Archive of Our Own

“Parrot,” Boosfer greets pleasantly, Kier and Dev behind him like two henchmen, dressed head-to-toe in netherite. His withering gaze drags over to Theo in the next moment, tipping his head once. “Theo.” 

“Dude,” Theo says, impatiently, eyes flicking over to Parrot in frustration. “What the hell do you want from us now?” 

Even though they’re aimed at Boosfer, Parrot can’t help but feel the weight of the words on his own shoulders. Parrot can’t blame him for the upset — it’s not ideal to be caught up an hour from Capital City with nothing on them after Parrot decided to strip himself of his armour again. 

The situation escalated in steps that seem blurry and instantaneous: Parrot and Theo coming to drop off resources for a mother and her child living outside Capital City, Boosfer catching them out there and threatening to blow up the lone house they just left if they didn't drop all their armour, followed by Parrot immediately throwing out his netherite before he could give himself time to think of anything else to do. 

Theo’s voice protesting and arguing against it all smudged into the mix of Boosfer, Kier, and Dev’s. Another person lost in the faceless mass of people standing between him and his goals, entirely by accident. 

It’s exposing to be here, the way he is, nothing but the clothes on his back, shoes on his feet, and a satchel that he absolutely refuses to let go of. Theo doesn’t seem to be any happier to be in the same situation — Boosfer only had to say that he would kill Parrot before Theo was unstrapping his armour with deft, unwilling hands and a stare that even Boosfer seemed to blink at. 

“Parrot,” Boosfer repeats, grabbing his attention, “We don’t need to make a big deal out of this — I don’t even have to kill you! You just have to tell me where you put all the treasure you found.” 

It’s an easy question to answer. “I gave it all away.” 

“No way,” Boosfer replies immediately. He didn’t even think for a moment before deciding Parrot was lying. It makes something like frustration coil in his chest, cat wrapped around his heart. “Be serious, dude, it was, like, hundreds of chests down there. You gave all that away?” 

Before giving Parrot a chance to reply, he aims his sword at Theo, whose hands lie limp by his side. “You let him do that? Really?” 

And Parrot half-expects him to reply with anger before Theo levels Boosfer with a deadpan stare and says, “You think we’re dumb enough to lie to your face when you have a sword pointed at us?” 

It’s — not quite an answer. Almost deflection. Something that Parrot makes note of, because his skin’s been prickling ever since he came across the Invisible Knight in the Great Sea and all he can fall back on in those moments is examining the people around him for any sign of betrayal. Fills him with guilt as he does it, because he knows that Theo wouldn’t hurt him. He’s spent the last few months, almost a year making sure Parrot wouldn’t die, sometimes to his own detriment. Something about it makes him sick just to think about — people throwing their lives away for him, some inevitability that comes with staying in his company. 

Then again, Parrot’s had spotty luck with friends — thought countless people he trusted would never hurt him just for the tides to change, as easy as breathing. 

“Whatever,” Boosfer says, snapping Parrot back to the present, “You’re both either braindead or great liars, but I really don’t care which. This is so dumb, man, like — not even one diamond on either of you?” 

Parrot looks over at Theo for a split second before shaking his head in denial. Theo copies the movement, shrugging. “Nah.” 

A moment later and there’s a tight grip on Parrot’s shoulder, yanking him forward so harshly that he stumbles over himself. He hears Theo startle behind him, cut-off, “Hey—!” that only escalates into more shouting when Boosfer jabs the hilt of his sword into Parrot’s abdomen. It drives the breath out of him in a jolt, where Boosfer takes the opportunity to kick the back of his knees in. 

Parrot lands with a thud on the grass, not daring to move after catching his breath when he feels the point of a blade at the base of his neck. His gaze flicks up to Theo. No longer shouting, flanked by both Kier and Dev while his wild gaze is fixed on Parrot. Almost out-of-his mind with worry and anger. 

“What is this,” Parrot asks, voice startlingly steady. As if he wasn’t the twitch of a hand away from death. Theo sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth. 

“Your friend Theo is going to bring my goons to the treasure,” Boosfer says, very cheerily, “And if they’re not all back in an hour, then I’ll kill you.” 

“I told you, we gave all of it away,” Parrot insists. Theo nods in agreement from where he can see. The way he’s kneeling — hands clutching the empty satchel in his lap tightly, knees of his pants already starting to soak through with green from the wet grass, hunched over himself so Boosfer’s sword doesn’t dig into his skin more than it already is — all Parrot has eyes on is Theo. Focusing in on the way he clenches his fists until his knuckles go white and the tick in his jaw that clearly signals his awful habit of grinding his teeth. 

Boosfer only laughs, entirely too pleased with himself. “Then Theo can go get it back.” 

Parrot’s grip on his bag slackens, many realizations rolling over in his head all at once. 

If Theo was going to follow through on getting it back, he’d only be able to do so by leading Kier and Dev to the people who they had given the treasure to in the first place — Kier and Dev would most likely kill the people who showed even the slightest bit of refusal — Kier and Dev play dumb often enough that Parrot knows they’d act willfully ignorant and take confusion and fright as denial — they’d take any chance to kill everyone they came across anyway — Theo only had an hour to get away or Boosfer would kill him — Theo is good at what he does but there’s no one to reach out to and Parrot doesn’t have anything he can pull to help him. 

Either Theo is going to lead countless innocent families to their deaths, or Parrot is going to die in an hour’s time. 

He swallows, meeting Theo’s eyes as he seems to make the same conclusions. All he can really manage is a sad smile. Parrot doesn’t want Theo to kill people for him — despises the idea that any of the people he tried to help would be pulled into death because of his stupidity. Theo just has to understand that. 

Uncertainty hits Parrot like a knife to the chest when Theo sees his smile and almost — recoils. Confusion followed by upset before fixing solidly on anger. Parrot doesn’t move, just stares on, even as his fingers curl around the fabric of his satchel until it almost hurts and bites on the inside of his cheek until he tastes blood. 

Finally — finally — Theo says, “Alright. I’ll go.” 

And from there, Parrot has nothing to do but wait. 

Boosfer doesn’t seem to be in a chatty mood anymore — maybe in the first ten minutes they were waiting, but as time stretched on, he got more restless, less chatty. Impatient might be the better word for it. Parrot can tell in the way he flips his sword over in his hands multiple times, wears a groove into the grass with his pacing. 

All close by Parrot. Too close for him to entertain the possibility of running away just by chance. 

And even if he did manage to get away — then what? Where would he run? Just a quick scan of the meadow they happened to end up in shows that there’s little to rely on. Maybe if Parrot ducked into the shade of the forest bordering the left and front of him, he’d have a chance, but with nothing on him there’s little he could do to hide besides ducking down and praying. 

The sun moves sluggishly across the sky, inching bit by bit to the horizon. It’s almost forty minutes before Boosfer seems to reach the end of his rope. 

“Okay, whatever,” Boosfer says suddenly, grabbing at Parrot’s shoulder to yank him to his feet. 

“You know, you could just say you want me to get up,” Parrot grumbles. 

“Would you listen?” Boosfer shoots back. 

“No, but you could at least pretend to be civilized.” 

“Right,” Boosfer drawls, fingers digging into Parrot’s shoulder through his layers as he marches the pair of them along. “The leader of a group of bounty hunters acting ‘civilized’ because Parrot, a random nuisance, asked me to. Very rudely.” 

“How was that rude?” Parrot protests. He ignores the way his skin crawls the longer Boosfer’s hand is on him — phantom images creating a palimpsest of the moment, fighting to stay in the present. His voice is steady as he speaks, unwilling to let himself show anything close to unease in front of someone like Boosfer. “Where are we going? What happened to waiting an hour?” 

“Well,” Boosfer says, “If you must know, I’m bored. So I’m going to kill you.” 

Panic spikes in Parrot’s gut, but it’s muted. Quickly morphing into dulled acceptance, something hot in his chest twisting while something deep in him wants to scream about how unfair it all is. 

“You said an hour? The deal?” Parrot asks, voice still level. His tongue feels like ash in his mouth. 

Boosfer shrugs, leading Parrot further away from the spot Theo probably still expected him to be waiting at. Just the thought of him coming back to Parrot after destroying innocent lives to find nothing at all makes him want to throw up. The waste of it all — the realization that Theo was coming back to a corpse — unable to reconcile with the fact that Theo would have killed for him. 

Something darker, worming out from under his awful, awful heart wonders what he would have thought if Theo came back empty-handed, knowing what it would mean for Parrot. If Theo would look him in the eyes when Boosfer would skewer him on his sword. If he would even care, or if he was fed-up with Parrot and his saviour complex, suicide missions, whatever Theo wanted to call it. 

As they approach the edge of a nearby river, those thoughts don’t fade, but they become quieter. Staring at the tranquil surface of the water, waiting for something to give, while Boosfer laughs. “I mean, like, do you want to do this the easy way or the fun way?” 

“What does that mean?” Parrot asks blankly. Boosfer seems annoyed at the tone, whining. 

“C’mon, don’t get all sad on me, that’s so depressing, like seriously. You’re killing my vibe for no reason, man.” 

The complaining is almost funny — just the base concept of being told he’s killing the mood for sounding vaguely upset over dying. A hysterical laugh threatens to burst from Parrot’s lips, an urge that goes as fast as it comes. 

Boosfer sighs, frustrated. “Well, now I have to do it the fun way,” he says. The false dejection is overcome with glee as Boosfer bodily kicks Parrot into the river without warning. There’s only a moment for him to hold his breath when he hits the water — and when Parrot thrashes around through his heavy, soaked layers to break over the surface, strong and unshaking hands push him down below again. 

Fuck. Fuck. 

Parrot struggles, thrashing, eyes open wide in panic even as the filthy water from the river irritates his eyes to no end. All the struggling disturbs the currents around him, rocks and sand getting kicked up to the point that he gives up on trying to see a moment later — no matter how much scarier the black behind his eyelids is. His lungs burn, small breath he managed to capture before he sank under quickly becoming useless the more he panics. 

A moment ago he thought he would be alright with dying — his body betrays him by fighting, and Parrot betrays himself further by refusing to go quietly. 

Even still, it’s a useless endeavour. Hands shaking. Fingers clawing at Boosfer’s arms becoming uncoordinated. Weak. Unable to get him off. The fighting slows, even as Parrot screams inside his mind to keep going, don’t let Theo come back to a corpse. 

And what? Let him come back to a man that’ll be killed? Is it a kindness for Parrot to die in front of Theo instead of away from him? Or should Parrot let himself find out if Theo betrayed Parrot’s mission in some attempt to save him? 

There’s no more space to wonder. All his thoughts are overtaken with the need for air, air, air. He can’t breathe. Unable to think. 

His vision blackens, spots at the corners. Parrot can’t stop himself from sucking in a breath involuntarily. 

Throat filled with water, convulsing under the river, he’s only barely aware of the fact that finally — finally — Boosfer’s hands are torn off of him. Everything else is swallowed by the vignette at the edges of his vision overtaking his sight. Muted shouting overtaken by ringing. 

Thump to the chest, hard. Like fists beating down on him. 

Parrot gasps, chokes — then retches after being turned over to the side. 

Bile, dirty water and sand all heaved out of his stomach in what feels like an unending cycle of coughing, retching, crying through it all. Tears streaking down his face, wretched and awful. At some point, the heaving turns to dry sobbing. Parrot doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know what’s going on — barely aware of the fact that his body exists, can hardly function in the slightest.

Through it all, a hand on his back, rubbing circles through cloth before it ends up on his shoulder. 

Parrot jerks away immediately, shaking his head violently. Almost chokes on bile, sent into a fit of coughing that ends with him hacking up more phlegm than he thought possible. 

Finally, blurry vision subsiding, Parrot looks up. 

Theo kneels by his side, eyes stormy with concern and a mouth twisted into a grimace. 

“You alright?” He asks. It’s the first thing Parrot thinks he’s heard since Theo disappeared what feels like hours ago, since, alright, I’ll go, before leaving Parrot to die. Or to kill all those people. 

Just the thought makes him jerk up, eyes widening. “The treasure,” he forces out through a gravely, barely-there voice. One that makes it sound like Parrot’s been swallowing rocks. “The people — are they okay?” 

Theo’s face — it doesn’t fall. But something in it changes. Like Parrot’s made some misstep he was unaware of. Frankly, he can’t get himself to care. Everything is freezing, wet, awful, unable to stop shaking for reasons both related and not to how fucking cold the river is. 

“Yeah,” Theo says, something indescribable in his voice. He clears his throat, sitting up. Hand slipping away from his back, Parrot somehow colder for it. “Yeah, I, uh. Ran into Flame on the way there. He intervened.” 

“Right,” Parrot says, like an idiot. Words loathe to come to mind. “Right, yeah, that’s good. He — got rid of them?” 

“Yeah,” Theo says. He’s getting to his feet now, brushing the grass and sand off of his pants. Looks down at Parrot — in a heap by the riverside, legs and arms and everything still shaky like nothing else he’s felt in his life. There’s a difference between being pulled back from true death by a totem and being bodily yanked back through brute force, human willpower and hands alone. Something more raw about the second. Totems are clean, unnatural, but sleek enough that Parrot only feels the echoes of near-death days, weeks later. 

Human resuscitation makes him feel more vulnerable than he has been in a year. Stripped of everything he’s known and thrown into a new place and told to survive with nothing but a quivering heart that can hardly handle it all. 

Theo offers him a hand. Parrot only hesitates for a moment before taking it. 

Pulled to his feet, his wet clothes make standing feel like a harder task than it should be. He shakes his head, trying to bring himself back to reality. Even now, dots still swarm in his vision, trembling all over. Down to his fingertips, nerves sparking. 

By his side, Theo is usually an anchor. Now, he feels — strangely distant, despite their proximity. It makes Parrot want to throw up — but he can’t tell if that’s just more riverwater wanting to expel itself from his body. 

In the distance, he sees Flame before he hears him approach, pushing through knee-length grass, covered in blood and gore. He stops only a few feet away, warded off by the pair as though there were a bubble around them. One quick look at Theo and the expression he wears proves that theory somewhat true. 

“You alright?” Flame says as he greets them with little preamble. Parrot nods, even though he feels very far from anything close to it. 

“Yeah,” he says. Ignoring the way Theo shuffles next to him. Eyes trained solely on Flame — a new threat in front of them. Even if he helped them, there’s always the chance — that he was biding his time — wanted the glory to himself — wanted to hurt Parrot — 

“You owe me a favour now,” Flame tells him, tearing Parrot away from his slow spiraling. “That was mine and Theo’s deal. Like, both of you owe me a favour. Just letting you know, bro.” 

“Right,” Parrot says. He feels very far away and yet startlingly present. It’s a strange contradiction. 

If Flame fixes him with an odd look, Parrot doesn’t know. He can never read him below the blindfold, but his voice is slow and somewhat hesitant when he says, “Riiiight. I’m going to go now, bro, so like. See you. Or whatever.” 

Then a moment later, he’s throwing himself into the river before Parrot hears the charge of Riptide and he’s flung from the body of water to the sky. Flying away a moment later. 

It’s just Theo and Parrot. After a long moment, Theo and Parrot meet eyes. Mouth open, as though he’s trying to figure out something to say, Theo’s lips purse together. Taking in Parrot’s wet hair, wet clothes, wings in disarray and covered in muddy waters, the shaking of his limbs and the empty satchel he’s still clinging to, he shakes his head. Turning and walking away without saying anything else. 

For a fleeting breath when Theo walks into the tall grass and out of sight, it’s just Parrot in a field under gray skies while the breeze tries to freeze him where he stands. 

And the world starts to move again when he blinks. Parrot follows, because there’s nothing else for him to do. 

It doesn’t take long for things to come to a head — Parrot just wishes he had more than a few hours to run from the chill haunting his hollow chest. 

Parrot doesn’t make it a habit to get stuck in his head when he can avoid it — prefers to keep moving more often than not, unwilling to settle long enough for otherwise silent thoughts to find it in themselves to try and be known. On cold nights when the world is still enough, they try to creep in like frostbite in the tips of his fingers, tinting his lips purple even behind the walls of their potion shop. 

Avoidance is a vice that Parrot wields without thinking. Theo slipping by in the grand scheme of things is an unintended consequence that Parrot is only made aware of later that day. In the evening, when the sun’s long since retired behind the horizon and the sky is shifting away from blue to void-black. 

The moon is gone tonight, blotted from the sky entirely. It makes the world far smaller than it should feel — makes Parrot skin crawl the way it always seems to in the winter. Reminded too-suddenly of snow-dusted roofs from two years ago and obsidian walls that never seemed to end. 

What starts it all is the way Theo gets up the moment Parrot makes his way down the stairs. He’s spent the past few hours in bed, trying to let his body rest after nearly dying. As stubborn as he is, he’s not a complete idiot — knows that pushing his limits and trying to keep the shop open would be idiotic. 

He just wanted a hot drink. Cool air blocked by the closed windows still sneaking through the crevices of their old wooden home. Theo getting to his feet the moment Parrot was in sight just makes that jagged, twisting thing in his chest that’s been writhing since before Boosfer tried to drown him, ache more. 

“What?” Parrot asks, unable to stop himself. 

“What?” Theo asks in return. He’s picking up a book he was reading, a hardcover that Parrot doesn’t catch the name of. 

“You don’t have to go,” he says, as if that’ll be enough to fix whatever is happening. Only a minute downstairs and Parrot can tell nothing about this is going to be simple. “I’m just getting some tea.” 

“Right,” Theo says, “That’s fine. I just want to go upstairs.” 

And Parrot could believe it, if he wasn’t cold, tired, hungry, aching. Heart hurting through it all. He hears the slight edge to Theo’s voice, the same one he always gets when he’s frustrated with Parrot, and it scrapes at his skin like never before. Almost angry himself at the thought that Theo was upset with him — for what? For almost dying to Boosfer?

“Are you mad at me right now?” Parrot asks, a little incredulous. 

The huff of exasperation he gets from Theo in response is warning enough that this night won’t be peaceful. He puts his book down with a heavy thud before Theo fixes him with a look that pins him to the bottom of the staircase.

“I’m pissed the fuck off, yeah.” Theo says. There’s a laughing edge to his tone, grating and harsh. 

Parrot just — doesn’t understand.

“Dude — Why? Literally, why?” He asks, disbelieving. “We got away and everything, like—”

“Yeah, but we almost didn’t!” Theo interrupts, like the words were desperate to burst from him. Stuck in his chest ever since they flew away on Skye with their collection of treasure a week ago. Boosfer and Parrot and the river the final push to finally let them out. 

It makes something in Parrot’s stomach twist violently. The idea that Theo was stewing in his thoughts long enough for them to grow vitriolic, slowly becoming more and more resentful of Parrot and his goals until he was unable to hold himself back when finally confronted. Just thinking of it makes him want to throw up. 

He swallows, heart in his throat, and tries to diffuse the quick-rising tension. Everything just hurts — he doesn’t want to argue tonight. 

“Why are we stuck on things that didn’t happen?” Parrot asks. Even as he says it, he knows it comes out too flippant for Theo. Too flippant for anyone on the other side of this endless conversation — tone is something Parrot’s struggled with for years, unable to understand why people didn’t know that he never means to be dismissive. Always thought something was wrong with everyone else rather than him, just for that line of thinking to get turned on its head a year prior following an explosion that left him with nothing to his name. 

“Why do you never seem to care about everything going wrong?” Theo snaps, dragging Parrot back to the present. It’s a violent shift.  “Like, you act like everything can go your way every single time—” 

“I don’t act like that, it’s just—” 

“What? Things just turn out fine regardless?” Theo cuts him off immediately. There’s a raw edge to his voice that’s entirely too real for Parrot to write-off. “That’s not because you’re fucking lucky, that’s because I’m trying to keep you safe! While you keep trying to get yourself killed!” 

And for a moment, he’s staring at Wifies across a sandstone room, pressure plate ticking like a bomb under his feet. Unable to breathe, blinking once, image disappearing a moment later. But all he can hear is the echo of explosions, hands in his wings not his own, nudging shoulders, warmth of a hand on his back for a brief moment. Tastes blood in the back of his mouth and only then realizes he’s biting down on the inside of his cheek so hard he’s torn through flesh. Mud in his teeth and water in his lungs. 

“I don’t need to listen to this,” Parrot manages. His voice sounds far away, like he’s managed to eject himself from their conversation without physically leaving. Theo’s frustration in response isn’t hard to miss. 

“Oh, right, god forbid you listen to someone trying to make a good point,” he says, harsh. Grating. Something unfamiliar stirring in Parrot’s gut, like a rabid dog is trying to tear him apart from the inside-out. It feels like swallowing rocks from the shallows of the riverbed, about as raw as his throat after puking everything that tried to kill him back up again. 

“It’s not a good point, it’s a selfish point. You know why I’m doing what I’m doing,” Parrot says anyway, automatic repetition of things he already tried to make Theo understand in the Great Sea weeks ago. Running on routine. 

The time they spent separated was spent mulling over his words, over and over again. Parrot wondering if there was a better way of saying what he was trying to get across to Theo, if he could’ve found the right way to string together a sentence that could have made his point clear. Even then, he’d been stumbling over himself, tangling the past with the present until he wasn’t sure which was which. 

Even now, he’s doing it all over again — every single time he tries to explain himself, Parrot’s the smallest he’s ever been, surrounded by glowing lava while the distant echoing voice of a friend who never cared to understand him haunted his every waking moment. 

“For the good of the people, right?” Theo says mockingly. Parrot shakes his head, turning away from the conversation. Grip on the stair’s railings tightening, watching his knuckles turn white at the pressure. 

“I’m sick of having this conversation, I’m not going to entertain it anymore. Find someone else to argue with.” Bone-deep tiredness weighing him down, rooting his feet to the floor, unable to look at Theo, where he stands in the kitchen. Breeze blowing in from the open window above the sink while he feels the phantom sensation of snowflakes melting on his skin. Heat behind his eyes, humiliating as it is. 

“I will, then,” Theo says. 

“Fine.” 

A moment of silence, as though both of them were waiting for something that would never come. Then, Theo scoffs. It sounds part-derisive, part-wounded. Like Parrot had failed some test with his silence, too reminiscent of swimming through the crack of a ravine with feathers soaked through. Reaching the surface after spending too long watching the shape of the light under the water, finding out that he managed betrayal in the simple act of searching. 

“You’re a nightmare to be around sometimes, honestly,” Theo says, quiet. Parrot doesn’t miss a single word. “No wonder Wifies isn’t around anymore.” 

And Parrot — 

Doesn’t know what to say. 

Slumps down the steps, falling with a thud until his face is in his hands and he’s curled in on himself at the bottom of his staircase. It’s so pathetic he wants to laugh but the moment he opens his mouth the only thing that comes out is a dry sob. 

The potion’s shop is silent save for Parrot, panting like a dog and desperately trying not to. Unable to catch his breath long enough to feel like a person again — to feel like he’s something other than a martyr trying to kill himself — anything other than some scourge on the earth that kills everyone in his orbit. 

He can’t stop thinking about hands on his shoulders. Wifies — warm and steadying. Solid in their comfort, in the knowledge that he’d be by Parrot’s side forever. How fucking awful everything was when he was gone — how Parrot never got to make him a grave — too scared to go back and find a body torn to pieces — unwilling to sully the image of him whole but shattered, standing in despair on that pressure plate. Another ghost to haunt himself with. 

Another ghost for Theo to wield against him. 

“Parrot.” 

He doesn’t look up. Just swallows back another heaving, erratic shudder and tries to breathe. 

Theo sighs, and after a moment there’s the thud of another body sitting next to him. He doesn’t try to touch Parrot — god knows what he would do if something human made contact with him now. Parrot’s face is dry but hidden from the world, unwilling to look up. Comfort in the darkness — like living through a dream that will fade if he stays here long enough. 

“Parrot,” Theo says again. Softer, awkward. Like he’s realized he’s crossed some line he shouldn’t have, unaware of the weight of the words he was throwing around like they were only volleying insults back and forth for the show of it. Stabbing Parrot in the gut with a knife after they were only tossing an argument back and forth like a baseball. 

It’s unfair to think that way, and Parrot knows it. None of this is static for Theo — this is new, terrifying. Parrot just — can’t live through this again. Can’t have a friend dead-set on protecting him, only to throw someone’s death in his face. Dean comes to mind, will you only listen to me if I die like he did, echoing through it all. 

“I didn’t — I’m not sorry,” Theo starts again, when it’s clear he’s not getting an answer from Parrot. Continues on, even when the little space between them feels like a mile. “You can say I’m awful for it if you want, but I’m not. Just — fuck, Parrot, you don’t even know what it looked like. Coming back to that — that field and finding no one there. Flame talking to me like I was stupid — I was about to leave to look for you at the Bounty Hunters’ base before Flame’s dog heard the splashing. And—” 

His voice cracks. It’s the only thing that makes Parrot look up. Hunched over his knees, hands wrapped around them like he was trying to hold himself together. Theo sits up straight next to him, elbows braced on his knees as he speaks. Shakes his head, lips pursing as he blinks hard. Once, twice. 

“I thought you were dead. When I pulled him off you. Would’ve killed him if Flame didn’t tell me to — do something. To save you.” 

Theo sighs again, wipes his hands over his face. “I thought you were dead because of me. I thought they told Boosfer, somehow — that I was too late and you were going to die because of me.”

And Parrot can understand with startling clarity, now, why Theo looked at him the way he did when Parrot woke up and asked after the treasure, after everyone else before even fully catching his breath. He’s never imagined Theo to be scared; could never read anything like it on his face in the countless missions they’ve run, when searching for vaults and as far back as the Farlands, leading battalions into certain death. 

Maybe that was why he couldn’t recognize it on Theo today. 

Slowly but surely, Parrot unfurls. Still ragged from the toll of the day, but straightening up anyway. Just another hurdle to push through, one of many. 

Theo doesn’t look at him, and Parrot only spares him a glance before he’s staring at the floor in front of him. 

“Wifies died,” Parrot says. “Because of me.” 

And he doesn’t say a word more. 

“Fuck,” Theo breathes from next to him. “Parrot—” 

“We’re not talking about it,” Parrot says. “But I get it. I get it, okay?” 

He swallows, blinking rapidly. Steels himself to say what he needs to — weight of every life he’s lost on his shoulders as he says it. Wifies, Dean, Luigi, every other nameless face and faceless names that haunt his waking nightmares. “It’s just… This is important to me. I’m not sorry, either.” 

The silence between them persists for the next few minutes. Neither Theo nor Parrot make a move to leave. Even as the candle burns itself out and they’re sitting in the darkness of their potion shop, home made from someone else’s leftovers. 

“I can’t keep doing this,” Theo says, very quietly. Like he can only find it in him to say it in the dark. 

Parrot follows suit, murmuring words he’s never been brave enough to say under the beating sun, rotting in his heart like roadkill. “Then leave.” 

Neither of them moves for a long, long time.