Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Parrot. You need to eat.”

Parrot doesn't even spare a glance at the golden carrots he's being presented. He doesn't turn, even as his stomach begs him to, even as his body screams at him to.

He doesn't move, doesn't react, and simply continues staring at the obsidian wall in front of him.

“Parrot.”

He doesn't heed the call. He doesn't even flinch when a hand is turning him from the wall, forcefully tearing his gaze from the blank state to the eyes where he once found safety in.

“Parrot,” his once–best friend says to him. He doesn't sound happy, “look at me.”

And he does, as he's forced to.

Wifies is still wearing the director armor, and so was he. Curse of binding, a cruel thing. Wifies made them wear the same set of silence trims netherite armor – and Parrot is absolutely sick of feeling it on his body, the heavy metal, the clank, the white details. It all makes him remember that he's not here of his own will, that the one person who was once someone he'd sacrifice his own life to had betrayed his trust and played him like a puppet in a game he never agreed to play.

Regardless, Wifies forcefully tilts his chin up and makes Parrot see him eye to eye. He tries to shuffle backwards, but to no avail.

It's hard to fully make out anything from Wifies' face – Parrot doesn't trust any part of him anymore, after all he thought he knew Wifies the most. He thought that Wifies would be the most honest with him. He thought that Wifies would never hide something or do anything too drastic – that he cared enough for Parrot to at least spare him of any of that.

But as he gazes upon the face of his once–friend, his once–ally, his once–other half of his soul – the realization dawns on him that he was wrong. He was really, really wrong. He didn't know Wifies at all.

The person who's been with him for so long is not the stranger that is sitting in front of him right now. It's his hair, ruffled under the helmet that he wore. It's his skin on his chin, the hand that had always been cold but comforting in its own way.

It's his eyes that meet Parrot’s – but it's not his Wifies.

It's not his Wifies who is frowning at him right now.

“Parrot, come on,” the voice that sounds like but isn't Wifies talks to him, sounding frustrated but begrudgingly gentle, “Eat a little, for me, please.”

“I'm not doing anything for you,” he spits back immediately, trying to put distance between them, to struggle, to discharge the hand that’s holding his face in place, to look anywhere else. He doesn’t succeed.

Wifies lets out a long sigh – one that you'd hear from a parent with a difficult child. It's demeaning in its own way.

“Alright,” he concedes, putting the plate back down on the table. “I'll just leave this here. Be sure to eat, okay?”

Parrot doesn't even turn to Wifies as he leaves. He just stares at the floor, even as the door shuts.

---

It's silent when Wifies isn't around. Not the kind of silence that gets comfortable, but a stretched out, tense silence – like he's waiting for the next visit that he knows will come whether he wants it or not. There's the echo of the elder guardian that passes by to give him mining fatigue once every few minutes, the distant whirring of redstone somewhere in the walls, but that's it.

To keep his sanity from slipping any further, Parrot taps his feet against the bedrock floor. It barely makes any noise, however there is rattle from his armored boots that is enough of a noise.

The room he's trapped in is comfortable.

There's a green bed at the corner of the room, decorated nicely and with sheets heavenly soft. Next to it is a purple one. Neither look like they've been used often.

There's an array of furnaces and crafting tables, as well as barrels and storage spaces on a side of the room. Most of it is empty, safe for a barrel of untouched food.

The room is decorated quite nicely as well, almost similar to the house in the cold biome he and Wifies shared together, except there are no windows aside from the one near the door, and it's only one block tall with glass covering it. He's tried breaking through countless of times, however never got far.

The director is usually there with him. At first, he would never leave him alone here unless absolutely urgent, though after that, he gave Parrot a little personal space. He still comes by a lot, to Parrot's dismay.

He snaps out of his nothingness when he hears footsteps echoing from outside of his cell. Dread crawls into the pit of his stomach, thinking that he's back.

“Oh, okay, I definitely turned the wrong corner.”

Parrot perks up from his seat – that's not Wifies' voice.

“Hello?” He calls out, hope seeping into each syllable of the single word. His voice is tired after a long time of barely talking, a little hoarse.

There's a long pause, before the voice of Mr. Cube calls back, confused, “Parrot?”

He gets up, and goes near the window. He has to contain the joy he feels seeing the redstoner outside instead of him.

“Cube, it's me,” he says – he hates how happy he sounds to be talking with someone that isn't the director. “It's me.”

Cube's eyes narrow, seeing him, “Okay, so I definitely took a wrong turn somewhere. Uhm. Hi, Parrot! You look… well.”

Parrot ignores the half hearted comment – this is his first time in so, so longer he's seen someone other than Wifies.

“Cube, please – you gotta help me, bro,” he says, pleading. Begging. “You got to let me out of here – this is insane, bro.”

Cube vehemently shook his head, grimacing, “no – dude, I'll die if I let you go! That's like an instant death. I can't. I can't.”

Parrot completely disregards how the director might be watching. He's desperate.

“Cube, please, bro.”

Cube doesn't move to help. He has the heart to at least look a little remorseful when he's reluctantly turning around. “I can't, Parrot, I can't.”

A step away from his direction, and Parrot's heart feels like it's sinking in cold water.

“See you later.”

“Cube,” He says before his mind catches up, just saying anything to prevent the other man from leaving. “What does he have over you, bro? 

Cube pauses at the door. He makes one final look at the captive man, and Parrot sees that he really wants to answer that question, though something holds him back.

“I can't talk about that, I…” Cube trails off, mumbling something below his breath.

“Why? Why are you following his orders?” Parrot asks again, desperation clawing at every part of his body telling him to somehow convince Cube to stay. To help him. To do something other than letting him remain with the monster with Wifies' face.

But one look at Cube's face tells him that it's not happening – help isn't here.

The look Cube gives him is one of pity, of a little sadness.

“It's… a long story. One that I don't think I'm even allowed to tell you,” Cube settles on, a gloved hand nervously fidgeting with the collar of his coat. “I think– I think the only part that's relevant to you is that I can't help you, Parrot.”

Parrot resigns himself to the despair that hits him in those words.

“Can you at least stay?” he says, needing this, “Just for a little? Before he gets back?”

Cube seems to consider the request, hand on the doorframe, and then he sighs. Parrot feels the blood come back to circulation in his veins as Cube makes his way deeper into the room outside instead of leaving.

“Fine, uh– I have some stuff I need to get done soon so I can't be here for too long, but…”

He catches Parrot’s pleading gaze and goes silent.

“Is… is there anything in particular you want to talk about?” Cube asks, unsure and awkward.

“What did he tell you?” Parrot decides on, “When he sent you as an assassin against me, when he sent you to kill me – what did he say?”

Cube pauses. “I mean, I guess he… Well. He told me to try and kill you. That’s all. I was actually seriously trying to kill you. You survived, somehow, and I only later knew that’s what he wanted.”

Parrot doesn’t know how to feel, hearing that.

He always felt – he always knew that the assassins were after his life, and he doesn’t understand why Wifies sent them after him if he wanted to keep him safe. 

They were never going to kill you, he had said. 

Did Wifies just trust on Parrot surviving? Were his actions all preplanned? Is there anything he can do that Wifies won’t have seen?

“How long have you been working for him?” He asks.

“From when he sent me to kill you,” Cube answers, then shifts uncomfortably, “And then I just. Well. I can't really go now– he's kinda got a lot of power over me.”

“He wants me to be safe, but he hired you and other assassins to find me and kill me,” Parrot lets out, “I don't know what he wants.”

“I don't know either," Cube offers. Maybe it's sympathy, a little half assed, but it's the most he's gotten in days. Weeks. However long it's been. He can't even tell. There's no way of telling.

Parrot often thinks about the outside. He hasn't seen BAT at all ever since he's been in here – he didn't get to say goodbye to Jumper and Derapchu, didn't have any way of communicating to Leo that he thought this was going to happen, even if he did he doesn't think he would've. He's involved them in enough trouble, and all he cares about now is that they're most likely somewhere safe.

He really, really hopes Wifies stayed true to his words and let them be in peace. He has no way of actually checking.

He misses them, he realizes. He really does.

There's a sudden clank that alarms them both, coming from behind Cube – of someone putting on armor.

They turn around, and Parrot sees a figure in invisibility by the doorway, wearing the full silence trim set.

Wifies is back.

Cube immediately takes distance, spooked and horrified, “Oh- hey! Sorry I, um. Took a wrong turn and ended up here, I swear I'm going to take a look at the redstone you said you need help with-”

“Leave.”

That single, garbled command.

It's been a while since Parrot heard that voice – Wifies has had no reason to put it on with him. The fear it instills is clear, the venom, the malice, the control of the director.

Cube immediately leaves without a word, and Parrot looks into that empty armor.

Dread fills him up like cold air.

The Director talks no more, a hand fetching a milk bucket from their inventory. He drinks it up.

The invisibility particles fade, and Wifies is in front of him again. He's looking directly at Parrot, and Parrot notes he looks livid.

“What were you both talking about?” he demands.

“Nothing, we were…” Parrot trails off, grimacing, “Dude, what do you have over these people?”

“What do you mean?"

“Wifies, what did you do?”

Wifies looks at him for a second, and then answers without much care, “Nothing that didn't need to be done.”

Parrot realizes how much he hates this Wifies.

He never elaborates to Parrot about anything – never

You're the only person on this server I care about, he once said, so why doesn't he feel cared for?

"He didn't tell you anything you're not supposed to know, right?" Wifies continues, completely disregarding Parrot's earlier question.

"What am I not supposed to know?" He asks.

Wifies doesn't answer that. Parrot's question seems to serve as an enough answer. Parrot waits for him to push more, 

Wifies notes the untouched food on the table, and frowns.

“You still haven't eaten- Parrot, it's been a day.”

“I'm not hungry,” he lies, blatant.

Wifies narrows his eyes at him. “You definitely are.”

He doesn't make another reply.

Wifies sighs.

---

When Wifies visits, he doesn't do much but spend time with Parrot. He tries to talk to him once in a while, but Parrot stays silent for most of it.

Parrot really wants to get out of here. 

“Wifies,” He calls out, one time.

Wifies turns to him immediately, and Parrot doesn't like the way he seems happy Parrot is talking to him.

“Yeah?”

“I've been thinking, and…” He bit his tongue, feeling a pang of anger, “Bro, you're quite literally the worst thing that has ever happened to me.”

If Wifies faltered at all at that statement, Parrot didn't catch it. However it does seem to cause him to freeze momentarily.

“Like – bro,” Parrot chuckles, and its hysteria, madness , betrayal and everything sandwiched in a miserable cry of anguish, “Even Ash wouldn't do this to me, bro. Even Clown wouldn't do this to me – none of the people you act like you're protecting me from would ever do this to me!”

Wifies looks at him for a moment, “They would do worse. They would kill you.”

“This is worse than killing me!” Parrot barks, anger rushing into his voice now that he’s far into it – days of resignation, days of being forced to sit idly like a pet bird in a birdcage all catching up to him, “Dude do you– look at yourself! Look at me, Wifies! Do you not see what you're doing to me? Imprisoning me here, cutting off everything from me?”

He feels tears welling up at the corner of his eyes – yet he refuses to let them fall. He refuses to shed tears for him.

“You're the worst thing that has ever happened to me, Wifies – and it has nothing to do with your ability to kill me, but it's because of how much you've hurt me.”

He's hurt. The one person he's been with since the beginning, the one person he thought would never hurt him is hurting him right now.

“You hurt me. Bro, you've…”

He has to cut himself off, he has to stop, because it's all catching up to him way too quickly. 

This was Wifies.

The person in front of him was his Wifies, yet now it's not the Wifies he knows – or rather, he has never known Wifies.

Wifies is silent for most of it. Parrot has his gaze casted downwards, he can't see his expression, and most of him doesn't even care to see it.

“I know.”

Parrot's blood runs cold. 

He looks up, he wishes to see any form of pity, any form of understanding of his situation, but he takes one look at the expression on Wifies’ face and he knows that's not coming.

“I know, Parrot. I know how much this is hurting you,” Wifies says. His voice is flat, devoid of compassion, devoid of anything but pure resolve that racks shivers down Parrot's spine. “But there wasn't any other way. I needed to do this for you. You need this. You need me.”

“That's–” Ridiculous. Insane. Sick.

But he doesn't get a word in, Wifies immediately cuts back in. He's backed against the wall before he knows it, and Wifies has a hand gripping his shoulder.

“Losing you – you dying, is worse than this. You being somewhere out of my reach, somewhere I can't find, can't protect, somewhere where someone could snatch your life and I can't do anything about it–”

Parrot sees the insanity in his eyes.

The hurt, from all the times he's had to see Parrot narrowly avoid death. The anger, from all the times Parrot didn't put his own safety as his first priority.

The sheer resolve in his eyes to keep Parrot here, locked away from anything that could hurt him That could harm him. That isn't Wifies.

“...That's worse,” he finishes, and there's pain flowing in each syllable of those two words.

He lets go of Parrot's shoulder and takes a few steps back.

Parrot falls to the ground, breathing heavily as he tries to regather his thoughts. Tries to make sense of anything Wifies just said.

“You're sick,” He says, “Dude– you're actually…”

Wifies cuts in as Parrot trails off, “I don't care what you think of me, Parrot. I don't expect you to understand what I'm doing.”

His voice is final – there's no crack in his resolve. There's no negotiation to be had. There's nothing.

Wifies will keep him here, no matter what he wants.

“I used to think of you as a friend,” Parrot says, anguished.

That seems to do something, at least. 

Wifies' expression softens ever so slightly, and he kneels down to be at level with Parrot.

“And I'll still be that,” he assures Parrot, voice much gentler, “you just need some time to adjust to the new me.”

Parrot doesn't respond to that. He doesn't want to.

Wifies doesn't seem to be expecting a response either. The director lets out a sigh, standing back up. Parrot watches him as he looks around the room, maybe checking to see if Parrot's made any more escape attempts. He's already done a few – spending minutes to break the barrels on the wall and any material he can find to try and climb out of the cell he's been put in – that didn't work. Trying to glitch his way through the one window he had before – Wifies caught him doing that, and now the only window that remains is the one right next to the door.

He's successfully made it out of the cell once. He successfully almost escaped once. That's why a part of his wing is bandaged and the other one is binded. That's why he hasn't tried again.

Wifies starts walking over to the table, and picks up the plate Parrot neglected earlier. He takes it, and puts it in front of Parrot.

“Eat, Parrot. Eat,” he encourages again. There's an edge of warning to his voice. “I don't want you to starve. Please.”

He used to accept the food Wifies gave him, thinking that he'd need his energy to do escape attempts. He'd secretly stash some for later, making use of whatever resources he had.

Now that he wasn't trying to escape again – now that he's succumbed to his helplessness, there's no point.

He doesn't approach the food. He doesn't move from where he's slouched against the wall. His gaze once again is on the floor.

There's a tense silence, before Wifies speaks up again, this time with a tint of malice in his voice.

“Do you need me to get your friends over here?”

That does well to get Parrot's attention.

“What?”

Wifies holds his gaze,

“You know how much power I hold, Parrot. I write this story, and if you need to see that I can do literally anything to them and you couldn't stop it in order for you to listen to me…”

“You– you…”

Wifies’ voice is steel, hard, and cold. “I will do so.”

It's not a threat Wifies hadn't made before. It's the threat Wifies makes the most often, because he knows Parrot. He knows how well it works – how it causes Parrot to seize up with wide eyes, trying to gauge whether or not Wifies is bluffing.

But Parrot knows he's not, so he wouldn't dare to try it out.

Parrot forces himself to touch the meal Wifies had prepared for him. It's just golden carrots, really. There's more in the barrel to the side, all sorts of meat, fruits, and more all for him to eat – everything aside from milk – yet he never touches that barrel.

Uneager, he takes a bite.

There's nothing wrong with the food, it's sweet as carrots usually are – though Parrot hates how it feels on his tongue.

The food tastes like resignation and surrender – of acceptance and defeat.

He feels nauseous – he feels sick , yet all he can do is continue chewing, gaze on the plate and not on the man in front of him.

A gloved hand suddenly moving to caress the side of his face makes the nausea worse.

A gesture that Parrot once would lean into, one he was so familiar with – now it's a cold reminder of what used to be, what is now a lie.

Wifies threads a hand into his hair behind his helmet. Parrot doesn't have the energy to tell him not to touch him, and just avoids his eyes as he continues to force the food down his throat.

Wifies continues touching him while he's eating, hand rubbing the side of his head in a circular motion, almost like he's petting Parrot.

The hand trails downwards, he flinches when it touches his neck, tenses up when the hand lingers there for a moment, feeling the feathers on his skin. He does this a lot, and each time he's unsettled by the look Wifies has in his eyes – like he's watching every breath Parrot takes, every flinch, every reaction no matter how miniscule. Like he's observing.

Wifies makes a hum of contentment, one that almost makes Parrot puke.

“Remember when you'd let me preen your wings?” Wifies says, his voice more nostalgic, “There’d be all sorts of stuff stuck on it, too, I don't know how you managed to get all that in there. I remember I pulled out a whole spider living inside of there.”

He laughs, and Parrot feels it raking his ears, bleeding into his brain.

“You screamed so loudly as I got it out, though you calmed down quickly afterwards. You even fell asleep in my arms.”

He can hear the smile in Wifies' face and he's not eager to look up and see it. It's horrifying – the way Wifies talks so dreamily about their past, as if he's not holding him hostage right now.

“It's a real shame I had to clip one of them when you tried to escape – it'll take a while to heal, but it's not like you need it anyways.”

Him acting like both of them are enjoying this moment – that he's not actively holding Parrot here against his own will. Like he didn't forcefully strip Parrot of his freedom and right to be a free person, reducing him to being a caged creature that needs his every breath to be watched over.

Trying to domesticate him.

Wifies then holds his chin, forcing him to look up, and Parrot might've rather thrown up. There's that sickening softness in his eyes, that slight smile tugging at his lips. That look that used to bring him comfort, that smile that used to make him smile.

It all feels so mocking now.

Parrot tries to bite back the anger, the anguish, but fails, “I'll never forgive you for what you did to me, bro.”

“It's fine,” Wifies hums, “You'll learn to.”