The question of why Xisuma had truly left the city didn't come up when they returned to the cabins. The man could say that he was exhausted and Parrot didn't look all that energetic either. So many sleepless nights had taken their toll on Xisuma and he could feel the weight on his shoulders worsen with each step. He was so tired that he couldn't pretend to be more awake than he was. His back was slouched and it felt like there was a boulder sitting on him when he straightened up. So weak, with the remnants of adrenaline fleeting, he could barely drag his feet.

Parrot saw it too.

When they reached the blackened campfire, the man sat down on a log and held his head in his hands. The word was just short of spinning and he had a feeling that if he stood up, he'd get a dizzy spell. Parrot was blessedly silent, studying him like he was an anomaly.

"Suma?" he quietly called out to him, voice awfully concerned. There was a small hand lightly gripping his shoulder. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Xisuma dismissed him. "Just give me a minute to catch my breath."

Parrot hummed thoughtfully, pulling away without saying anything. Xisuma still had to figure out lunch and then dinner and maybe after that, he could have a nap. He couldn't sleep before that because who knows how long he'd sleep?

"Could you get the matches for me, please?"

That night, Parrot pulled a trick on him. It was so innocent that Xisuma didn't see the trap. After all, how could a bedtime story be suspicious? He had the energy to talk after eating some food followed by a few hours of doing nothing.

Parrot was sitting on his bed, the lantern lit at his bedside and casting his smooth features in sweet candlelight. His expression was almost blank, only his eyes gave away his excitement. Xisuma was sitting on the edge of the bed, body turned so he could face the boy.

"Once upon a time, there was a prince–"

"I don't like princes."

"...Once upon a time, there was a very brave knight," Parrot didn't cut him off. Instead, the boy added to the story.

"And he had a lot of birds."

Xisuma smiled kindly. "Yes, he had a lot of birds. Mainly, he had parrots; parrots of every color," he continued but stopped when Parrot opened his mouth.

"His favorite was Pants!"

"Pants?"

"His name, that's his name. Pants." the boy said it so casually, with such a serious look that Xisuma chuckled.

"Ah, I see. So, the brave knight took his trusty parrot, Pants, with him on many adventures–"

Parrot swiftly took the reins.

"And they rode on a very big dragon! A very scary and big dragon that breathed fire. They fought for justice and power and they slaid–"

"It's slew–"

"–And they slaid the evil doers!"

From that point, Parrot didn't let Xisuma get a word in. The man was swaying slightly and fruitlessly blinking away sleep and it didn't help that Parrot was talking, tiring his mind with his voice. Sleep beckoned him but Parrot was still twisting tales and Xisuma wanted to listen and hear what the boy's creativity could come up with.

And then Parrot was tugging him forth harshly until his head found a pillow. The beckoning of sweet darkness and blissful rest grew and the small hands pressing on his back urged it. He couldn't tell if the lantern had been blown out or if he had closed his eyes but it felt good.

Above him, having achieved his goal, Parrot grinned triumphantly. He crawled in, under the blankets and slept next to the tired man that night.

The question didn't come up the next day nor the day after that. A new week had begun and the question had been forgotten. That was what Xisuma had chosen to believe, anyway. Children weren't forgetful, they were merely easily distracted and boy, was Xisuma doing his best to distract Parrot from that throughout the days.

He brought Parrot on walks through the forest, they went to the river again to fish, they found paper and markers in one of the cabins and books in the storage and their days were full. So full, in fact, that Xisuma had almost forgotten about the situation the city was in altogether.

In the back of his mind, it nagged at him. He could recall it for a moment and the next Parrot would be barraging him with requests to play tag or hide and seek. Xisuma was hesitant on the latter, since they were in a massive forest with a bunch of undeads roaming one side of it. Not to mention the stories he had read in Missing 411 and he really didn't want a situation like that to occur when he was the seeker.

They played hide and seek anyway and nothing went wrong but Xisuma always felt dread in the pit of his stomach. Unlike him, Parrot was over the moon with happiness.

Despite the invitation he'd humbly given to Dream, the locks on the storage room stayed on. The same went for the furniture and the curtains he'd put in front of the windows. The kid had a group of people with him and as much as Xisuma wanted to trust that the rest of them were as careful and passive as Dream, he couldn't be certain. He couldn't put anyone else above his and Parrot's safety.

When Parrot would nap in the cabin, Xisuma either patroled or made yet another hiding spot in one of the cabins. There was a fox den nearby, which had been abandoned by the animal and he was working on making it big enough for at least a child to fit in. He had taken measurements with a marker and the skin of his arm, and while it wasn't very practical, he made it work.

With Parrot's help, they had fashioned a hatch for the den out of small saplings and rope. It had been a nice distraction for the day. Parrot had fun sawing the saplings into shape and Xisuma almost had a heart attack each time the blade would go just a tiny bit too close to the boy's fingers for comfort. Parrot saying that he knew what he was doing didn't help in the slightest.

Anyway, that had been said and done, and Xisuma had officially run out of ideas. He just hoped that children could actually forget some things because the image he'd paint of the city wouldn't be pretty and it certainly wouldn't be great to tell to a small child.

That night, he and Parrot ate some tomato soup by the lit campfire. The embers and coals were burning just enough to warm the pot and cook for a bit. The firewood supply wasn't looking too good and the bag of coal in the storage cabin wasn't as burly as it once had been. They'd need to go into the forest to scavenge for wood. Maybe he'd let Parrot have a go with the axe, the kid would like that.

"–and then the bottle exploded! It flew out the window like a rocket!" Parrot was talking about one of his friends and how an experiment on a Cola bottle didn't go very well. One could say it went bad but the bad was fun, so it ended up going well.

Apparently, shaking a Cola bottle and then dropping it on the floor on its cap would make it into a safety hazard.

"Oh man!" Xisuma slapped his knee, laughing as Parrot continued.

"We had an absolute blast! Ha, ha, get it? Because it took off! But it hit some kid in the head and we got into trouble for possession of coke."

Xisuma chuckled helplessly at the puns, prompting Parrot to genuinely laugh at him with a grin that could match the Cheshire cat's in mischief. Does he even know what coke is? No, he obviously didn't know. A child couldn't know what coke was, surely!

"The student wasn't hurt though."

"He wasn't?"

"No, it was a soft drink!"

"I–", Xisuma didn't understand it at first but then it hit him square in the head. His brain short-circuited for a second and when he could say that it had rebooted, he blinked. Finally, he laughed. He laughed because that kid was brilliant! And Parrot grinned like all the candy shops had just gifted him every bit of sugar and caramel they had. "I have no words, Parrot!"

A sound came from the treeline, sort of where the cabins ended. Xisuma waved air at his face, trying to calm his laughter and shoo away some of the red that had been burning his cheeks. Parrot quieted almost immediately, head swiveling to the trees, towards the sound.

Just behind a bush, Xisuma could make out a head. A head of familiar, sandy hair and a sparkle of emerald green eyes; Dream. He looked discreetly around the treeline and when he saw no one else accompanying the teen, he waved him over. There was no bow and no quiver in sight, further proving that there was at least a tent where the boy left his belongings at.

"Hey, Dream." Xisuma greeted, standing up to give a proper handshake.

Parrot glanced at them, mouth frowning and forehead creasing, either confused or troubled. He offered a small 'Hi' with just a bit of an edge to it. Whomever had raised the kid had certainly drilled the "Don't talk to strangers" rule into his brain. That was good –just unneeded for the occasion.

"Hello." Dream's voice was quiet and awkward but audible.

"What are you doing out here so late, mate? Are you hungry? I could fetch you a bowl–"

"No! No, no, I'm all good, actually." Dream was quick to cut him off. Xisuma nodded and Parrot shifted anxiously before returning to his unfinished bowl of now-not-so-appetizing tomato soup. "I just– I got curious, I guess."

"Curious about what?" Xisuma prompted, showing Dream to the log next to his and Parrot's. They sat down again and the boy shifted closer to Xisuma, keeping an incredibly close eye on Dream. Xisuma couldn't see it but by the way the teen was fidgeting and glancing at the child's face, he could tell that Parrot was either glaring or making some other awkward face.

"Well, about why you're out here but no one else." Dream explained and then continued as if his curiosity wasn't ironic. "It's just... weird for there to only be a man and a child and no others."

Parrot piped up before Xisuma could answer. "I murdered them." –Xisuma was speechless for a solid second. The effect those words had on Dream would have been hilarious had Parrot not just tried to pin crimes on himself –and crimes that hadn't been committed at that. His mouth had shut into a pressed line and his eyes had grown in size.

"Parrot!" Xisuma lightly scolded. The kid didn't acknowledge him. "He didn't murder anyone, don't worry. I came here about three-ish weeks ago and it was empty. I'm guessing that everyone had heard about the zombie breakout and headed home."

"Zombie breakout?" Dream questioned to which Xisuma nodded. Parrot had stopped eating, listening to them intently instead.

"Mhm. The same thing as the movies but faster. There is a horde of them near the path to the entrance of the campgrounds, actually, so be careful if you ever head in that direction."

The teen looked towards the direction Xisuma had just shown him. He didn't say anything else, seeming to be letting the information soak in. The fire crackled, the light flickered in magnificent yellows and oranges and reds that mesmerized. Bugs had been attracted to the flames but flew just out of reach, just so the fire couldn't lick at them. It broke the silence in a way that didn't allow tension to build; it was calming, grounding.

"Are you from the city?"

"I am."

Xisuma saw black-green silhouettes of flame shapes when he looked away from the campfire. It was annoying and blinking didn't shoo them away. Parrot slumped on his side carelessly, bowl put to the ground and tiny hands forming into tiny fists in his lap.

"So, what happened in the city?" Parrot asked, doing the smart thing and not looking into the campfire but rather at the bugs above it.

Xisuma gripped the log they were sitting on with one hand. Tension gathered in his shoulders, guilt and something else weighing him down. He glanced at the fire once before electing that it wasn't a good idea to burn his eyes more than he already had. Dream was looking at him expectantly, curiously, hopefully.

"The city wasn't fairing too well." he repeated the words he'd told Parrot, trying to open up the conversation in the most positive way possible in order to cushion the hit of the truth. "A few months ago, it went into lockdown and a few soldiers came to protect us and deal with the undead. Long story short, the rations became little and there had come word that there was a horde coming our way. When I heard that, I packed up and left and now I'm here."

Dream's eyebrows knitted together. "And Parrot?"

"I was on a school trip." the boy answered, weirdly monotone for his usual lilt. "And then Suma found me."

"Oh." The teen wisely avoided asking where the rest of the class was.

The fire crackled on, leading the silence to stretch. The weight on Xisuma's side steadily grew as time passed. When the moon reached high, Dream left, bidding them both a quiet good night and disappearing into the trees once more. Xisuma picked up Parrot and carried the sleeping boy to bed, tucking him in.

There were no nightmares that awoke either of them up that night.

Dream came and went. He visited the cabins pretty often throughout the week and through the days, he'd stay over longer, he'd linger at the edge of the treeline longer. There was something that kept him away and that something was undoubtedly people; his family, maybe.

During the time he'd spend around the camp, Dream didn't talk much about what he was doing in the forest. Other than the origin story of him being on a hike and getting lost, he didn't give Xisuma any other specifics on where he'd go when he'd leave.

Parrot was hesitant to be around the teenager at first. After all, he had more or less inserted himself in Xisuma's attention and as much as Parrot understood that Xisuma wanted to make sure that they were both safe, he also didn't like it when the man's attention would be divided.

The boy had grown up as an only child. His parents had always peppered him, having not been able to produce a sibling for him to hang out and play with and he'd grown up just a tad spoiled. Of course, that was what Xisuma had deduced after a few conversations on the topic and a lot of careful words. The kid softened up eventually, though.

They'd found out that Dream had a radiant personality hidden behind a wall of awkwardness and discomfort. It didn't take too long for him to worm his way into Xisuma's heart, and therefore preoccupy him when he'd leave and he'd grown close to Parrot through their shared interest in sharp objects.

Parrot had stolen Xisuma's sharp knives to show him, one day, leading to an extremely worried Xisuma sweating bullets as the two threw daggers at the makeshift targets. The next day, Dream had brought his bow. That was a rarity, since he often came without a weapon (that they could see) and it piqued the boy's interest when he nocked an arrow and hit the bull's eye from a distance of roughly ten meters.

It was an astonishing feat for the small child, who had never seen an archer outside of movies and cartoons.Xisuma was simply glad that the two got along somewhat after that. Parrot was still apprehensive about being around Dream but he was more accepting of his presence than he was when he'd accused Xisuma of murder.

Hey, almost getting shot in the head wasn't an easy memory to forget!

And as the week came to an end, they were sitting around the campfire. Parrot and Dream were busy telling awful puns over the fire, the flames sparking and sizzling as fat melted off the fish they'd stuck on sticks around it. The teen had been there a full day, doing chores and helping Xisuma sharpen a dulled axe to cut down trees with. He'd accompanied them to the river and helped carry buckets of fresh water back to the cabins, though they had all been drenched by Parrot, who had dragged both of them into the river to play.

Bedtime had come and the moon was high. Parrot's eyelids were shutting and opening in longer and longer intervals, though clearly, he wanted to stay awake to hear the end of one of Dream's hunting stories but Xisuma had decided to end the night. It wouldn't do to have a grumpy child to deal with in the morning –he'd let them get carried away once and never again was he going to repeat the same mistake.

"But I want to hear the rest of the story!" Parrot pouted. Xisuma shook his head lightly, crouching before the kid.

"You could ask Dream to finish it the next time he visits us." he spoke softly and huffed a laugh when all Parrot did was relent with a bang against the man's sternum with a loud groan and the silent promise of revenge or something. Dream had an amused grin on his face.

"Yeah, we can continue once you're more awake, Parrot."

Xisuma gave him a thankful nod.

"I am–", a large yawn cut Parrot's words off, "–a... awake."

"Xisuma, can I talk to you about something?" Dream asked once the kid started to lightly snore in the man's arms.

"Sure, mate."

The boy was carried into bed soon after that. Dream followed Xisuma to the cabin, waiting outside. When Parrot had been tucked into bed, out like a light, the man returned to the chilly wind of the night.

"What is it?"

Dream hesitated. He opened his mouth to speak, thought twice about it and closed it. He looked towards the fire, which Xisuma needed to put out soon to conserve the surviving fuel.

"Can I stay here for the night?"

The question had an eyebrow quirk up in worry on Xisuma's forehead.

"...Sure. Is something wrong?"

Dream shook his head, denying it. It didn't convince Xisuma one bit.

"No, no, it's just– Can I stay this one night?"

He didn't push for the details.

"Yes," and Xisuma beckoned him to follow as he retreated off the porch of the cabin. "Let's find you a bed."