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Parrot paced around Spawn, heart beating a million times a minute, frantically muttering possible solutions to the mess that was The Wormhole. Now, don’t get him wrong; he loved Spoke, but also despised them for creating this mess and was concerned about them, so as their (older) brother, it was Parrot’s job to make sure Spoke didn't hurt themself or someone else.
He stepped into the Three Heart Trio’s base, and he smiled as they waved at him. He headed up to his room in their base, grabbing a random granola bar and ripping open the package, sighing. He knew that the Three Heart Trio were worried about him. They kept sending him glances when they saw him, concern painted on their faces. They would offer him food, encourage him to take breaks, or even just offer him kind words.
Jaron typically offers him fish or rats that he caught, the latter of which would usually make Parrot laugh a bit, which seems to be a win in Jaron’s book. Planet, even though they were not a very touchy person, would hug Parrot or pat him on the shoulder, offering him eye masks or skincare items (who knew an alien had such extensive knowledge on skincare?), a subtle way of telling him to take a rest. Bacon would always tackle Parrot into a hug, yapping about whatever was happening in or out of the Server, offering him the most insane of snacks that had even Spoke and their friends backing away from Bacon (what the hell was a chili sundae. Just no.).
It was nice of them, truly. The food would help him regain his energy, especially when he forgot to eat or was burning the midnight oil just trying to find his brother, help him, and save the Server. The skincare items helped him to hide the eye bags that could probably carry the entire Server (although he’s pretty sure they still noticed them, just ignored it), and the eye mask actually helped him sleep in the rare times he was not searching for Spoke.
Speaking of which, that was what he was doing right now; searching for Spoke. He had trekked yet another 5000 blocks with literally no signs of Player activity, prompting him to groan. Seriously, it was like he was searching for a player that doesn’t exist.
For some reason, his fingers itched to take the spyglass that was hanging on his belt.
As he was trudging through yet another swamp for some Void-forsaken reason, he heard a noise coming from behind him. His wings twitched, and he immediately grabbed his sword and spun around, settling into an ever-familiar PVP stance. The culprit made themself known, stepping through a portal to step in front of him, smirking as they did so. The rainbow bandanna fluttered in the cool breeze of the swamp, glitches surrounding them. Spoke, his mind supplied, holy shit it’s Spoke.
“Spo-”
“Well, well, well, look who we have here! Is that a little birdy I spy with my little eye?”
Forget what he said, Spoke was dead to him.
Although, as he observed Spoke, alarm bells started to ring in his mind. Firstly, Spoke’s cheeks looked slightly more hollowed out than they had been the last time he saw them, which had been about two weeks ago. Their clothes seemed to be hanging off their frame, and they were rather rugged, like they hadn’t changed them in a while. Their overall frame also looked smaller and thinner, and their eyes sported eye bags mirroring Parrot’s own.
Secondly, the glitches. It was a rule, a warning, that the more you messed with exploits, glitches, all that sort of stuff, your body will be overcome with glitches, similar to what was happening with Ash. And Spoke… they hadn’t really been glitching two weeks ago, only minor lagging of their limbs here and there, but now? One of their eyes looked to be following a pure RGB colour scheme, only red, green, and blue, different from their typical greyish-white hue. Their arm was glitching, occasionally fading in and out of existence, and their form was shifting from having cat ears, to having fox ears, to having a halo, to having wings, and back again. They also looked to be in pain, hunching in on themself, and pretty much just looking like they wanted to break down into tears. Yet despite that, they still stood tall, brave, smirking as they stared at Parrot.
Parrot’s eyes softened, and he lowered his sword, stepping closer to his brother. He made sure to make his movements wide and obvious, so as to not frighten them. “Spoke? Are… are you okay?”
He reached a hand to put on their shoulder, potentially to bring them closer. “I-” Spoke cut themself off to react to the hand, jumping backwards and out of Parrot’s grasp, bravado seemingly having left them. Unfortunately, it seemed even that jump took too much out of them, as they began to cough. Parrot’s heart dropped as he spied splatters of red dotting the ground, as holy shit his sibling was coughing blood.
Parrot ran to Spoke’s side, disregarding Spoke’s earlier action as he wrapped his arm around them, tears springing from their eyes and dropping to the ground in a fashion reminiscent of the droplets of blood they were coughing out (and wasn’t that a disturbing analogy?), coughs racking their small frame as soft sobs and whimpers broke out of their mouth.
Parrot stayed there for a while, just rubbing Spoke’s back, whispering sweet nothings to them that seemed more like reassurances to himself. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the coughing stopped, and Spoke stood back up, much to Parrot’s distress, and he squawked, “Spoke, bro, are you okay?”
They shakily walked a few paces away from him, turning back to look at him with a smile, blood dripping down slightly their mouth onto the ground, pain still evident in their eyes, “Me? I’m fine! I feel like a million bucks!”
“Spoke, you can come to me if anything is wrong-”
“I’m fine Parrot, you needn’t worry, there’s nothing wrong with me! So you don’t have to worry!”
“Spoke please-”
“Parrot-”
“Spoke! I’m just trying to help you, bro! Just listen to me and get some help for once! Stop being so selfish! I don’t want to see you fucking die!”
Spoke stared at him, shocked speechless, hand raised as if wanting to do something, but it dropped down soon enough. Their eyes dulled, as if their whole demeanor had become indifferent.
“I think we’re done here for today.”
“Spoke wait-”
“Goodbye Parrot.”
“Spoke, no-”
“Oh yeah, Parrot?” Spoke turned their head around from where they were making their portal to face Parrot, face blank, “You can’t fix something that can't be fixed.” He stepped through it, as regret pooled in Parrot’s gut. He stared helplessly at the closing portal, the sound of weak coughing resonating through the air until it finally stopped when the portal closed.
The only evidence that Spoke had even been here were the trees glitching slightly and the blood, although the glitching would fade too in a few hours, and all that would be left will be blood that could be practically anyone's. He ran a hand through his hair, his own tears finally falling down his face, mumbling to himself.
“Fuck.”