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He woke up to sleepy comfort.
It was the type of comfort that weighed deep in your bones, made you warm and huddle further under the covers to keep that warmth to yourself. It almost hurt in a sense, too, because you’ve been laying in that position for so long, but to move meant to let some of the heat escape him, and he would not allow that to happen.
And there was a hand in his brown hair, carding through the stands with a familiar weight, just barely brushing against the feathers on his head wings, a weight he hasn’t felt in a long time. It made him want to curl further into the mattress and disappear.
He was back at the house—how he knew he didn’t know, but it was a funny feeling, like deja vu or nostalgia—wrapped up under a yellow comforter that he had watched with his own eyes be sewn. It was a gift, from a friend, to protect specifically against the cold, despite the fact that he has feathers, because that friend liked to worry, and–
“You’re finally awake,” came a voice he hadn’t heard in ages. He didn’t have to open his eyes to know who it was, nor did he need to look to know he had a smile on his face. He could hear it in his voice, he could hear—“Parrot? Are you awake?”
“Mmm, yeah, Wifies, I’m here.” He still didn’t open his eyes, didn’t want this to be a dream, nor did he want for this to become reality. He had almost half-convinced himself he had traveled back in time, but he had already lived this once and he didn’t think he could survive a second time.
Wifies continued to pet his hair lovingly, fingers sweeping away the hair that had fallen into Parrot’s eyes so his best friend could see when he chose to stop being so sleepy. He gave that airy, nothing-meaning laugh. “You were asleep for a while. Have a nice dream?”
“Yeah, actually. It was pretty nice.”
“You wanna sit up and tell me about it?”
As if to ignore his friend’s question and do the exact opposite of what was asked of him, Parrot turned his face into Wifies’ hip, the rough fabric of his pants scraping at his face but he kept burying his face as if to hide away. Wifies laughed again, and the pets turned into fingernails gently scratching along Parrot’s scalp. It made Parrot want to melt further into the bed, but instead he said “If I tell you the dream, then it won’t come true” with his words muffled into the pantsleg.
A third laugh, but the scratches along his scalp stopped. Instead, Parrot felt Wifies gently tugging on his hair, wanting him to look at Wifies. “Oh, come on, Parrot, surely you don’t believe that.”
Parrot sighed and picked up his head, wishing himself strength before he opened his eyes. Immediately the tell-tall thump thump thump of a tail hitting the mattress was all he needed to confirm that he was looking at Wifies.
And that was Wifies, the Wifies he knew before—before the cold and the cage and the smell of t-n-t. The Wifies with his black hair turning into a gradient gray the longer it grew out, something Parrot always pick on him about being “emo.” The Wifies with the dark brown, folded dog ears that just barely blended in with the rest of his hair. The Wifies and his dark brown eyes that crinkled when he smiled, and the silver lip piercing that made an area of his pale pink lips go white.
(Parrot ignored the fact that the same lip piercing was now resting as a piercing on his own ear, ever since Wifies’ first death when Parrot had searched the house in vain for some sign of comfort and found the discarded piercing on the nightstand beside the bed, the piece of metal as cold as his owner was thought to have been)
“Goodmorning, sleepy head,” Wifies greeted him with a wide smile and Parrot promptly let his head drop back down onto the mattress, Wifies throwing his head back and laughing.
“You’re literally the worst ever, bro.” Parrot groaned, but still moved his head just slightly to peak at Wifies, still recovering from his laugh. Had he always laughed this much? He couldn’t even remember what it sounded like. Was this an accurate echo, or what he wished he sounded like?
“No, I’m not,” Wifies gave that grin full of teeth, sharp canines pointed against the rest. “That goes to Spoke, and whatever the hell’s wrong with Wemmbu.”
“Just throwing shade on everyone,” Parrot said with a shake of his head, playing on disappointment. “Did you sleep well? You seem like you’re in a happy mood.”
And then Wifies gave him this sad look with a short smile and the tilt of his head, like he was about to tell Parrot someone had died but he was trying to be upbeat about it, which… Parrot didn’t really want to think about it. “You were supposed to tell me about your dream.”
“I already told you, bro, I’m not saying jack-diddly ‘cause then it won’t come true.” Parrot bossed back at him, moving to lay on his side instead of his stomach. Normally this was the part where his wings would get tangled in the sheets, but so far he hadn’t had such trouble. Odd.
“Oh, so it had to be an amazing dream then.” Wifies’ fingers were back in his hair, fussing over the fly-aways. He didn’t touch Parrot’s feathers, no matter how close his fingers came to them, just gently brushing through Parrot’s hair.
“Yeah, it… it was an interesting dream, to say the least.”
“What was so interesting about it?”
“Well, like, you know those dreams where it’s just like, really vivid? And then you wake up and you feel like you lived lifetimes and it’s been like a measly four hours. That’s how the dream felt.”
Wifies hummed, removing his hand from Parrot’s hair so that he could sink lower into the bed and lay facing Parrot on his side, his left dog ear turned inside-out. Parrot reached to fix it, letting the appendage fold gently back into place. “So you lived lifetimes in your dream. Were they good lifetimes, bad lifetimes? Did you have adventures, or were they boring? Anyone with you?”
“They were… a mix I would say. Like it wasn’t solely good, but it wasn’t solely bad, either. They were just, lifetimes. I don’t know how else to explain it, bro.”
“So what was your favorite part of the dream?”
This, Parrot fought against saying, because he didn’t want to believe it. Not that this was the favorite part of his dream, but that this was a dream. It had to be a dream, he saw Wifies’ death message on his communicator when he got it back after—“I got to see some old friends—or, well, I got to be reminded of some old friends. Or, well, really just one old friend, I guess. But it was still nice talking–talking with him.”
Wifies gave him that soft, sad smile again, and reached out to take Parrot’s hand in his. “You were my favorite part of my dream, too.”
“Wifies–”
Parrot jolts from his seat, heart jumping up and almost through his throat as he tries to breath and catch his breath again. Heart and lungs, heart and lungs, calm down. He takes a quick glance around his surroundings and realizes that he is sitting in the dark in a quick hidey-hole in a wall or a cave, somewhere that can keep him hidden and safe while he works on a gameplan. Which he needs to do because—
But his bones ache from the attack on Capitol City, from the numerous sleepless nights that lead up to it, from the battle with Saparata for the kingdom, from the consequential escape into exile because of his loss.
Nothing aches worse, however, than the rot he feels in his heart, longing for a bed he will never see again, a comforter and mattress he will never feel again, and a best friend he will never hear again, though he sees and feels his presence all around him.
So Parrot, the exiled king of Unstable, closes his eyes, and wishes to dream again of that house in the snow, though he knows no peace will come to him.