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Cover art made by mee <3
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It had only been a few days since they’d fought LettuceK’s army, since the man himself had been thrown into a prison, and since Parrot had been crowned king. But every minute following has been practically non-stop action. Travelling across the server, building farms, giving speeches; the duties of a king left little room for the duties of care.
Parrot found himself exhausted, tossing and turning as he tried to fall asleep. His mind was constantly thinking, planning ahead for future missions and processing the events of the last week or so. He still hadn’t quite caught up with everything that had happened.
For Pete’s sake, he was king.
He had promised to a server of thousands of people that he would save everyone who spawned in. That he would give them somewhere to live, with food and allies; he’d promised safety.
With this promise had come important tasks. It took almost three full days for Parrot and Theo to kill the withers trapped at spawn. Another eleven were spent farming chickens for their food farms, with 4CVIT and the rest of Redstone Town’s help.
Throughout it all, one question played on Parrot’s mind: what if they- no, what if he failed? What if his promise was nothing but confident words, a plan that would never come to fruition. The idea scared him more than he’d like to admit.
They had only made it back to the castle a few hours ago and after consulting with some other players, him and Theo had tiredly dragged themselves to the king’s room.
When Parrot had first joined the election, Theo had kind of just naturally joined him in his room, and Parrot had never complained. After all, they’d been sharing a living space since Theo saved him from spawn. From the outer walls, he’d followed him all the way to the main living quarters of the castle.
Parrot didn’t mind. Having someone else in the vast room made it feel a little more alive; the floor to ceiling windows with dark drapes and the few lit torches – turned off as Parrot had clambered into bed – were brightly contrasted by Theo’s coloured feathers and bold personality.
He made the space feel more like a home.
Parrot shuffles around once more, turning on his side before promptly rolling back as his wings are crushed beneath him. His head throbbed, his limbs ached and his wings twitched with discomfort. The stupid feathery things itched, partly because of the out of place feathers, but majorly because of the bed he lay on. Whilst it was a perfect mix of soft pillows and a firm mattress – what would be considered an ideal sleeping place for most other species –, the bird in him simply hated it.
With every passing day, he missed the nest he’d made back in Capitol City more and more.
During his previous stays in the castle, the vastness and constant chattering of Parrot’s brain was much less of an issue. Theo’s bad snoring habits tended to distract his mind enough to sleep.
Tonight, however, Theo’s breathing was even, quiet, and the silence of the room was merely filled with the sound of a cool breeze blowing against the windows and occasional rustling from the pair. It was the perfect environment for doubt to fester in his mind.
Doubt in himself and in his own capabilities. Doubt in the people of the server, in their support of his leadership and his ability to protect not only those at spawn, but those thousands upon thousands of blocks away. The worst part was that he began to doubt his own colleagues, his allies. His friends.
Could Fymada really keep up with the influx of new players at Capitol City? Could he truly protect Horace’s builds, or would they be destroyed in due time? Are the players that helped him – Wemmbu, Spoke, Flame, and the people by their sides – even in support of what he plans to do? Or will they turn their backs on him any day now?
Would Theo always be there to give him his vote, or would he eventually lose him too?
He digs his knuckles into his tired eyes, trying to force his thoughts to the depths of his brain.
As he lays there, Parrot falls back to a conversation he had with an old friend. Something about living in the present and not thinking about as many “what-ifs”. It was solid advice. All he had to do was follow it.
If anything, maybe the distraction would help him sleep. He pulls his wings from beneath him and turns onto his side, curling up into a small bird-shaped ball. Parrot takes a deep breath in, holds it for a moment, and lets it out. The exhale comes out louder than intended, his sigh echoing around the quiet room.
It’s not long until Theo pipes up.
“You alright, Parrot?” he whispers into the darkness.
Parrot had assumed his friend was asleep, bundled up in his nest of pillows and blankets on the floor.
“I’m fine,” Parrot whispers, rolling onto his back. “You should be asleep.”
“I could say the same to you.”
A few moments pass without either avian uttering a word. The wind outside picks up, tapping against the glass and drawing creaks from some of the castle’s older foundations.
“Could you just go to bed, please,” Parrot asks, fidgeting with one of his braids. A few strands of hair catch on his abnormally long fingernails.
“Why?” Theo retorts, suspicion clear in his voice.
Parrot hums to himself, shuffling awkwardly in his bed. “Your snoring helps me sleep,” he murmurs.
“What was that? Say that again,” Theo replies. There are sounds of movement and a light pressure to his left pulls on the blankets.
Parrot stares into the darkness. His poor night vision doesn’t help but he can make out a general Theo-like shape leaning against the side of his bed.
“I said, you should start snoring already.”
“What?!” Theo squeaks. Parrot more hears than sees his wings fluff up defensively. “I don’t snore!”
“Uh, yes you do.” Parrot huffs a laugh.
“Nuh-uh!” Theo squawks back indignantly. “And even if I did snore, why would you want me to snore?!”
“Helps me sleep,” he mumbles back, sitting up as the conversation continues. “Just go to bed, man.”
“How in the void does me snoring help you sleep,” Theo hums. “You must just looove the sound of my voice-“
Parrot smacks him over the head with his wing.
“Don’t be stupid, bro.”
“Whatever you say,” Theo teases. The pressure on Parrot’s bed leaves and he hears his friend fall back into his nest.
Parrot stays sitting up, fiddling with his braid once more. Without the weight of his own body on his wings, their passive itch became much more prominent. It was irritating. He flops backwards with an audible thump, his primary feathers twitching. Closing his eyes, he desperately wills sleep to come.
“Parrot?” a voice calls from the floor, tone gentle.
Parrot hums in response.
“Er- sorry if this is too personal or something, but… when was the last time you cleaned your wings?” Theo carefully whispers into the room. The way he asks the question makes it seem as if he’s walking on eggshells.
Parrot doesn’t respond. His face instead flushes in embarrassment.
“I’m not, like, judging you or anything! We’ve been so busy…,” his friend says, rustling in his nest. “When you, uh, hit me, your wing shook out some debris… is it not uncomfortable?”
Theo was an avian himself. He understood exactly how it felt to have things stuck between your feathers. Why wouldn’t he call Parrot out on it?
“…Parrot… if you want, I can help you preen?” Theo’s voice is quiet, tender in the way a parent speaks to their child. He’s being serious, genuinely offering his assistance despite every factor begging him not to. It was too late at night for this, they had been out since dawn and Theo was surely as exhausted as Parrot was. Not to mention the big day ahead of them tomorrow.
Parrot wasn’t sure if he could accept Theo’s offer. Sure, his wings were annoying and all, but he can deal with it. Parrot’s just like that. But man, a nice preening session sure did sound nice right now.
Despite knowing that Theo was perfectly capable of helping, that Parrot could trust him, and his own body begging for Theo’s help, Parrot responds on autopilot.
“You don’t know how,” he whispers.
“I’m sure I could learn,” is what Wifies had replied the first time Parrot had denied his help.
They’d been sitting in Wifies old farmhouse, Parrot in his nest on the floor and Wifies leaning against the headboard of his bed. Parrot had been sorting through his primaries, picking out loose feathers and the various materials that his wings had collected throughout the day.
“It’s a bit more complicated than just reading a book,” Parrot sighs, gesturing towards the book in his friend’s hands. He winces as he fixes a particularly twisted barbule.
“Can’t you teach me?” Wifies whines, abandoning the book he was reading in favour of watching Parrot work. He lies down on the bed, head resting on his arms.
“Teaching you? No thanks,” Parrot replies, laughing when Wifies pulls at his hair.
“Rude,” Wifies whispers without any real anger. He begins playing with Parrot’s hair, separating it and twisting it into two neat braids. They sat neatly on his shoulders.
This quickly became a sort of routine for the pair. Parrot would preen his wings, and Wifies would watch, oftentimes reading and sometimes re-braiding his friend’s hair.
When they picked Dean up from the End, he had been – naturally – confused by this.
“So... you just watch him?” he’d asked Wifies, lying on his back and tipping his head over the edge of his bed. Parrot could feel him staring.
“Yep.”
“…Wouldn’t it be faster if we helped?” he’d questioned, gesturing towards Parrot and the slow pace at which he picked through his feathers.
“Parrot doesn’t want us too,” Wifies offered easily.
“Riiiiight.” Dean’s eyes track a loose feather that Parrot pulls from his plumage. The avian places it on top of the ever-growing pile of feathers at his side. Dean leans forward, slipping off the bed and landing with a thump beside Parrot. Brushing off Wifies’ laughter with a grumble, he picks up the feather and twirls it between his fingers.
“Wait- Dean, you can’t touch that,” Wifies says, frantically tapping on the others shoulder. He glances at Parrot, the other completely absorbed in combing through a spot that was particular hard to reach.
“Why not?” Dean asks, squinting at him. He turns to Parrot. “Oi, Parrot, can I keep this?”
“Hm? Sure,” Parrot replies before resuming his preening efforts.
Dean throws Wifies a shit-eating grin, grabbing a handful of feathers and tucking them into his pocket. Despite his mockery, he hands some to Wifies too, who promptly buries them in his tail fur.
It wasn’t that Parrot didn’t appreciate his friend’s offers, or that he didn’t trust them to do a good job. Preening just felt oddly personal. It was something he’d done by himself for a long, long time.
“Huuhhh? Parrot, I also have wings, dude. I know how to preen,” Theo replies. Parrot can feel the other’s eyebrow raise without even seeing it.
“It just- it feels too personal,” Parrot mumbles, dragging his hands down his face. “It’s like- it should be a close friend only thing.”
“That’s fair, I guess,” Theo hums from the floor. “Are we not close friends?”
“You’re my best friend, Theo.”
“And you trust me, right?” Theo asks softly.
“Of course.”
“…And you know I’m a bird, yeah?”
“…Duh.”
“And-“
“What are you getting at?” Parrot cuts him off, pulling himself upright and staring at Theo’s shadowy figure. He tries to ignore the uncomfortable itch that follows, stalking him like a predator does prey.
“What reason do you have for saying no?” Theo asks bluntly. As he speaks, a lantern flickers from the bedside, illuminating Theo’s familiar face.
Parrot stares at him, searching his eyes for something to distrust, something to give him grounds on which to reject the offer. His wings twitch behind him. The idea of having to comb through his feathers himself eventually pushed him to join Theo in his floor-nest. At least this way, he didn’t have to do it. Even if it felt a little strange.
Theo didn’t say a word, waiting patiently as Parrot fluffs up his wings and gets comfortable. He pulls a pillow to his chest and, after a moment, pushes a wing in Theo’s direction. With careful fingers, Theo starts to work, running his hands along Parrot’s feathers to loosen debris, leaves and the many other things that had gotten stuck between them.
Parrot lets out a deep sigh when Theo pulls a particularly large chunk of dirt from his feathers, a flush quickly appearing on his face. Theo’s unable to hold back a soft giggle at the other’s reaction.
As his friend works, Parrot resumes fiddling with the braids in his hair. He pulls at the chunk of goat horn holding one of them together, before carefully unwrapping the braid. He twirls the hair around and around his fingers until slipping the horn back on. The braid was messy and loose, as they always have been since Wifies’ died, his fingers not yet used to the motions.
He fixes his other braid too, securing the small ying-yang hair tie around the base. Satisfied with his hair, he blinks sleepily at Theo’s progress. His friend was still on the same wing. Having picked out as much debris as he could, Theo had moved on to realigning Parrot’s feathers, carefully smoothing them into place.
Parrot glances at the messy pile of material Theo had built on a book. It was a little embarrassing. I really let my wings get this bad? he thought to himself, anxiously digging his fingernails into his palms. But, in his defence, the last few weeks had been so chaotic, there really hadn’t been enough time for a proper cleaning session.
He sighs, clasping and unclasping his hands.
“All good?” Theo asks, his fingers hovering over an out of place feather.
When Parrot looks up at him, he sees the same tiredness reflected in the other’s eyes.
“Parrot?” his friend tries again, tapping softly against his wing.
“Mm- yeah, I’m fine,” Parrot hums, resting his head on his hands and watching Theo continue to comb through his primaries. His other hand twitched, aching for something to do. Eventually, he starts drumming a made up tune on his leg.
Not long after, Theo releases Parrot’s wing with a click of his tongue, gesturing towards Parrot’s other wing. At this point, Parrot had fallen into a daze, his eyes slipping shut every minute or so. It took him a moment to register what Theo was asking for.
“Do you wanna turn around? Or lay down?” Theo asks, rubbing at his eyes with his knuckles. He watches carefully as Parrot rotates himself.
“No, this is okay,” Parrot replies, pulling his knees up and hugging the pillow to his chest. He was getting incredibly sleepy, but Theo clearly wanted to finish the job he had started. The difference between his now clean wing and the other made the itchiness increase tenfold, and Parrot would’ve been crazy to reject his help now. “Just- er, need something to do,” he mumbles, squeezing his knees.
“Hmm,” Theo hums, tapping his chin. “Oh! I guess you could preen my wings. They need to be cleaned.”
Parrot simply nods, shuffling closer to his friend. He drapes his wing over Theo’s lap before running his hands along the grey and white feathers presented to him. They were soft – way softer than his – and he noted how Theo’s primaries were shorter than Parrot’s own. He suppose it was kind of a given considering that Parrot’s wings were larger in general.
Parrot found himself enjoying the motion as he picked out small pieces of fluff from Theo’s wings. The same attention being given to his own feathers melded into a relaxing give and take, lulling him into an even sleepier state. Theo’s wings were already clean – Parrot had known that from the moment the other bird had offered them – so Parrot didn’t feel too bad when his eyes began to slip shut and his hands stilled.
What he did feel bad for was falling completely asleep, waking up to Theo gently shaking him and calling his name.
He was curled up next to the other, his wing still in Theo’s lap but no longer being preened. As Parrot woke up, he realised that it was no longer itchy either, freed of the grime in his plumage and pesky unaligned feathers. One of Theo’s wings rested on his side, acting like a blanket.
“’m sorry,” Parrot starts, pulling himself into a sitting position. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”
“All good, buddy,” Theo smiles, petting his head. Parrot narrows his eyes at him for that. “I just need to throw this away,” he says, gesturing to the pile beside him.
“Yeah, okay,” Parrot replies, moving to stand up and head back to his bed.
“You can stay there, Parrot,” Theo calls over his shoulder as he walks to the other side of the room. “I don’t mind sharing.”
“But-“
“That bed isn’t comfortable, is it?” Theo asks, putting his hands on his hips. “I’ll see if we can have it removed. We can make a big nest in here instead!”
Parrot blinks at him, standing in Theo’s nest with a pillow still in his clutches.
“You sure?” Parrot asks, not necessarily because he doesn’t believe Theo, but because he simply can’t believe what he’s hearing. Not only did he get to sleep in a nest again, but with a friend? It had been a while since he slept with someone else.
“Of course, my friend,” Theo hums, shutting off the lantern and plunging the pair into darkness. “It’ll be like a sleepover. It just lasts a week instead! A weekover!”
“Sounds fun.” Parrot huffs a laugh to himself. Parrot joins Theo as the other makes himself comfy in the nest, settling on a spot far enough away to avoid awkwardness, but not enough to forget his friend’s presence. A few moments of quiet follow before he speaks up again. “Er- Theo?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you,” Parrot says, curling deeper into the blankets and pillows.
His eyes almost immediately close, eyelids forced down by exhaustion. A yawn shakes through him, reaching right to the tips of his wings. Nests are so much comfier, he thinks to himself, letting his wing stretch out over Theo.
“No problem. Goodnight, Parrot,” Theo murmurs, his voice already thick with sleep. The tip of a wing rests on Parrot’s side.
It wasn’t long until snores drowned out the silence of the king’s room. A distant thought reminded him of the busy day ahead, but instead of acknowledging it, Parrot buried himself further into the nest, enjoying the temporary reprise and the feeling of oh so clean wings.
“Goodnight, Theo.”