TW//Slight panic attack.

The house isn't the same when they get back. Not the arrangement of the furniture, it isn't trashed, no, but Pearl is the one riffling through the kitchen cabinets when Parrot and Spoke wake up in the morning. The door to Xisuma's room is shut, most of the time, and the woman had taken up house-sitting duties with a sharp smile and wild, red eyes that spoke of bloodthirst.

Parrot pushes the door open slowly, as quietly as he possibly can. There is a certain stillness to the man's body on the bed, buried under blankets, that reminds Parrot of a dead man. A few hours ago, Xisuma might as well have been dead. When they brought him in, he was barely breathing and his skin was ice cold; the only sound he'd made was a cough and the catch of breath as he was suffocating on air .

There is no sound now. There is no movement, no pain visible on his bare face but there is no real peace set into it either. The oxygen –now turned void – mask fogs black in spaced out pulses with each labored breath and that's the most active Parrot has seen Xisuma in two days.

So, he creeps into the room, like he did yesterday and the day before. Pushing his fingers against the side of Xisuma's neck when he's at the bedside. The pulse is weak against his fingertips and he has to push down a little harder to properly feel it but it's there; it's there and it's the only sign that there is a heart working under the armor plates over Xisuma's chest. Parrot studies the gaps between the plates and how there is black fabric wrapping around Xisuma's neck, right where the helmet would connect.

There is no helmet now, and Parrot doesn't know if there is a spare somewhere in the house to replace the old one. The hair that falls over the man's closed eyes was a surprise when Parrot first registered (after the night of the retrieval) that Xisuma wasn't wearing anything around his head. The man's whole face was a surprise, honestly; he doesn't look as young as he sounds and Parrot is having trouble connecting the voice to a face he'd never properly seen before.

Parrot prods at Xisuma's face, poking at his cheek, nudging his head. He doesn't like how motionless the man is on the bed, only showing the basics of liveliness. He hates it but he can't do anything to reverse what has already happened. Xisuma was lucky to be alive at the moment, deprived of precious void as he was when Parrot broke him free of the freezing cage.

When he asked Pearl if she knew why Xisuma had been put in a freezer, she said she didn't know. So, he has a lot of questions to ask when Xisuma finally wakes up: like how he got kidnapped in the first place! Also, who kidnapped him would be a great question; Parrot is the only one allowed to kidnap Xisuma and get away with it –he's proven that much.lls and sticks to the man's sweaty forehead is soft but also confusingly white . There aren't many wrinkles on Xisuma's face and he looks like the average adult man, yet he has hair that could only fit old age. It's a little puzzling but it might be a voidwalker thing; to have white hair.

Then, assured that Xisuma isn't dying on him, Parrot steps back. He paces around the room, gnawing at his knuckles; he doesn't feel sure; he doesn't feel safe with the voidwalker out of commission like that. Spoke is somewhere in the office, last time he checked, riffling through cabinets, no doubt. He wants to go find his friend, he wants to go play, maybe see what Miss Pearl is up to in the kitchen but...

He needs to stay here. He can't leave; what if Xisuma wakes up? Or worse, what if he dies when he leaves? Life has never liked Parrot enough to grant him good things, he knows that; the moment he turns his back, everything will go south.

Yesterday and the day before, it was either Spoke or Pearl who would drag him out of the room –sometimes kicking and screaming– to knock some sense into him. He'd linger outside the door afterwards, up till the point where it opened a crack again and nothing was distracting the avian's mind.

Parrot goes back to the bed. With a hand, he shakes Xisuma's shoulder. His brows furrowed in frustration when there is no response and he slams his tiny fist into the armor. Thankfully, his bones only whine and protest with a flare of pain rather than breaking; whatever voidwalker armor is made of is tough. So tough, in fact, that Parrot can't wrap his head around how Xisuma was kidnapped in the first place but oh , he'll learn.

He'll learn who did it and he'll make them pay. His free hand forms into a fist at his side, nails digging into the supple flesh of his palm. He looks for a pulse again, he finds it, and then there is a strangled sound that sounds in the room.

Parrot looks around, alarmed. His nails aren't biting into his own skin anymore and he has retrieved his other hand from where it was resting on Xisuma's chest. There is no one at the door and he can faintly hear the cooker hood humming in the background.

"...Parrot?.."

It's Xisuma who has spoken; whispered the words like his name were sacred. Alive, barely conscious, if at all coherent and Parrot's legs almost crumble beneath him. Instead, he braces himself against the bed, leans up to look past the mask that fogs in heartbeats until he can see eyes– eyes that are blown out and half-lidded, threatening the pretense of sleep. It's a freaky sight: the pupils are so wide and unfocused that the black swallows all the color that is supposed to surround it and wrinkles form in worried lines on the man's forehead. Parrot can't decide if it's scary enough to flee because this is worse than watching Xisuma sleep without an ail-ridden face.

For all that Parrot tries to form words, they die in the back of his throat when a hand, plate covered and trembling, reaches for him. Blankets shuffle and they pool at the man's side with the movement, and Parrot takes a tentative step back. He doesn't know why but it feels like too much, all at once and he isn't sure if he can handle it–

The hand drops, bouncing on the mattress lifelessly and Parrot feels a few tears run down his cheeks. He rushes back to the bed, hands grabbing and pushing on Xisuma's body. The man's eyes are still half-lidded –drooping but twitching, like he's fighting off sleep.

"Suma?" Parrot calls, shaking the man's fallen arm. He sees the voidwalker's eyes slide towards him, still too wide and too black, and that– that's something , at least, and the corners of the man's lips tug upwards when Parrot speaks –tiredly but they do and this is the most he's seen Xisuma move in days . "Hey, here! Wake up, don't go back to sleep!"

He can't make out what he's feeling, what the emotion swelling in his chest is but he can feel his cheeks burn and tears roll and mark his skin. He knows that he needs to be here , and he moves his hands to shake Xisuma's torso, grabbing at his face when that doesn't work–

"Don't fucking do this to me, man!" –and Parrot doesn't know what he's saying; what his words even mean, at this point, but it's something, so he lets it be something. There are arms wrapping around him when he realizes that he's screaming and that his vocal chords are hurting but it feels too good to let it all out, that he kicks at whoever it is that's touched him.

He is torn away, mercilessly, from Xisuma regardless –or, maybe, it was a mercy to be torn from him, because the vacant stare and the drooping eyelids are haunting, resembling those of death and within the next second, Parrot is screaming for another different reason.

When Xisuma manages to come into consciousness a few days later, he feels tired. Tired, drained, exhausted. He wakes up with cyan and yellow and green feathers decorating some odd corner or a spot on the blankets and there is a fine coating of dust on some of his armor. He is too tired to infer why this may be the case but he can sit up and look around the dimly lit room with little strain, so that's good.

It takes him a good minute of wakefulness to realize that he can feel air hitting his face from a sneaky draft coming in through the crack at the door. He doesn't feel naked without his mask, not exactly, and the fact that he is alive and breathing and not choking on air means that he is breathing in lovely, dark void. The few rays of sunshine that waltz through the shutters is refreshing to see after days of nothing but the black abyss and he appreciates how clear everything around him is.

And then, as he's taking it all in –his room, his house, he's in his own bed– there is a small shape pushing the door open and throwing itself at him. Xisuma goes down with an 'oof'.

A bundle of feathers sits on his lap, a head of wild, blue and green hair is settling against his chest, almost tucked under his chin. There are arms that latch onto his shoulders in something that is supposed to be a hug and wings spread around his sides ungracefully, slumping. No eyes meet his own but Xisuma gets the message anyways and he pulls Parrot into him more until he feels protected , because he cares perhaps too much for this street kid, and he can't begin to fathom –not in such a state, anyways– what Parrot has gone through in the days he's been asleep.

At the door, he sees Pearl and he shoots her a grateful smile because there is only one reason for her to be in his house and he could only ever be thankful for the help. The boy next to her, peeking from behind her legs –Spoke if memory serves him right after so many days, damnit– and Xisuma can't miss the death Spoke is sending him.

He knows better than to bring up this moment of vulnerability in the future.

As it turns out, Spoke is here to stay.

After Xisuma got back to his feet and Pearl officially left the residence, there was no way that Parrot could manage to keep an eye on Xisuma and go to school without one task interrupting the other because he had to look after him now, lest more people find the gullible man to be prey. So, he asked Spoke to stay with them and his friend jumped with utmost enthusiasm at the idea. They slept in the same bed because there were no other beds available and like hell was he or Spoke going to sleep on the couch!

Besides, the bed is big enough for both and Parrot has his wings, so they don't have to go through drawers and cabinets looking for blankets. Not that Xisuma would disagree with Spoke forcefully moving in –he doesn't get a say in the matter– but Parrot knew that Xisuma would come up with an excuse about how there is not enough room or not enough clothes, so now, he really can't say anything.

Xisuma only leaves for work nowadays. Shopping trips, like the one he is on right now, are rare, and Parrot follows him (secretly armed) like a guard dog. The man appreciates it, at least, because he looks scared to walk alone in the streets and they have a nice chat on the way home, after nothing has gone amiss on the way to the store.

"You should be studying instead of tugging along for groceries, mate."

When Xisuma utters that sort of excuse, Parrot doesn't bother to reply and then Xisuma sighs because he realizes that there is no way to discourage this behavior. It's fine; it's not like anyone else knows about the protector-protected dynamic that has been flipped around.

Spoke doesn't like him. Xisuma can discern this much from a few minutes of being left alone with the boy at home. The boy sits on the couch, one leg against his chest, the other swinging across the floor, and Xisuma can feel white eyes burning holes into his back as he washes dishes at the sink. Parrot is at school still –will be for another hour or so– and his boss gave him a few days to cool off, so he spends most of his time at home.

Sadly, from what he's deduced, Spoke doesn't have anything else to do in the mornings, and apparently, his parents don't care about where he's at or he doesn't have any parents at all, like Parrot. That... that would make a lot of sense now that he thinks about it with a clear head.

So, long story cut short, Xisuma was stuck with two underage bodyguards who shouldn't have to guard him in the first place. It's awkward, for him –Spoke has taken to it like it's normal and so has Parrot, though he is a little hesitant on requesting stuff, still. Xisuma has no doubt that Spoke will open up given enough time... Oh, gosh , that would mean he'd also have to stay a while for that to happen. Xisuma can barely handle one wild child but two?

That's a little much. Not to mention the words that Spoke all but threw at him when Parrot was out of the room: "Hurt him and I'll make you regret it."

It was a total turn around from his calm, even excited attitude he showed at the cafe when the two came asking for treats.

It's fine, though. He has his life still, and Parrot is happy that he has his best friend in the house and the only thing he could ask for is to not have a gun pointed at his face whenever the kid wants something.

...He'll never have that wish granted, will he?