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“Good morning, Parrot.”
Wifies crawled halfway across to the other wall, then stopped, pulling his legs in and crossing them. It was good to move his joints. And he liked to put some distance between where he slept and where he spent his day.
Parrot was on the other side, because he slept over there, as far away from Wifies as he could get. The felt feathers looked an awful lot cleaner than Wifies felt, which would save him having to clean them, since the stitches were always so much harder to properly clean than real wings had been.
Wifies would never turn down a chance to tell Parrot how perfect he was. How Wifies would never resent him, for being dead. How it was enough, more than enough, for him to sit here, and talk to his best friend, company enough of a comfort through the monotony.
Even if it was just beady eyes gazing back at him, sightless. There were equivalents of him, out there somewhere, in case anyone wanted to see what he looked like before coming to see him perform.
Not that Wifies performed anymore. Not after Parrot. He was discarded, sitting in this tiny room with the toy of his best friend his only company, deemed used up and only maintained because it was a waste, to kill off a cute human.
They’d wasted Parrot. Parrot had been wasted on Wifies, who would trade their lives in a heartbeat.
Then again, perhaps it would be a worse torture, for Parrot to sit it here in utter silence and wait for someone to take an interest. Not that they ever would. Wifies knew how he looked, cagey, traumatised, violent and unlikeable. Humans were hard to tame, and for all the fans who would coo over him, he’d hardly been popular. More trouble than he was worth, now he was deemed broken, insane, unstable.
Wifies poked Parrot’s forehead, waiting in unending boredom for some reply. Waiting for the impossible.
——————
“Ken…”
“I’m busy.”
“Ken. This is a good one.”
“I’m about to have a good idea. Don’t disturb a genius at work.”
“The good idea is a colour-keypad, make the colours something it can’t see. You want to make it species-specific so it’ll be noticed.”
“…fine. What?”
“You wanted a new human, right?”
“Yeah. These are dull, and I’m bored of them. No one’s commissioned me in half a year.”
“Found one.”
“Wato1876, being useful?”
“I know, colour me stunned. No, but they’re pretty.”
“Huh.”
“I can pay.”
“Like hell you are.”
“So that’s a yes from you?”
“Yeah. Sure. Whatever.”
“Great. Your name’s going on the adoption form, they don’t like hearing from me.”
“Hey- Wato! They like me even less!”
——————
Those were voices.
His room was pure, blank, plastic that hurt to smash his head into and edges that were folded outwards so he couldn’t cut himself, white. There was no way for Wifies to see who or what or where it was.
But he’d learnt what qualified as voices, and what was voiceless snarling. Perhaps it was something that could see through the walls of his room. Wifies did have to wonder, in what ways he was limited by his humanity.
He was limited by mortality. Even if people didn’t die—because Parrot was in the corner, watching him, and their heartbeats were one—Wifies had a timer. He didn’t know how long it was. He didn’t know how long it had been.
He could be about to die. Any day now, tick it down, and then he and Parrot could be together again. Wifies imagined that was why his room was so unmarked. He’d tried to kill himself, before, and he could only imagine he was worth something, to someone.
Or humans were just protected.
Wifies blinked, and he was out of his room, handled by something far larger than him he’d learnt to go limp for. Limp, and curled around his Parrot, hugged close to his chest, where he could breathe ragged life into it.
Being in the air always scared him. Wifies never knew how far the fall would be.
Thankfully, he was set down quickly, in a flat surface indistinguishable from the floor of his room, except there were no walls. Outside of his room, Wifies was remembering cognition. The necessity of thinking about things, more than just Parrot and the colour of the walls and killing himself.
It was a trained instinct, to think. That was what he’d been good for, back when he’d been good for anything. He’d only ever been wanted, when he’d been with Parrot. Without Parrof, Wifies was nothing, and whoever used to care about him agreed.
Wifies would have happily been nothing, if it meant Parrot could have still been more than a figment of his imagination.
“-difficult.”
Yeah. That was him. Wifies rolled onto his back, tilting his head back and away from the glaring lights to try to get a look at something.
He was difficult. Not from stupidity, although perhaps that was a very humanist way of looking at it. Perhaps his difficulty with obedience was the clearest example of idiocy, to aliens.
Wifies just hadn’t found someone who his Parrot told him he should listen to.
Parrot was here, now, a gentle weight on his chest and a smudge of colour in the corner of his vision, as Wifies squinted. He asked, in that language only he and Parrot knew, made of breaths and heartbeats Wifies shared with his best friend, if this was safe. Was going to end well. Would mean anything for him, when nothing had changed in so long he wondered if he was rotting.
Did humans rot? Or did they crumble? Perhaps they melted. Wifies wouldn’t know. He’d hardly seen another of his, much less one dead, because Parrot wasn’t dead, so he was still waiting to see a human corpse. Shame he’d never be able to see his own.
White met white in the hard edges of his vision, and glowing eyes met his, and Wifies…
Flinched. Hard.
Orange and green weren’t human colours of eyes. Wifies would know, he didn’t know what colour his own were, but Parrot’s had ben a light brown-grey and Parrot had been a perfect, normal human. Much less shining, radiating a gentle, smoky glow, and besides, they weren’t even irises. Their whole eye was one colour, with a dot of black in the centre.
It smiled. Teeth, lips, those were somewhat-human things. Better than the green fur Wifies couldn’t quite look at.
“…Hello.” Wifies spoke softly, unsure what volumes his handlers could hear. If he should let them hear him, or not. He hadn’t paid much attention, until now, and suddenly, doing things right felt important again. “Sorry.”
For taking an interest in him. For the problem he was about to be. For disturbing them at all, his clubs human tongue mangling the language he sometimes managed to think in, and sometimes dissolved into something that sounded like music dragged through a mesh of sandpaper, mulched and reconstituted in a different octave.
Its smile stayed, unspeaking, and Wifies wasn’t sure if they were smiling, actually. He didn’t know what happy looked like. Maybe they were frowning, that was in the eyebrows, he was sure. Parrot’s had been threaded with feathers, the needle poking under his skin while Wifies had sat at his knee and watched his stylist work.
It wasn’t a human hand, that pulled through his hair, but Wifies lapsed into it anyway, making a soft, purring sound he’d been told made him sound non-threatening.
——————
They were trying to feed him acid.
They; Wato. The one mostly made of fur. Trying; forcing, Wifies wasn’t about to have a choice, but he was arguing, anyway. Feed; sort of, apparently the administration didn’t really matter, and Ken had been suggesting injecting it, while xe petted Wifies’s hair. Acid; it looked like acid. Wifies was still working on that bit.
“Its just yoghurt.” Wato was pleading, just a little. Wifies may not be good at emotions, but he could recognise that one, and he could recognise yoghurt as meant to have an opaque, mostly matte finish. “Nutrients. Because whatever they were feeding you, Ken wouldn’t feed it to zier larvae.”
“Not my larvae. The ones I bought.” Ken’s cybernetic claws dragged backwards through Wifies’s curls again, lingering on yet another knot aer had found. “Wato, don’t scare him.”
Wifies fidgeted, but Ken had something around his waist, something with the same shiny-black coating and silver ball bearings as xier claws and legs and chest. It was like an elaborate shuttleseat-belt, and Ken had let Wifies hold his plushie in it, too. Just a plushie. Wato had looked frightened, as much as Wifies could decipher their expressions, when Wifies had asked where Parrot could sleep.
But Ken had understood. And ze’d told him it was just a plushie, but Wifies had dug his heels in, now, and he wasn’t going to upset Parrot.
Wato had looked at it, and said they had one. Wife’s had hissed, communicating as best he was able that this one was his, and he didn’t care if Wato had once cared about Parrot, before Parrot had-
After that, Wifies had been quiet, barely even growling, even now he was staring down what his head was firming convincing him was acid, somehow not melting off the spoon.
“He needs to eat. Humans- do need to eat? They sure don’t photosynthesise.”
“This one doesn’t.” With a scientific sort of curiosity, Ken probed down his wrist, hanging limp somewhere near his lap, and pressed down on Wifies’s pale skin, just to watch it blanch, then turn redder. “Did they ever take you outside?”
Whining, softly, Wifies dragged his wrist back. He didn’t love Ken touching that. It was nice, of course it was nice, no one had ever touched him with any intention of anything other than being nice, making him look nice and play nice and perform nicely. But it felt weird, and he wanted to be cautious, if these were new handlers.
“He can understand us, right?” Ken’s digits withdrew, silver ball bearings folding in on themselves and tapping lightly against Wifies’s hip where they rested. “It said he spoke Standard.”
“They have to.” Wato was giving up on the acid-jelly, but hadn’t quite resigned themselves to putting it down yet. “On stage.”
“They could have just taught him to say that.”
“Ask?”
“Wifies?”
Ken said his name like a dog. Wifies had seen one of those, messy and drooling and overaffectionate with Parrot. It had upset him, but the handler had called it back with that sharp coo, slicing through the air to tunnel into his awareness.
He raised his head, to tilt it back and around to catch a glimpse of Ken, and made a barking, yipping noise that he didn’t have a name for. He was paying attention, he was being good.
“Hey, you’re good.” Laughing, Ken patted the side of his head, and Wifies tilted into it. “Aw. Say something.”
Ken was still smiling, pulling zier lips up in unrestrained glee. But there was an edge, a command, and it made Wifies frown. He tried again, yipping lowly, cautiously. It must work eventually.
“Ken… he’s definitely meant to be able to speak…”
“I hear you.” Ken’s smile changed, perhaps vanished entirely, but Wifies wasn’t very good with those sorts of things. “Wifies? Say your name for us?”
That was… weird. It had been a long time, Wifies wasn’t quite sure how to make the sounds that formed his name. He knew it, could probably write it, but shaping the vowels felt difficult.
Writing would be fine. Wifies mimed for it, widening his eyes to signal hopefulness. Expressions were a good form of language, the sort he’d practised.
“No. Say it?” A blunt-tipped finger ran against his throat, Ken cradling his head gently. “Talk. Words.”
Wifies stared.
He mimed for a pencil again.
Ken brushed over his hair, and he flinched, growling softly. Xe was asking him to do something he didn’t want to do, wasn’t sure if he could do. It made his nerves burn against his rushing blood.
“That is not talking.”
Safe on the other side of the table, far from where Wifies was restrained, Wato seemed to feel it was safe to carry on speaking amiably.
Ken, however, had a certain look in those heterochrome eyes. A fascination, contained in the black pinpricks in the centre. The narrowing that signified a challenge.
“Bark.”
The growling trailed into nothing, and Wifies hesitated, feeling belittled. He spoke for Parrot, because Parrot was the only one who had worthwhile things to talk to him about, but he could speak. He was capable of it.
The bark was soft, more of a yip, and Wifies asked if Ken really wanted to hear what he had to say at all.
“Good. Purr?”
Xey scratched through his hair, and Wifies didn’t even have to try. That much was instinct. Strange, these were the first handlers to notice something up with his language.
“Bark again, then my name. We want to hear you speak, Wifies.”
Well, that just… Wifies felt his cheeks burn, as he squirmed enough in Ken’s sleek bonds to get an ounce of personal space, and breathed in. They weren’t Parrot, but they were... nice like Parrot, and smart like Parrot.
“Ken.” Wifies looked up, and stared at Wato, their fur falling into their eyes as they watched intently. “Wato. S… sorry.”
Ken pulled him backwards, and Wifies yelped, before he was being buried in nuzzling from the organic portion of Ken’s body. It was warm, and safe, and comforting, and Wato was laughing, something about how Wifies was turning red, but that felt a pretty appropriate reaction to the situation.
If xe wanted him to speak, zey weren’t going about it the right way, because Wifies was making squeaky noises, and Ken was making them back, apparently ae was capable of that. It was loud, maybe too loud, but not too loud? Parrot used to be loud, sometimes, but mostly soft-spoken, but Wifies was older now, and he could cope with a little noise.
“Let him up, Ken, you’ll kill him.”
“Hm-m, no I won’t~”
“Or at least give me a turn, Stars…”
Ken grumbled, lapsing back into Standard as zi pulled xirself out of the happy bubble zey’d wrapped the two of them in. Wifies felt buckles unlatch around his waist, and Wato ruffled his hair, crouching down to roughly his eye level.
“Hey, ‘Fies. So you can talk?”
Wifies moved for some kind of soft-sounded affirmation, but it trailed off into more of a confirming hum.
“Can you say my name again?”
“Wa…” The letters blended in his mouth again, and Wifies forced himself calm, before he tried again. “Wa…to.”
The harsh consonants caught in his teeth. It made him feel like he was being loud. When he’d been speaking for Parrot, it hadn’t even mattered what the words were, the only point had been communication. And these were handlers, so Wifies should test the waters carefully.
Or- he’d been thinking all of that, and even more elaborate things besides, before Wato sent him sliding off Ken’s lap and into a mess of fur and the soft fabrics Wato wore, wrapped in their warm hug.
“You’re cute. See, Ken? I can do useful things.”
“For yourself, by the looks of it.”
“Shush. You think he’s cute too.”