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His hoodie was burning his skin, grating a bit off with every slide of the fabric against him.
The sounds were knocking at his skull, each word and voice was making him insane, all the noise put together was making him yank at his hair with a fierce grip.
There were colours everywhere. So many colours. So many things to see, so many things, he hated all of them.
Honestly, he’d rather die at this point.
But then he noticed there was something else there, something different. It was soft, the softness he recognised distantly in the back of his mind, although he couldn’t piece together where he knew it from.
Then there was shade. He had his eyes squeezed shut as tight as they could be, but he could still see the lights dim from behind his eyelids. Despite the fact that his eyes were still squeezed shut and he could still feel the sting from digging his fingernails into his arms and dragging them down, he felt a little bit better.
Who was there? He didn’t know, but he knew they were safe.
Someone's hands were touching him, they touched him as they pulled his arms up, they pulled off his jumper, though. That was nice, and surprisingly enough, the touch didn’t feel like molten lava being poured over his exposed nerve endings.
More touch, this time underneath his knees and under his arms. He was being picked up, carried off elsewhere. The air was so loud and in his face, he thrashed against it for a moment, distantly hearing a voice talking to him, but that only made him cry. Why was he being talked to? What were they saying? Why were they talking, that was noise, noise was bad, it was awful and terrible and it made his mind reel and hurt in its wake.
It was over now. They were on the ground now. Once more he felt something soft, now touching his arms without the barrier of his hoodie getting between Spoke and the outside world. Whether or not that was a good thing, he was not sure.
The softness felt nice against his skin, though. Cautiously and ever so slowly, Spoke removed one hand from where it stayed bunched around his ear, wincing at the noise—although it wasn’t unbearable, so he continued, experimentally touching the soft with his fingertips. Feathers. He was touching feathers.
Venturing on, Spoke got bolder, now splaying out his hand as he ran his fully spread out hand over the feathers covering his arm.
Taking a risk, he tried to open his eyes. Squinting against the low light, Spoke looked around. He was in a room of sorts, it was near pitch black, but just light enough that he could make out his surroundings if he tried, seeing colours of what was in front of him, but everything else looked like mere silhouettes.
Green, red, teal, and orange. Those were the colours of the feathers his hand was still stroking slowly as he revelled in the calming and soothing texture of them.
Oh. These were Parrot’s wings.
He was with Parrot, then. That.. explained a lot. Suddenly it all clicked together. He was in the safe room he and Parrot had made for him, Parrot had taken him here after he had some stupid, unnecessary meltdown over something, he couldn’t even remember the cause of it.
“Mmh.” Spoke breathed out, he probably meant to say more than that, but he couldn’t get the words out. Or, well, he could, but it felt impossible. It’s not like his vocal cords were fried or some shit, so why couldn’t he speak? God, being non-verbal fucking sucks.
“Hmm?” Hummed Parrot in response, keeping his voice quiet and low, much to Spokes's gratitude. He didn’t think he could handle anything even remotely loud right now.
Now he was.. in Parrot’s lap, he noted, sighing to himself as he grabbed Parrot’s wing, bringing it closer to his chest as he continued to run his fingers through the feathers, finding the monotonous action soothing. Maybe he could-
“Mmm.” The hum sounded disgruntled, and Spoke was lucky Parrot had known him long enough and intimately enough to recognise his tones and needs. He supposed they weren’t queer platonic partners for nothing.
Parrot threaded his fingers through Spoke’s hair. “What’s up, bro? Want me to move?” He asked, somehow knowing exactly what Spoke wanted in that moment.
Nodding, he maneuvered to be sitting up whilst he pushed Parrot down, getting the avian to lie down on his stomach so that Spoke could then sit on the backs of his thighs, allowing him to more comfortably comb his fingers through both of Parrot’s wings simultaneously.
Once he figured out he was exactly where Spoke wanted him to be, he laughed, crossing his arms in front of him as he rested his cheek on his forearms. “Alright bro, because this position isn’t sus at all.”
Spoke blew raspberries at him. Not his fault Parrot was a freak.
(Spoke was, undeniably and unrepentantly so, a much bigger freak than Parrot ever was, despite them both being on the asexual spectrum.)
Despite the fact that he still couldn’t really talk, Spoke was feeling much better, mostly preening Parrot as he let his thoughts wander. What actually had caused him to have such a big meltdown in the first place?
His memory felt slightly hazy from right before he felt like his hoodie was a cheese grater in disguise and like his eardrums were amplifying every sound by a million percent, but it was already starting to get clearer.
He had been at spawn with Parrot, already a bit on edge from getting no sleep as well as having an argument with Mapicc because his dumb, stupid brother wouldn’t relent on something they both knew Spoke was more educated on.
Ro and Parrot ended up needing to physically pull the brothers apart once they started getting physical. More than once, Parrot and Ro have witnessed the two get into an argument over something so menial, just for it to end with blood being shed. Like the time they saw them get into a fight over whether or not the pants Spoke had been wearing at the time were stolen from Mapicc, and ended up getting so heated that they just started attacking each other.
So that had left Spoke tired, pissed off, and with an aching nose and sore knuckles.
It wasn’t his fault that Mapicc had pushed his buttons whilst trying to incorrectly debate him on his own interests. He deserved to be punched, and Spoke didn’t regret it in the slightest, even if he got punched back.
After the whole debacle with his fuckass brother, Parrot and Spoke had gone to spawn for some reason that was lost to his memory. Or, no, they had been meeting up with somebody. Spoke was none the wiser about who he and Parrot had been meeting, the faces he recalled were blurry and confusing.
But some fucking idiot had decided to troll them at the wrong moment on the wrong day, spamming fireworks at random and throwing eggs at the four of them as Parrot and Spoke tried to discuss trading for materials with 2 other people.
He had called out to them to stop, but to no avail. Screams and threats did nothing to deter them, only further encouraging them to continue their trolling.
It got to a point, and Spoke eventually snapped, letting out a guttural scream as he gripped hair in his hands, tugging painfully as he yelled out, tears now in his eyes. “JUST FUCKING STOP, WHOEVER YOU ARE. I HOPE WHOEVER THIS IS, YOU JUST- FUCKING DIE ALREADY AND GO TO HELL AND NEVER COME BACK. JUST LEAVE ME ALONE, PLEASE.”
And all he felt in that moment was pure hatred. The amount of hatred he felt was so overwhelming, he felt like he had to claw and scrape and peel off his skin, only if to let there be enough room for the anger to live. His body wasn’t big enough, he had so much anger and hatred within him in that moment, his physical form was too small to contain it all.
It was like lighting a fire in a box and watching all of the disgusting, black smoke be trapped inside, suffocating and burning until it inevitably died. Having only been able to be freed by making a hole in the box.
Spoke’s skin was the box. It was too constricting. He needed it gone, and he would have tried, had his hands not been more needed for covering his ears as the sounds of the world brutally assaulted his senses.
Even thinking about it made him more upset, and he must have shown it by accidentally gripping the feathers under his palms a little too tight, eliciting a hiss of pain from Parrot, which brought Spoke back to reality.
“Ow- Spoke, stop holding on so tight, my wings aren’t gonna fucking fall off if you let go. Jeez…” Parrot said, his voice tinged with slight pain and exasperation.
Guiltily, he tapped Parrot’s shoulder, making him turn his head to look at Spoke, who signed ‘sorry’ to him with his free hand once he was sure he had been looking.
There was a server-wide sign language, and everybody was mandated to know finger spelling at the very least. They had more words than just that, and although they didn’t have every word in the dictionary, they had ones that mattered, and that would be used frequently. The book of signs was being updated constantly, and Spoke kept up with it, even if it was annoying. To his memory, not everybody learned the words as opposed to only the finger signs, and as far as he knew, the only people that were able to fluently converse in their sign language were himself, Parrot, Mapicc, Zam, and Pangi. Oh, plus Planet and Bacon.
But that was beside the point.
Looking down, Spoke realized he had fully finished preening Parrot’s wings, so.. What now?
Now he was bored. Being non-verbal sucked, because now it meant he couldn’t just yap his boredom away.
With a long, drawn out groan, Spoke flopped backwards, his back hitting the calves of Parrot, who let out his own much shorter groan at the impact. “Dude, was that really necessary?”
The only response Parrot got was the feeling of Spoke’s head nodding against his leg, and he rolled his eyes. So dramatic, and for what?
Thinking, Spoke figured he should probably message Mapicc, always tending to tell his brother about these things when they happened. If not for him to come over and help Spoke in the heat of it, then to complain about it. It’s what he did best, after all.
Making a vague sound to get Parrot’s attention, Spoke got off of Parrot’s legs and lay beside him, staring at him until he looked over. When he finally did look at Spoke, he used their sign for “comm”, hoping Parrot would understand and give him his communicator so that he could message Mapicc.
He did understand—of course he did, that was barely ever a question anyway—and quickly grabbed Spoke’s comm from his inventory, chucking it to him before laying his head back down. “If you need me, no you don’t. I’m tired.” Parrot said as he closed his eyes.
Snorting at this, Spoke shook his head, finding it ironic that Parrot says this now, but he’d be right there, up and ready for Spoke if he said he needed him.
Looking through his message list, he finally found Mapicc, saved helpfully as “dumb fucking bitcj” in Spoke’s contacts.
You whisper to Mapicc: bro u wouldnt believe ts
Mapicc whispers to you: huh
You whisper to Mapicc: i had a meltodwn AND now im nv
Mapicc whispers to you: ?????????
Mapicc whispers to you: tf???
Mapicc whispers to you: wtf did u do
Mapicc whispers to you: are u ok now? do u need me to come over? i can be there in under 5
You whisper to Mapicc: calm down bro
You whisper to Mapicc: im fine, jsut really bored now, so if you want to come over and chre that, be my guest
You whisper to Mapicc: parrot helped me so i js oreened his wings and now hes sleeping
Mapicc whispers to you: ok, glad your good, i have nothign better 2 dp anyways, wya?
You whisper to Mapicc: the safe room we made for me at the beginning of th e season
Mapicc whispers to you: omw
Well, that was gonna be his boredom fixed! Now to just wait for him to get there. Oh, and he should probably let Parrot know that Mapicc was gonna pull up.
Tapping his shoulder, Spoke pushed his comm to be in front of Parrot, allowing for him to blearily read the conversation he and Mapicc had just had.
With a sleepy hum of acknowledgement, Parrot gave a half assed nod before turning to lay on his side, giving Spoke a full view of his wings as the room was filled with snores shortly afterwards.
Snickering at the snoring, Spoke touched the soft feathers once more, running his thumb down them in patterns, finding each of the feathers that bore a specific color, and rubbing his thumb along it, going through every feather and every color in the order of the rainbow, waiting for his brother to come and cure his biggest ailment (boredom).
Soon enough, there was a knock at the door, and he all but leapt up, earning a disgruntled grumble from Parrot, who had been jostled in the process.
“Hi.” Spoke said, feeling verbally adventurous, pushing himself to say something after having been mute for what was probably over an hour now.
“Hey.” Responded Mapicc, now grinning at his younger brother. “What do you wanna do? And is that snoring I hear?”
Spoke shrugged and then nodded. “He’s sleep.” He explained, his words few and far between, but hey, they still successfully got his point across without issue, so it was more than good enough for him.
Making a face of understanding, Mapicc nodded. “We should probably message him or something, tell him we’re out and about, not kidnapped and dead.”
He supposed his brother did make a good point—which was a rare thing for him to do, Spoke thought with a snicker—so he pulled out his comm, quickly shooting Parrot a message that he would wake up to, stating that he and Mapicc had gone out because Spoke was bored out of mind, and that they weren’t dead, dying, kidnapped, or about to die.
With that out of the way, Spoke and Mapicc were now stuck thinking, trying to brainstorm for things to do. They could go always and bother players whilst being invis.. Yeah, that sounded good.
So, now with a shulker of invis in tow, they took off to spawn, intending to find their first victim. Landing at spawn, they spotted Bacon and Planet, painfully oblivious to the brother’s shenanigans.
But, of course, the brother’s couldn’t be coordinated enough to pull off anything less than true evil.
By now Spoke was feeling much more verbal, having built up his currently available word bank with lowkey conversation during the flight there, until he eventually felt up to full conversations, back to where he usually was.
Everything and everyone had its downsides, and Spoke’s and Mapicc’s downside was their inability to not bicker for one fucking second.
“Dude, stop hitting me with your tail.” Spoke hissed at Mapicc, trying his best to keep his voice down.
Whipping his head around, Mapicc glared at Spoke. “I was barely touching you!” He hissed back, intent on defending himself no matter what.
See, the issue with these two? Neither of them backed down. Ever.
“Yes, you were. I felt it, I’m not fucking stupid, you mutt.” Retorted Spoke, knowing damn well Mapicc hated being called a dog, and he fucking despised being called a mutt.
Which is exactly why he called him that anytime he was pissing Spoke off. What good of a younger brother would he be if he didn’t? It was practically in the job description.
At that, Mapicc’s posture straightened, his tail was now straight up, almost lining up with his back as it wagged in short, stiff bursts.
Oh, Spoke really pissed him off this time.
“The fuck?? I’m not a mutt, you empty-headed, stupid fucking void wannabe.” Mapicc spat out, seething at his brother.
“Alright, alright. Calm down bro, I was just kidding.” He said, his hands up in surrender. Their cover was blown now, but whatever, he had bigger problems now.
“Just kidding?? I’m not the fucking stupid, Spoke. I know you were just being a dick for the sake of it. Stop acting like I’m dumb, I see right through you.”
“Me? I don’t think you’re dumb, but if you wanted to pull anything else out of your ass to accuse me of, then be my guest, please.”
Who the fuck did Mapicc think he was? It was just a stupid joke, it wasn’t that deep.
“Oh, so now we’re playing THAT game. Yes, Spoke. You were basically inferring that I was too stupid to notice you riling me up, because unlike you, I can read between the lines.”
Spoke snickered at that. He knew his brother wasn’t really being genuine with that last statement. Or- He was, but he knew it would make Spoke laugh, not offend him, and he was right. Nevertheless, he wouldn’t just stand there and take that.
“Well, I’m oh so sorry that you’re too insecure to look past any reality except the one where you’re being insulted. Because clearly that’s always the case.”
With a growl and a snarl, Mapicc charged at Spoke, giving him a solid right hook to the face.
Luckily, they had danced this dance a million times over, and Spoke was able to quickly recover, going in to punch Mapicc directly in the rib.
The wind was properly knocked out of him, leaving him on his knees and wheezing, trying desperately to catch his breath as Spoke walked up to him, gingerly wiping the blood from his nose which doing nothing as the blood kept on coming.
There was a silence between them, and at some point Bacon and Planet had walked up to them, standing a bit away as they watched the two.
“You okay?” Spoke asked.
“You’re a bitch.” Mapicc said.
Although he was still wheezing with every breath, Mapicc extended his hand out and Spoke took it, heaving him up and hooking his arm around his own shoulders so that Mapicc could lean on him as he stood.
With a snicker, Mapicc flicked Spoke’s still bleeding nose, causing the younger to splutter curses as he held his nose, which throbbed even worse than before.
“Are you two.. Okay?” Asked Bacon wearily, Planet standing beside him as the two just spectated.
Waving them off, Spoke talked in a nasally voice, his nose blocked from all the blood. “Yes, yes. We’re fine, now go back to kissing or whatever the fuck you were doing.”
Bacon spluttered weak defenses. “I’m not- We weren’t-” He said, turning red at the accusations.
Planet, however..
“Okay!” They said, grabbing Bacon’s hand and skipping away, leaving the latter to trip behind them in their wake.
Both Mapicc and Spoke snickered at that, Ro owed both of them $20, the three of them having placed bets on whether or not Planet and Bacon truly were dating.
A moment of silence passed before Mapicc spoke up. “So, what now?”
Spoke thought long and hard before coming up with the perfect solution.
“I’m tired now. Go back to mine and sleep for the rest of the afternoon?”
“Yeah, sure.”
He figured he should message Parrot before they went back, just to make sure they should be going back to the safe room instead of their regular base.
You whisper to ParrotX2: u up?
You whisper to ParrotX2: were coming back, r u back at base orrr
ParrotX2 whispers to you: im back at base, so come here and not the safe room
You whisper to ParrotX2: ok, im bringing mape with me too
ParrotX2 whispers to you: k, is he staying for dinner
You whisper to ParrotX2: what do u think
ParrotX2 whispers to you: ill make a third plate
And so they grabbed their stuff, put their elytras back on, and flew back to Spoke’s base. Realistically, Mapicc probably shouldn’t know the coords, but he would have found out regardless of if Spoke told him, and both Spoke and Mapicc knew that. Parrot came to peace with that fact after Mapicc had come over to their base unannounced for the 3rd time, yelling out that he was going to find Spoke and kill him. When Parrot had asked why on the 3rd time, he was told Spoke stole Mapicc’s favorite shirt. Again.
The flight was around 10 minutes, all of which were spent by both brother’s complaining to each other.
Actually, it was mostly just Spoke complaining to Mapicc, but the details were unimportant.
Arriving back at the base with Spoke’s lower face and hoodie covered in blood, and Mapicc slightly wheezing with each shallow breath he took, they knew they were cooked.
Before they walked in, Spoke turned to Mapicc, putting a hand on each of his shoulders. “Bro, promise to tell dad I didn’t die to anything lame.”
Mapicc snorted, only to wince at it. “So you want me to lie to dad? Yeah, sure, but only if you do the same.”
Nodding solemnly, Spoke prepared himself. He was going to get the telling off of a lifetime, but pissing Mapicc off was too funny not to do. Some sacrifices had to be made sometimes.
Opening the door, the two brother’s walked inside, trying to tip toe to Spoke and Parrot’s bedroom, hoping Parrot wasn’t in there, and that they wouldn’t be caught on the way.
Wishful thinking got them nowhere.
Sitting in the kitchen, practically guarding the stairs, was Parrot.
One very, very displeased Parrot.
“I got a message from Bacon, you know.” He said, not even bothering to turn around to acknowledge them any further.
Both boys froze where they stood, side eyeing each other, knowing that this would be their demise.
“Mapicc.”
At the sound of his name, his tail fell directly between his legs and his ears flattened against his head, this made Spoke snicker, which only got him a glare from Mapicc.
It was a bit funny, to be fair. In a fight, Mapicc wouldn’t be intimidated by Parrot in the slightest, he would confidently stand his ground.
But here? Here, Mapicc was scared shitless of Parrot. He knew Parrot had their dad’s contact number saved, and that he would snitch if Mapicc didn’t listen to him.
One time, Parrot had told Mapicc ‘no CoD for a week’, and when he found out Mapicc had been playing CoD with Ro, he told their dad that they punched Spoke.
What a bitch.
Anyway, back to the present, Parrot was pissed, and the brother’s were fucked.
“You too, Spoke. I know you’re laughing at Mapicc now, but you’re in deep shit as well.”
Spoke also froze. He instantly stopped laughing, not seeing the way Parrot silently laughed to himself.
With a sigh, he turned around to face the boys, leaning on the bench, one hand supporting him, and one hand pinching the bridge of his nose as he was met with the sight of a bloody Spoke and wheezing Mapicc.
“Care to explain?” Parrot finally said.
The boys looked at each other, then looked back to Parrot before speaking in sync.
“He started it!” Mapicc accused.
“He punched me first!” Spoke blamed.
This was gonna be a long night.
“Both of you, shut the fuck up and sit down. If I hear a SINGLE word from either of you whilst I’m gone, I WILL message your dad and whitelist him, just to drag him here so he can tell you off himself. Am I understood?” Threatened Parrot as he walked off to grab the med-kit.
Two silent, sheepish nods followed.
Eventually Parrot came back, and he started to patch them both up, carefully dabbing at the dried blood on Spoke’s face, and helping him take off his jumper without irritating the bandage he put on his nose.
For Mapicc, he had to press around his chest to see where hurt the most, and even made Mapicc take off his shirt so that he could get a proper look at the bruising, putting some kind of ointment on it to make it hurt less. Which, although it hurt like a bitch now, it would hurt less like a bitch later. So that was a win.
It took a while, but the boys were both patched up as much as they could be now, and so Parrot could now start the interrogations, but first, he led them to the bedroom.
Sitting down on the bed, Parrot beckoned the others over so that they could sit on the bed as they talked. They were on Parrot’s and Spoke’s bed, so it was plenty big enough for the 3 of them, considering Spoke moves so much in his sleep that they needed a bigger bed.
Mapicc took to lying down on his back, albeit still being atop the covers. Noticing this, Spoke took the opportunity to scratch at the base of the fluffy ears that sat on his brother’s head, humming pleasantly at the comforting, familiar texture of the soft fur. Parrot snickered at the way his tail wagged lazily. These two always came crawling back to each other, adoring affection as always, even if they shied away from the word.
Clearing his throat, Parrot started. “So, do either of you have anything to say for yourselves?”
“He was being annoying and pissed me off, so I called him a mutt, and he got mad, put words in my mouth, insulted my autism, made assumptions, then punched me. So, naturally, I punched back.” Spoke explained, very clearly not giving the full story of what happened.
Spoke was a shit stirrer, that much Parrot know from the years he had known Spoke, especially from the numerous interactions between Spoke and Mapicc that he’d witnessed.
Piping up, Mapicc corrected his brother. “No, you called me a mutt for no good reason, I got mad, you clearly insinuated I was stupid, but then you denied it and basically said I was insecure and insane. So I punched you, you had it coming. Also, I didn’t insult your autism, I just made fun of it, and you laughed at it too, so you can’t use that against me when you found it funny.”
Well, now Parrot had two biassed sides to one story. He was just lucky Bacon had messaged him all about it, so now he knew who was lying and who wasn’t.
Before he could make up his mind of what to say, Spoke whined. “Can’t I just go to sleep and deal with this later? I’m tired, and so is Mape.”
“No, I’m not.” Mapicc defended, but he was clearly lying through his teeth, especially with the way his tail wags got slower as his eyes drooped.
Usually Parrot would tell them they can’t just escape this by sleeping, but, well..
Looking over at Spoke, he could see the kid was exhausted, so was Mapicc, and who was he to keep them awake just to berate them?
Peeling the blankets back, Parrot ushered both the boys underneath them, snorting at the outline of Mapicc’s tail through the blankets every time it wagged.
“Come on, then. To sleep with you both.” Parrot said, placing a chaste kiss to the top of Spoke’s forehead, and giving Mapicc’s ears a quick scratch before he walked away, turning the lights off and closing the door behind him.
He wandered back down the hall to the kitchen, leaning on the bench once more as he made himself dinner.
Once that was done, he pulled put his comm.
You whisper to MinuteTech: your kids are assholes and menaces
MinuteTech whispers to you: What did they do this time?
You whisper to MinuteTech: dw abt it, theyre bith fine now, they ended up having a tiny fight and showing up back home after, then fell asleep before i could tell them off
MinuteTech whispers to you: Yeah, that sounds like them. Absolute nuisances.
You whisper to MinuteTech: yep. but i still love spoke for some reason, and him and mapicc are a package deal anyway
MinuteTech whispers to you: I know.
MinuteTech whispers to you: I know you love them, it shows.
You whisper to MinuteTech: it does?
MinuteTech whispers to you: In the ways that matter, yes.
MinuteTech whispers to you: Now go to sleep, it’s getting late there.
He didn’t notice it at first, but Parrot had been smiling like an idiot at his comm for god knows how long. It meant the world to him that Spoke and Mapicc’s dad really did see that he cared so much for his sons.
Maybe Mapicc a lot less than Spoke, but he still cared regardless. Spoke was Parrots queer platonic partner, and he was younger than Parrot by a couple years, but only a year younger than Mapicc, leaving Parrot to be a year older than Mapicc still.
Funnily enough, Parrot mostly viewed Spoke as a younger brother, but in a more interpersonal way. Of course, some siblings were just naturally this close, but most weren’t. Nevertheless, Parrot, as a result of all that, viewed Mapicc as somewhat of a younger brother as well, and even if he wasn’t as close with Mapicc as he was with Spoke, he had still spent a lot of time with Mapicc, and cared for him. Hell, he and Mapicc were the two that kept Spoke under control, making sure he wasn’t off doing some seriously stupid shit—although, Parrot often felt like it was actually just him keeping Mapicc and Spoke out of shit.
With a yawn, Parrot finished his dinner and walked back over to his bedroom, quietly getting changed into his pj’s before climbing into the bed next to Spoke, shoving him over so that Parrot could fit, wings and all.
As his eyes slipped close, he missed the last few messages on his comm, falling asleep before he could hear the buzz.
MinuteTech whispers to you: Sleep well, Parrot.
MinuteTech whispers to you: Tell the boys I love them and that I’ll come visit soon. I miss you 3, so I’ll try make it sooner than later.
MinuteTech whispers to you: Goodnight. Thank you for making my boys feel loved when I can’t be there.