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It was warm today, but not so much that being outside felt like you were burning. No, warm in the way that the sun was casting a gentle glow over the world, soft and light. Pleasant.
Grian stared out the window, watching Skizz who was currently kneeled over a patch of tomatoes, dutifully tending to them. Grian watched him intently, taking in the slight curve of his back that he was definitely gonna complain about hurting later, and the way his wings were carefully tucked close, keeping any excess dirt from getting on the beautiful white feathers.
“Are we spying on Skizz?” Impulse’s voice sounded from beside him.
Grian jumped, wings flaring out in a sort of defensive panic, he hadn’t heard Impulse come up to him.
Impulse winced slightly, taking a step back, giving him some space, “Sorry, G, didn’t mean to startle you,” he said gently.
Grian took a deep breath, letting his wings settle and letting his puffed out feathers relax. “‘S okay,” he replied. “My fault tunnel visioning so much.”
Impulse frowned slightly at that, but didn’t address it, simply saying, “well I’m sorry anyway, should’ve warned ya,”
Grian just shrugged, looking away.
Impulse turned back to the window, Grian watched his expression shift into something fond and so utterly loving it almost made him want to gag. He looked away, also focusing on the window.
“You never answered my question, y’know,” Impulse hummed, breaking the silence, “were you spying on Skizz?”
Grian couldn’t help the way his cheeks warmed, “maybe,”
Impulse let out a soft chuckle then, and it wasn’t teasing or mean or judgemental, it was just warm.
Warm and genuine and fond.
He saw Impulse turn to look at him from his peripheral, and could make out the slight crease in his brow that Grian knew meant he was thinking.
After a moment he broke into a smile, “wanna go out there and distract him?”
Grian startled slightly, wings twitching as he shifted back, looking over at Impulse, “what?”
Impulse was undeterred, “I don’t know about you, but he seems entirely too focused on those tomato plants, we should do something about it.”
Grian turned to look back at Skizz, who appeared to now be moving on from his tomatoes to what Grian assumed were beets.
“He has been pretty focused on his garden all day,” Grian eventually agreed, casting a sideways glance toward Impulse to gauge his reaction.
Impulse’s smile widened, “exactly!”
Grian offered a timid smile in response, “yeah?”
“Yeah,” Impulse beamed, “you know what that means Grian?”
Grian hesitated slightly, “what does it mean?”
If Impulse was upset that he didn’t know, he didn’t show it, his smile didn’t even falter a little bit, “we gotta go out there and force him to take a break.”
Grian hesitated again, glancing out the window to where Skizz seemed very focused on his work, Grian really didn’t want to upset him by distracting him like that.
“Are you—are you sure he’ll be okay with that?”
Impulse’s smile softened then, to something gentler, not as bright but just as genuine.
“You wanna know a secret about Skizz, Grian?” Impulse said, softly, “for all his life he’s had this tendency to get caught up in things he loves, so much so that he forgets to take care of himself sometimes.”
Grian blinked slowly, “really?”
Impulse nodded, “yeah,”
He looked back to the window, “Is—is that what he’s doing now?”
Instead of answering, Impulse let out a soft hum, “how long have you been spying on him for G, do you know?”
And it was just a question, he was just asking, he wasn’t mad, he wasn’t judging, he was just asking, just seeking information.
Grian blushed anyway, looking anywhere but Impulse, “a few hours.”
“And he’s been there the whole time?”
Grian nodded.
“Then, yeah, that’s exactly what he’s doing.” Impulse sighed, in that fondly resigned way he tended to do with Skizz.
“Y’know, Grian, when we first started living together, and Skizz would get how he does, he asked me something.”
Grian turned to look at Impulse again, curiosity spiking, “what did he ask you?”
“He said,” and Impulse changed his voice then, doing a very poor imitation of Skizz, “Dippledop, if I’m ever caught up like that, I want you to come and annoy me until I take a break.”
And then he changed back into his normal voice and said, “and I said ‘that’s a very dangerous thing to ask me Skizz, I’m gonna take it as a challenge y’know, try to be as annoying as possible’”
“And Skizz said, ‘challenge accepted, Dop! Bring it on.’”
And somehow Impulse’s impression managed to get worse. It managed to get so bad that Grian couldn’t help himself but laugh. He couldn’t help himself but laugh so hard that he had to hold his stomach, that his wings began to shake and he curled them around him the way he did when he was amused.
Impulse narrowed his eyes at him, but he was still smiling, “hey! What’re you laughing at?” his tail shook lazily behind him.
Between gigglings Grian managed to choke out, “you sound—nothing like Skizz.”
Impulse huffed, and if he hadn’t still been wearing that huge smile on his face, it would’ve made Grian nervous, “I’d like to see you do a better one.”
At this point Grian had managed to control his laughter, calming down enough until he was able to breathe again. He stilled, looking Impulse dead in the eye and said, “Wassup, homie-buddy!”
The way Impulse’s jaw dropped was a memory Grian would cherish for the rest of his life.
“Wha—how did you do that!” Impulse exclaimed, “that was exactly like him dude—that’s insane.”
Grian couldn’t help but grin at the praise, he looked away slightly, “bird thing,” he explained, his wings curled close to him then, “raven thing specifically, we can mimic voices and stuff. It's—one of the things I kept even after—everything.”
He couldn’t help how his voice shook.
He saw Impulse come closer to him from his peripheral, heard his footsteps, intentionally loud so that Grian wouldn’t be spooked. A moment later there was a careful hand on his arm, when he didn’t move away it settled there, gentle and comforting.
“I think it's a really neat trick,” Impulse said softly. Grian turned slightly so that he could see him a bit better, and he saw Impulse’s grin grow, “Y’know what would be a really fun way to use it?”
“What?” Grian asked.
Impulse’s smile only widened, “We’ve still got a Skizz to annoy.”
Grian grinned then, and it was small and somewhat fragile but it was real, “he’s gonna freak out.”
“Yeah he is,” Impulse agreed.
“It’s gonna be really funny,” Grian hummed.
“Oh it definitely will be.”
Grian looked back out the window, Skizz was now checking his corn.
His smile grew a little bit bigger, “I think I’m getting bored of spying,”
“Yeah?” Impulse pushed.
Grian’s smile widened even further, “yeah,” he agreed, “let’s go have some fun.”
Impulse beamed.