Grian’s sides before they stopped. They hovered awkwardly in the air, just above Grian’s hips, and the parrot let his eyes trace slowly from the man’s arms, to his shoulders, to his neck, to his face. There was a new redness in Etho’s cheeks, that seemed as incredibly out of place as it did utterly adorable.
He stared for just a moment too long before he met the other’s eyes.
Oh.
Etho had been staring at him, too.
“Are you-” The parrot began with a hum.
“Do you-” The fox started, unsure.
“You can go ahead.”
Etho took a moment with his words. Grian knew that they didn't always come easy to the redstoner, who much preferred his shadowed watching to any human interaction. The avian understood the appeal, but Etho’s nature always made these sorts of moments feel somewhat rare, or special. Like they had been saved just for him. But that was-
“When I feel sick, I like to have pressure all around me, bundling me in. It helps me feel more secure, and a bit less like I’m going to puke.”
That was unexpected, but sweet. It was nice of Etho to think of Grian, but it also almost sounded like:
“Etho, are you asking to tuck me in?”
“Well when you phrase it like that-”
He began to withdraw his hands, and Grian suddenly felt a rush of cold.
“No!”
Etho stopped, arms tight. Grian tried to convince himself that this was the sick-brain talking. He didn’t want to have to ask, especially not now that he had finally begun to feel awake. But Etho was a good friend, (that’s all that he was) and he wouldn’t move if Grian didn’t make his feelings clear.
“You can do it.”
Etho was far too expressive to be the mystery man that he’d once played in Grian’s mind. The parrot watched as surprise scrunched up his face again, and his eyebrows screwed up, before all of that nervous emotion was released into something like relief.
Etho didn’t reply, but, with a speed and grace only mastered by years of toying with something as fickle as redstone, he pressed the layers of blankets and sheets tight to Grian’s person, hands trailing down his legs to his feet, before he finally looked up and met Grian’s eyes once more.
“That good?” Etho was not very skilled at sounding casual. Grian couldn’t have been more grateful. He’d never met someone as observant as Etho, someone who revelled in the sidelines quite like him. The man was so unique, and so kind, and those facts barely numbered within the reasons why Grian had fallen so deeply for him.
But that was years ago, and Grian knew that the man would never feel the same, and that was perfectly fine.
“Grian?”
Grian had been staring. He flicked his gaze down to the edge of his blanket, which Cleo had claimed would have a thread count of 400, but which now looked suspiciously sparse. It was perfect, but he couldn’t say that – the redstoner had enough of an ego as it was.
“It’s nice. Thank you.”
Grian flicked his eyes back to Etho.
“For all of this.”
The man looked softer than Grian had seen him before, waiting at the edge of his bed. He realized, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he had never seen Etho with messy hair before. It weirdly suited him. The man moved a hand towards him, and then pulled it back.
The two let the silence wash over them. It was warm and calm, and only slightly awkward. Grian listened to the sound of Etho’s tail swaying against his legs. It was like a metronome.
“But” the fox began “That’s not all. I don’t really have anything that I need to get done today, and like half of the server is out of commission dealing with the brownie crisis, so, if it works for you, I’m alright to stay and hang out for a bit?” His voice pitched up uneasily. “Think of me like a pickaxe. I can do whatever needs to be done around here, to make sure that you get back into the swing of things as soon as possible.”
That sounded nice. Really, really nice. Grian knew that it was selfish to ask it of a friend, but he was sick, and he was tired, and he didn’t really want to feel either of those things alone. Plus, the arctic fox was always so busy. He had to snatch up whatever Etho time he could.
“That sounds.. really good. Thank you, Etho.”
The man stepped from his bed with a smile.
“First order of business, do you still want that bucket?”
As if summoned by Etho’s concern, Grian felt his stomach churn and his throat tighten anew. Grian pushed himself back into his pillows with a groan.
“Yes! Hurry, please!”
The fox’s previously calm gait was immediately strung high. He moved quickly to the door, and Grian found a bit of comfort in the other man’s jitters.
As Grian let his muscles loosen, staring up at the wood paneling on his ceiling, he felt like today might not be so horrid after all. He felt the sun begin to prod at his peace once more. This would absolutely not do.
“Etho! Get back here! The curtains, Etho!”
He heard the steps on his staircase stop, he heard fabric shift, and then he heard the steps approach, faster than they'd left.
Today would be nice, indeed.