Chapter Text
A heavy thud, followed by a small groan, echoed through the quiet room and not so gently ripped Parrot out of his state of half-sleep. With heavy limbs and too tired to open his eyes, he blindly searched for the small light on his bedside table.
Hearing the faint click as his hand found the switch, he squinted to look around the room with bleary eyes. After a few moments of absolute silence and stillness that made the fog in his head slowly rise again, Parrot concluded that he was either still dreaming or a particularly evil nightmare had woken him up.
Until his eyes found Theo’s crumpled figure on the floor in the doorway. His brain took a bit to process the image of his best friend lying on the floor, grinning up at him, though it didn’t stop his heart from missing a beat.
“Theo?” His voice was rough from his almost-sleep, but sour panic started rising in his gut. Parrot cleared his throat a bit before sitting up properly, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, more awake and alert. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”
“Oh, I’ve never been better.” Parrot narrowed his eyes, frowning. Not one single time had this statement come out of Theo’s mouth and been truthful. His boyfriend was lying on the floor at like 2 in the morning, for god’s sake. This practically screamed, ‘I did something reckless and most likely also illegal’.
“Why do I not believe you?” He mused out loud, letting his eyes wander over Theo’s dimly lit form lying on the carpeted floor. His clothes were in their usual state of wear, a few small rips and potion stains here and there, but they were his normal street clothes, not the custom pajamas Parrot had gotten both of them to specifically fit their wings.
Parrot’s eyes wandered farther, and farther, until-
“Theo?” A small hum from the figure below. “Why are your wings drenched in blood?”
The answer came too quickly, words bleeding into one another. It was a wonder Theo hadn’t stumbled over them. “Idon’tknowwhatyou’retalkingabout.”
“Are you bleeding out on our floor right now?”
Silence.
“Well, I wouldn’t directly call it bleeding out.”
“Theo, I swear to god when I get up right now, and I see a puddle of blood on the ground, I’m gonna lose it.” Pinching the bridge of his nose, Parrot pushed down the panic that was still steadily rising at the fact that Theo was lying on the floor, bleeding. He could talk fine and didn’t seem very distressed, so the wound hopefully wasn’t very big or serious.
Still, there was no way Parrot was just going to lie there and let Theo lose a potentially fatal amount of blood. So, he pulled the covers off himself in one smooth motion and quickly stumbled to his feet. Parrot knelt by Theo’s side to check his back and wings, where sticky red blood was gluing the soft feathers together.
After carefully spreading the clumps of feathers apart to be able to see the pale skin underneath, and earning a sharp intake of air from Theo, Parrot spotted a rather big, but shallow gash on the base of his right wing, that was still sluggishly leaking red.
“How did this happen, bro? What did you do?” Parrot was already helping the other up as he spoke, careful not to jostle his wing, slinging one of Theo’s arms over his shoulder to support some of his weight.
“Why do you immediately jump to the conclusion that I started it? They attacked me. I was literally just doing my rounds at spawn, and then like three invis people jumped me.” There was no real heat behind his words, and it sounded incredibly close to whining—not that he’d ever tell Theo that, his ego would never recover.
“Okay, that…is weird. Did you manage to get their nametags, or were you able to make them talk to you?” They were slowly but surely approaching the bathroom, where they hopefully still had some first aid stuff. It was honestly concerning how quickly they burned through those kits.
“Nah. I tried to talk, but they just kept swinging at me. I think they were just some low-level bandits or somethin’. Don’t worry, I took care of ‘em.” The smug pride couldn’t have been clearer in Theo’s voice. Parrot shook his head at him, although that did nothing to diminish the small smile playing on his lips.
“Of course you did, bro. Did you at least get some good loot out of it to pay for all of the bandages we’re gonna need for your wing?”
“Hell yeah, I did.” Came Theo’s slightly slurred words, and Parrot quickened their pace to the bathroom. He didn’t want Theo to actually bleed out in their hallway.
“Seems like they put all their money towards their weapons. That’s probably why they got me so good. Didn’ go that deep, tho, since they were too broke to afford pots. I shut 'em up real quick. I mean, geeze, they barely had prot two on their armor.”
Parrot hummed along encouragingly to Theo’s continued rambling about the inflation of enchanted books, while carefully setting him down on the edge of their bathtub. A little puddle of blood was slowly starting to collect on the creamy white porcelain surface as it started to drip down the already soaked feathers.
Quickly getting to work, Parrot pulled out the first aid kit from underneath their sink. First things first, he splashed an instant health potion to hopefully make up for as much of the blood Theo had lost as possible.
As soon as he heard the little relieved sigh from Theo and felt the warming effect of the potion flood through his own body, Parrot got started on cutting away the shirt from around Theo’s wings to be able to reach the irritated skin below.
Theo was craning his neck to see what Parrot was doing behind his back and squirmed at the uncomfortable feeling of sticky, blood-soaked fabric being pulled off his skin. Parrot nudged his head back with a gentle hand.
“Bro, sit still, you’re just going to strain your wing even further.” Before he could do or say anything else, Theo had one hand on each side of his head and had pulled Parrot down for them to be on the same eye level.
Parrot, who had obviously lost his balance after his central point of gravity had shifted so quickly, had reflexively grabbed onto the next best thing for purchase and was now holding onto Theo’s shoulders for dear life.
He knew that Theo had developed a ridiculously high pain tolerance after years and years of battles and fights, but he still couldn’t help but yelp in surprise at how he didn’t even so much as blink an eye as his shoulder and subsequently wing were put under the pressure of basically Parrot’s whole weight.
Before Parrot could even form the thought of scolding the cockatiel or moving away, his eyes locked into Theo’s deep brown ones that promptly took over every square inch of his mind. The intensity of Theo’s stare was sucking the air out of Parrot’s lungs as he was desperately scrambling to form words.
His words were still slightly slurred, and under any other circumstances, Parrot would’ve asked if Theo was high, but at that time, it just contributed to his brain damage. “You’re so…beautiful, Parrot. Takin' such good care o’ me.”
All he managed to stutter out was, “I- uh- you don’t- jesus christ, Theo- we need to stop the bleeding.” RIght. Yes. That was good. He should focus on that, not his undying love for this stupid bird.
The next thing out of Theo’s mouth was barely above a whisper, but they were so close, Parrot could feel the hot breath on his own lips. “What if I don’ want you to?”
No sound escaped Parrot for a short moment, partially because, what the fuck had Theo just said, and partially because he was looking at Parrot like he was going to run away the second he let go of his face. “What?” Oh, how eloquent he was.
“What are you talking about, bro? I need to stop the bleeding, or you’re quite literally going to bleed out and die.”
Was he exaggerating a bit? Yeah, the health potion would help for a bit longer. Were his eyes dangerously close to wandering from Theo’s to his lips? Also yes. What else was he supposed to do? Give in to his urges and make out with his ridiculous and crazy boyfriend while he was actively bleeding out? Okay, maybe that wouldn’t be the craziest thing he’d done, but not today.
A soft trill left Theo at the thought of either letting go of Parrot or the pain in the ass that was getting bandaged up; Parrot couldn’t quite tell which.
After a second of hesitation from the other, Parrot laid his hands over Theo’s, intertwining their fingers. Taking a deep breath, Parrot spoke up in a softer voice than the one he had previously used. “Theo?”
The small hum he got was nothing like the intensity with which Theo’s eyes were still staring into Parrot’s soul. It threw him off for a second, but he quickly collected himself. “I- I’m right here, okay?” A minuscule nod.
“And I’m not going to leave. Under any circumstances. I just want to patch you up so you don’t die on me, dude. I’ll make it stop hurting as much, alright?” Theo blinked a few times, processing what had just been said.
“Mmm, fine. But you’re not goin’ anywhere.”
The small smile snuck its way back onto Parrot’s face. “I’m not, promise.”
Not giving Parrot time to react, Theo planted a small kiss on the tip of his nose, before letting go of his face—though he kept one of their hands intertwined.
Parrot stood up quickly. He was not even going to try to get his hand free, just taking a step to the side and then into the bathtub, to be out of sight of Theo. Even if the cockatiel wasn’t in the right headspace at the moment, there was no way he was going to let Parrot live down the flush creeping up his cheeks.
Why did both of them have to be such sappy romantics?
His wings puffed up slightly without much of his control, and he quickly got to work cleaning Theo up. It took almost double the time that bandaging up a shoulder would normally take him, but there was little Parrot could do; Theo was still refusing to let go of his hand, and he wasn’t ready to deal with a brain-addled, sulking Theo.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity of trying—and failing—to concentrate on Theo’s wound, but being distracted as the other played with his fingers, Parrot finally tightened the final bandage. Stepping out of the tub, he looked down at Theo, who had thankfully regained a bit of color.
Parrot cleared his throat. “You, uh, you good bro?” He couldn’t help as his face heated even further when Theo tilted his head up, and he was once again staring into his deep, chocolate eyes, getting lost in them.
Theo hummed affirmatively, and although his eyes were barely open, he was still looking at Parrot as if he had hung the stars for him. Huffing out a small laugh, Parrot tugged slightly on the hand that still hadn’t let go of his.
“Let’s go to bed, hm?”
Theo blinked once before rising to his full height. He seemed a bit wobbly on his feet, so Parrot tightened his grip on the other’s hand, slowly guiding him out of the bathroom and back into his room.
Theo plopped face-first onto the bed with a small oomph, pulling Parrot with him, who landed right next to him on the covers. A small sigh let Parrot as he buried the back of his head further into the covers, immediately feeling Theo shuffling closer.
Suddenly, Parrot’s previous exhaustion hit him again, hard. Body feeling as if it had been lined with lead, his eyes slowly drooping shut, the only thing he felt was Theo wriggling around until his head lay snugly in the space between Parrot’s neck and shoulder.
Once they were situated and he could feel Theo’s warm breath on the skin of his neck, Parrot intertwined their fingers once more. Only when he had not just the comforting presence of Theo by his side, but also his slow rhythmic pulse below Parrot’s fingers, did he feel sleep creep back into the fibers of his being, seeping slowly but surely until Parrot was soaked full and all he could think about was Theo’s piercing eyes staring into his soul.